Description of my PhD Project at the Universiteit van Amsterdam

In  my doctoral thesis, which was defended on 20 May 2009,  I concentrate mainly on the phenomenon of "floating quantifiers."  The term "floating" refers to the ability of a quantifier to be separated from the noun phrase (NP) or determiner phrase (DP) that it is associated with, as illustrated in the following German examples:

Alle die Studenten haben das Buch gelesen.  
 all   the students   have    the   book   read

Die Studenten haben alle das Buch gelesen.  
the  students   have    all    the  book   read

Die Studenten haben das Buch alle gelesen.
the   students    have   the book  all    read

I analyze not only West Germanic and other Indo-European languages, but also languages in other phyla, especially Japanese. There are several different possible explanations for the phenomenon of floating quantifiers.  The ones that I am considering are as follows:

1. FQs have been left behind or stranded by their selected DPs as these DPs move out of vP or VP and pass through various Specifier positions before reaching their final "landing site."
 
2. FQs are adverbial in nature and are base-generated as vP adjuncts, in positions non-adjacent to their DPs of reference. 

It may well be that both of these operations can influence the positioning of floating quantifiers, both cross-linguistically and intra-linguistically, but I prefer the Stranding Analysis. 

I also deal with the fact that not only quantifiers but also negated quantifiers can float, as is demonstrated in the following sentences:

Not all the students have read the book.
The students have not all read the book.

My research on negated quantifiers also addresses the ambiguity of sentences such as the following:

All the students have not read the book.

This sentence, depending on which word is stressed, can mean that at least one student has not read the book or that no students have read it. I propose a rather unorthodox way of accounting for this ambiguity, namely, the stranding of the negation marker, which I call Neg Stranding.

Another interesting topic encompassed by my research is the phenomenon of universal numeric quantifiers and the fact that they can also float, as the following examples from English, German and Italian demonstrate:

All three students have read the book.
The students have all three read the book.

Alle drei Studenten haben das Buch gelesen.
 all  three  students   have   the  book  read

Die Studenten haben alle drei das Buch gelesen.
 the  students   have    all  three the book   read

Tutti  e    tre       gli  studenti  hanno  letto    il   libro.
  all and three  the students      have   read   the  book

Gli studenti   hanno letto  tutti  e    tre        il   libro.
the students     have   read  all  and three  the book

My PhjD project, which was supervised by Fred Weerman and Hans den Besten, was one of several projects included in the supra-project referred to as the DP Group Project. The official title of the project is DP/NP:  Structure, Acquisition and Change.

My Curriculum Vitae

I was in a PhD program at Indiana University in the 1970's.   I had the title Associate Instructor (Dutch AIO) and taught an introductory linguistics course while studying under some well-known linguists, such as Andreas Koutsoudas, Roger Lass, Albert Valdman, Tim Shopen and Dan Dinnsen. Because of poor job prospects for linguists, I reluctantly interrupted my studies after earning an MA.

After leaving the field of linguistics I "sold my soul" and studied finance and accounting. I obtained an MBA and became a Certified Public Accountant.   I then moved to Europe and had a successful career for more than twenty years as European Finance Director/Vice-President for three different multi-national corporations.

When my company was sold in 2003, my position was eliminated and I decided to return to linguistics.   Since I was living in Amsterdam at the time, theUniversity of Amsterdam was the logical place for me to resume my studies, especially since the UvA has a good reputation in the field of linguistics.    I completed a Research MA at the UvA in October of 2005 and began my position as an AIO on 1st November 2005.   I defended my thesis on 20 May 2009 .

The languages that I speak are Italian, German, French and Spanish, and I possess a basic knowledge of Dutch and Portuguese.   I have also formally studied Latin and Hungarian.

When I'm not doing linguistics, I am mainly involved in musical activities.     I play the classical guitar and occasionally perform with a Brazilian group and also in a duo with a soprano, doing semi-classical music from Naples, Brazil and Spain.   I am also very interested in music theory and ethnomusicology and listen a lot to "world music," especially music from the Mediterranean and Balkan regions.

A detailed CV with publications and lectures can be accessed below.  

• Curriculum Vitae

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