Robert D. Van Valin, Jr.

Robert Detrick Van Valin, Jr. (born February 1, 1952 ) is an American linguist and has been Professor of General Linguistics at Heinrich Heine University in Düsseldorf since 2007 . He is considered to be the founder and further developer of the Role and Reference Grammar , a newer functional theory.

Life

From 1970 to 1973 he studied linguistics at the University of California, San Diego , and spent a stay abroad at the University of Göttingen as part of an exchange program at his university from 1972 to 1973 . He received a Ph.D. from the University of California, Berkeley in 1977. about an investigation of the Lakhota , an Indian language in the USA.

As a professor of linguistics he was at the University of Arizona , " Temple University ", University of California, Davis , and finally at the University of Buffalo, "The State University of New York" . He also worked as a visiting professor at Stanford University, the University of California, Berkeley, and the Universities of Sonora and Zagreb.

Since the summer semester 2007 Van Valin has held the chair for general linguistics at the Heinrich Heine University in Düsseldorf.

research

In addition to researching the Role and Reference Grammar, Van Valin worked with Daniel L. Everett, University of Manchester, on a project on information structure and syntax in Amazonian languages . He researched the Indian languages ​​Lakhota and Yatee Zapotec . He is also involved in a research project that is carried out with employees of the Max Planck Institute for Human Cognitive and Brain Sciences in Leipzig, which concerns aspects of neurotypology and includes the role and reference grammar.

In 2006 Robert Van Valin was a Humboldt Research Award winner . In addition, he has a grant from the Max Planck Society to finance a research group on syntax, typology and information structure at the MPI for Psycholinguistics in Nijmegen.

Van Valin is the author of several articles and books. He focuses on theoretical syntax, universal grammar , language typology , language acquisition and Neurolinguistics .

Publications

• Aspects of Lakhota syntax. Dissertation. University of California, Berkeley, 1977
• with William A. Foley : Functional syntax and universal grammar. Cambridge, 1984
• (Ed.): Advances in Role and Reference Grammar. Benjamin, 1992
• with Randy J. LaPolla: Syntax: Structure, meaning, and function. Cambridge University Press, Cambridge 1997
• An Introduction to Syntax. Cambridge University Press, Cambridge 2001
• Exploring the Syntax-Semantics Interface. Cambridge University Press, Cambridge 2005
• Recent Developments in the Role and Reference Grammar Theory of Clause Linkage. In: Language and Linguistics. 8, 2007, pp. 71–93 ( PDF )
• (Ed.): Investigations of the Syntax-Semantics-Pragmatics Interface. Benjamin, 2008

Web links

• RRG platform at the University of Buffalo, as of September 1, 2009
• RD Van Valin's website at Heinrich Heine University Düsseldorf, as of September 1, 2009
• RD Van Valin's website at the University of Buffalo, as of September 1, 2009

Individual evidence

1. ↑ Yearbook 2006/2007 of the Heinrich Heine University Düsseldorf