Hauptinhalt

Mind the Gap!

My research focuses on the connections and interrelations between people, grammar, history and socio-politics. I want to uncover the "gaps" in linguistics, on the micro-level (does a grammatical feature have influence on another? E.g. grammaticalization, paradigm syncretism), the meso-level (how do people/culture/politics influence language and language change?) and the macrolevel (how is science history governed by researchers? Why and how did we arrive at the paradigms of modern linguistic research?)

• Tense, Aspect, Modality, Evidentiality in South American Indigenous Languages (Dissertation)
• German language islands, especially in Latin America: Typology of morpho-syntactic language change
• History of Celtic Studies in Germany with a focus on the 19th century including a) Celticist Wilhelm Obermüller (1809-1888) and b) uncovering the communication between Celticists and Germanists (in letters)
• How the Welsh discovered America - The Legend of Prince Madoc and the Welsh speaking Indians
• Roger O'Connor (1764-1834) - Celticist, Irish revolutionary, and manufacturer of the "Chronicles of Eri"
• Cats in South America - the spread of animal denominations as an example of genealogical and contact inheritance