Research Interests

• English linguistics
  History of English
  Phonology, Morphology, Morphonology,
  Middle English, Early Modern English
  
  
• Linguistic theory
  Language as a historical system
  Language and identity
  Language transmission and evolution
  Memetics
  Complex adaptive systems and generalized Darwinism
  Connectionist competence modeling
  Language and cognition
  Evolutionary epistemology
  Constructivism

Selected Publications

Books and Monographs

(a) Authored

• 2004. Selfish sounds. A Darwinian approach to language change. Cambridge: University Press.
• 1994. Quantity adjustment: vowel lengthening and shortening in Early Middle English. Cambridge: University Press.

(b) Co-edited

• 2006. Syntax, style and grammatical norms: English from 1500-2000. Frankfurt: Lang (together with H. Schendl, D. Kastovsky and C. Dalton-Puffer)
• 2006. Medieval English and its heritage: structure, meaning and mechanisms of change. Frankfurt: Lang (together with C. Dalton-Puffer, D. Kastovsky and H. Schendl)
• 2005. Rethinking Middle English: linguistic and literary approaches. Frankfurt: Lang (together with H. Schendl)
• 2000. Words: Structure, meaning, function. Berlin: Mouton (together with C. Dalton-Puffer)

Articles

• forthc. "Can one be a native speaker of a non-native language? On a few paradoxes in established views on the speaker-language relation" In: Singh, Rajendra (ed.) On non-native phenomena of English. London: MacMillan/Palgrave.
• 2008. "Review of: Brinton Laurel J. and Elizabeth Closs Traugott: Lexicalisation and Language Change". Studies in Language. 32. 228-36.
• 2007. "Meaning in a material world or How to find out what linguists think about meaning". In: Fabiszak, Małgorzata (ed.). Language and Meaning. Frankfurt/Main: Lang, 235-269.
• 2007. "It seemed like a good idea at the time: why there may not have been any early Modern English shortening before dentals after all". In: Smit, U. et al. (eds.) Tracing English through time. Explorations in language variation. Vienna: Braumüller. 2007. 315-331.
  2002. "Of vowel shifts, great, small, long and short". Language Sciences. 24. 409-421. (together with H. Schendl)
• 2001. "The spread of Scandinavian 3rd Psn. Pl. pronouns in English: optimization, adaptation, and evolutionary stability". In: Kastovsky, Dieter und Arthur Mettinger. (eds.): Languages and Contact in the History of English. Frankfurt/Main: Lang. 279-304.
• 2001. "Are optimality theoretical 'constraints' the same as natural linguistic 'preferences'?". In: Dziubalska-Kolaczyk, Katarzyna (ed.): Constraints and preferences. Berlin/New York: Mouton. 291-311.
• 2000. "Introduction" to the phonological section in: Taavitsainen, Irma, Nevalainen, Terttu, Pahta, Päivi and Matti Rissanen (eds.): Placing Middle English in context. Berlin: Mouton.
• 2000. "Theory, 'empiry', and textual witnesses: acutes in the 'Lindisfarne Gospel' and Early English vowel quantity". Sprachwissenschaft. 25. 497-512.
• 1999. The prosodic evolution of English word forms or The Great Trochaic Conspiracy. Vienna English Working PaperS. 8. 85-107.
• 1998. "' ... but they, to make me grieve, parts steal, let parts abide, ...'.Reflections on a poetic translation exercise". Vienna English Working PaperS. 7. 22-39.
• 1997. "Now you see it, now you don't: Middle English Lengthening in closed syllables". Studia Anglica Poznaniensa. 31. 259-270.
• 1997. "Early Modern English vowel shortening before dentals: a morphologically conditioned sound change?" In: Hickey, Raymond and Stanislaw Puppel (eds.): Language History and Linguistic Modelling. Berlin: Mouton. 65-71.
• 1997. "Mutation, variation and selection in phonological evolution: a sketch based on the case of Late Middle English a > au /__l{C|#}". In: Fisiak, Jacek (ed.): Studies in Middle English Linguistics. Berlin: Mouton. 531-550.
• 1997. Comments on Gabriella Mazzon: The study of language varieties in diachrony and synchrony, or: on methodological cross fertilisation. In: Fischer, Olga and Nikolaus Ritt (eds.) Papers and Comments presented at the workshop "Applying Historical Linguistics" at ESSE/4, Debrecen, Hungary
• 1996. "On reading Dressler's Natural Textlinguistics". Studien zur Universalienforschung. 49. 318-321.
• 1996. "Darwinising historical linguistics: applications of a dangerous idea". In Vienna English Working PaperS. 5/1&2: 27-47.
• 1995. "Language change as evolution: looking for linguistic genes". Vienna English Working PaperS . 4/1: 43-57.

CV

• 1978-1985: Student of English and German Philology at the University of Vienna
• January 1985: Graduation to Magister Philosophiae (Mag. Phil.)
• March 1985 Promotion to University Assistant (English Department, Vienna University)
• 1985/86: Teacher Training at a Viennese Grammar School
• 1987/88: Foreign Language Lecturer (German), Durham University
• June1990: Graduation to Doctor Philosophiae (Dr. Phil.)
• 1991 Community Service at a Neurological Clinic in Gugging, Lower Austria
• 1992 (Summer term) Visiting Professor, Eötvös Lorand University, Budapest
• April 1994 Promotion to Assistant Professor
• 1994-2000 Work on Habilitation Thesis on an evolutionary framework for the study of linguistic history
• 2001 Venia Docendi for English Linguistics, Promotion to Associate Professor
• Nov 2001-Jan 2002 Visiting Professor, Adam Mickiewicz University, Poznan
• Oct 2002-Jan 2005 Head of the English Department of Vienna University
• Oct-Nov 2006 Visiting Professor, University of Santiago de Compostela
• Jan 2007 Visiting Fellow, University of Edinburgh
• October 2004-2008 Vice-Dean of the Faculty for Philological and Cultural Studies
• February 2009 Professor for English Historical Linguistics, University of Vienna