Research profile

The linguistic research carried out within LUCL can be divided in four thematic groups. These groups cover the areas of descriptive linguistics, historical linguistics, linguistic models, and interdisciplinary domains.

Schematic structure

1. LANGUAGES IN THE WORLD 2. LANGUAGE IN THE MIND
   
1.1 Language description (synchronic) 2.1 Linguistic models
1. Language documentation 1. Generative grammar
2. Language variation 2. Cognitive linguistics and construction grammar
3. History of linguistics
   
1.2 Language history (diachronic) 2.2 Interdisciplinary domains
1. Language comparison and reconstruction  1. Psycholinguistics and neurolinguistics
2. Language contact 2. Experimental phonetics
3. Philology 3. Computational linguistics and corpus linguistics
4. Historical sociolinguistics 4. Speech communication and argumentation theory

Languages in the world

The research carried out in the column 'Languages in the world' concentrates on invidivual languages or language families, both from a synchronic (1.1) and a diachronic perspective (1.2).
 
The synchronic areas of interest mostly fall on the non-Western world:
  • Africa
  • Indian America
  • Himalaya / South and Central Asia
  • Southeast Asia and Oceania (Indonesia)
  • East Asia (China and Japan)
  • Siberia and Eurasia
Further areas of synchronic interest in the Western world:
  • Language-model oriented and experimental (phonetic) research on microvariation in various languages of Europe
  • Research in the field of synchronic language description in Europe
From a diachronic perspective, the following areas of interest should be mentioned:
  • Reconstruction of Indo-European
  • Language change in Indo-European languages
  • Reconstruction and language change in other language areas

Language in the mind

The research carried out in the column 'Language in the mind' studies linguistic models. Theories about the architecture of language (2.1) are tested on the basis of available language data (mainly from section 1.1) on the one hand and with the help of interdisciplinary applications (2.2) on the other. These interdisciplinary applications place the theories into a wider perspective.
 
As far as linguistic models (2.1) are concerned, the different linguistic subfields (phonology, morphology, syntax, semantics and lexicon) are studied both from the theoretical perspective of generative grammar, as well as that of cognitive linguistics. Linguists from different fields carry out the study of the history of linguistics in the same section.
 
The interdisciplinary research (2.2) is represented by a number of different types of research. The psycho- and neurolinguistic research is conducted in collaboration with the Leiden Institute for Brain and Cognition (LIBC). The patholinguistic research is related to the research in section 2.1. The experimental-quantitative approach that characterises much of the experimental work done in the field of phonetics has links to section 1.1 and 2.1 (phonology). 
The research in the field of corpus and computational linguistics is also closely connected with that in the other sections of the schema. Speech communication, argumentation theory and stylistics is mostly studied from the perspective of Dutch. Closely related is the work carried out in the field of second-language acquisition.

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Last Modified: 19-02-2009