Univ.-Prof. Dr. Robert D. Van Valin, Jr.

Univ.-Prof. Dr. Robert D. Van Valin, Jr.

Lehrstuhlinhaber

Stilisiertes Gebäude Gebäude 23.21, Ebene 04, Raum 47
Universitätsstr. 1, 40225 Düsseldorf

Tel:Tel: +49 211 81-10717

Fax:Fax: +49 211 81-11325 (Sekretariat)

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Sprechstunde (Vorlesungszeit): dienstags 14-16 Uhr, ansonsten siehe Aushänge
Sprechstunde (Vorlesungsfreie Zeit): n.V.

Vita / introduction

Robert D. Van Valin, Jr., Professor, received his Ph.D. in Linguistics at the University of California, Berkeley. He has taught at the University of Arizona, Temple University, the University of California, Davis, and the University at Buffalo, The State University of New York. He has also been a visiting faculty member at Stanford University, the University of California, Berkeley, the University of Sonora, and the University of Zagreb.

In 2006 he received the Research Award for Outstanding Scholars from Outside of Germany from the Alexander von Humboldt Foundation. His research is focused on theoretical linguistics, especially syntactic theory and theories of the acquisition of syntax and the role of syntactic theory in models of sentence processing. He is the primary developer of the theory of Role and Reference Grammar. He has done research on two American Indian languages, Lakhota (Siouan) and Yatée Zapotec (Oto-Manguean). Together with Daniel L. Everett (Illinois State University) he has an NSF-funded project on information structure and syntax in selected Amazonian languages. He has a project with colleagues at the Max Planck Institute for Human Cognitive and Brain Sciences in Leipzig, Germany, on Neurotypology, which involves Role and Reference Grammar and language processing.

He is the co-author of Functional Syntax and Universal Grammar (Cambridge UP, 1984), the editor of Advances in Role and Reference Grammar (Benjamins, 1993), the primary author of Syntax: Structure, Meaning & Function (Cambridge UP, 1997), and the author of An Introduction to Syntax (Cambridge UP, 2001). His most recent book is Exploring the Syntax-Semantics Interface (Cambridge UP, 2005). He is the general editor of the Oxford Surveys in Syntax and Morphology series (Oxford UP). He has published articles on syntax, universal grammar, language typology, language acquisition, and neurolinguistics.

Neuere Veröffentlichungen / Some recent publications

  • Semantic macroroles in Role and Reference Grammar. Rolf Kailuweit & Martin Hummel (eds.) Semantische Rollen, 62-82. Tübingen: Narr, 2004.
  • N. F. Dronkers, D. P. Wilkins, R. D. Van Valin Jr., B. B. Redfern & J. J. Jaeger. Lesion analysis of the brain areas involved in language comprehension. Cognition 92:145-177, 2004.
  • Lilián Guerrero & R. D. Van Valin, Jr. Yaqui and the analysis of primary object languages. International Journal of American Linguistics 70:290-319, 2004.
  • On the relationship between syntactic theory and models of language processing. Ina Bornkessel, et al. (eds.), Semantic role universals and argument linking: Theoretical, typological and psycho-/neurolinguistic perspectives. 263-302. Berlin: Mouton de Gruyter, 2006.
  • Some universals of verb semantics. Ricardo Mairal & Juana Gil (eds.), Linguistic Universals, 155-78. Cambridge: Cambridge University Press, 2006
  • Some speculation about the reason for the lesser status of typology in the USA as opposed to Europe. Linguistic Typology 11:253-57, 2007.
  • The Role and Reference Grammar analysis of three-place predicates. Suvremena Lingvistika 33.1.63:31-64, 2007
  • Some remarks on Universal Grammar. J. Guo, E. Lieven, S. Ervin-Tripp, N. Budwig, S. Ozçaliskan, K. Nakamura (Eds.) Crosslinguistic approaches to the psychology of language: Research in the tradition of Dan Isaac Slobin. Hillsdale, NJ: Lawrence Erlbaum Associates, 2008.
  • Lexical representation, co-composition, and linking syntax and semantics. James Pustejovsky, et al. (eds), New Developments in the Generative Lexicon. Dordrecht: Kluwer, 2008.

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