1. General
I am a specialist of Linguistic Typology with a focus on East and mainland Southeast Asian languages (Chinese, Thai and Khmer) from the perspective of their typological assessment in cross-linguistic variation worldwide.
More recently, I moved into Critical Online Reasoning. This is a new and extremely fascinating new perspective for me, which arose through my collaboration with Principal Investigators at the DFG-funded Research Unit, "Critical Online Reasoning in Higher Education (CORE; FOR 5404)”: https://core.uni-mainz.de/. Together with my colleague from Computational Linguistics at Goethe University Frankfurt, Alexander Mehler, we focus on interactions between specific linguistic features and students’ performance in problem solving tasks.
2. Recent projects in Linguistic Typology
Verbal complex predicates and serial verb constructions (cf. ComPLETE project, ANR-DFG project: https://complete.huma-num.fr/index.htm )
Grammaticalization (cf. the MAGRAM project at Mainz University: https://magram.fb05.uni-mainz.de/
3. Critical Online Reasoning
Together with my colleague from Computational Linguistics at Goethe University, Alexander Mehler, I work on the interaction between critical online reasoning in higher education and linguistic features (https://core.uni-mainz.de/b05/). Critical Online Reasoning addresses the ability of students to search for, evaluate, and integrate online information in order to solve scenario-based tasks in a self-regulated manner (Molerv et al. 2020). Our goal is to predict students’ performance in critical online reasoning from their written responses and the multiple documents they consult while navigating the information landscape.
Our approach is diagnostic and focuses on fine-grained linguistic features such as modality, hypotheticality (realis vs. irrealis) and semantic relations between clauses (Mehler et al. (2026, https://doi.org/10.1007/s11618-026-01388-6). We develop the Core Linguistic Model (CLM), which assumes that critical online reasoning leaves measurable linguistic traces and shows that selected features of written responses capture substantial variance in response quality, especially in argumentation and coherence.
4. Research topics of my typological publications in general
- Parts of speech systems / word class systems
- Numeral classifiers and systems of nominal classification in general
- Finiteness and clause combining
- Linguistic complexity (overt vs. hidden complexity)
- Constructions and Construction Grammar
- Language contact, linguistic area, East and mainland Southeast Asia as a linguistic area, Ethiopia as a linguistic area
- Georg von der Gabelentz and Chinese Linguistics
- Information structure (particularly in Yoruba)
- Valency and argument structure (mainly in East and mainland Southeast Asian languages)
- Morphological paradigms
- Tense-aspect-modality (TAM)
5. Past research projects
Chinese (Modern Chinese as well as historical periods from Late Archaic Chinese up to the present), Southeast Asian languages (Thai, Khmer, Hmong), Caucasian (Georgian and others), Austronesian (Bahasa Indonesia, Tagalog, Yabêm) and Yoruba (with R. Sonaiya, Nigeria), languages of Ethiopia (with Joachim Crass).
Education
- 2018 – 2020
Chair Professorship at the University of Zhejiang, Department of Humanities (浙江大学讲座教授) - April/May 2015
Visiting Professor at Zhejiang University, School of Humanities, Center for the Study of Language and Cognition (Hangzhou) - April/May 2012
Visiting Professor at the School of Humanities (Linguistics), University of Hong Kong - 10/2010 – 09/2015
Fellow of the Gutenberg Research College/Gutenberg Forschungskolleg at the University of Mainz - June 1999 – 2008
Director (Sprecher) of the Collaborative Research Center “Cultural and Linguistic Contacts” (SFB 295 “Kulturelle und sprachliche Kontakte”), funded by the German Research Foundation (DFG). - May 2008
Visiting professor at the Centre de recherches linguistiques sur l’asie orientale (CRLAO, EHESS: École des hautes études et sciences sociales, Paris) - June/July 2006
Visit to the Dept of Linguistics at the Obafemi Awolowo University, Ile-Ife, Nigeria (supported by the Alexander von Humboldt Foundation) - Oct/Nov 2003
Visiting Professor at Chulalongkorn University (Bangkok), Department of Linguistics and Department of Thai - March/April 2001
Visiting Professor at the Université Paris VII (Chinese) - June/July 2000
Visiting Professor at the Research Center for Linguistic Typology (Melbourne, LaTrobe University) - 1998
Organizer of the International Summer School “Language Typology” on behalf of the German Linguistics Society - 1996
Co-initiator of the Research Unit “Linguistic Typology” (DFG-Forschungsschwerpunkt “Sprachtypologie”) - 1992 – 1995
Member of the EUROTYP Project, European Science Foundation - Since Oct 1992
Full professor of General and Comparative Linguistics at the University of Mainz - 1990
PhD in General Linguistics in Zürich (published as Bisang 1992) - 1987 – 1992
Research Assistant at the Department of General Linguistics, University of Zürich - 1986/1987
Studies in Thai, Cambodian and Linguistics at the School of Oriental and African Studies (SOAS), University of London - 1978 – 1986 Studies in General Linguistics (Major), Chinese Language & Literature (Minor), Georgian (Minor) at the University of Zürich, Switzerland
Current functions
- Since 06/2016
Regular member of the Academia Europaea - Since 2015
Regular member of the Academy of Sciences and Literature, Mainz (Akademie der Wissenschaften und Literatur, Mainz; http://www.akademienunion.de/en/adw-mainz/)
Past functions
- 11/2016 – 10/2019
Member of the European Science Foundation: College of Expert Reviewers - 2013 – 2018
Member of the Senate Committee on Collaborative Research Centres of the German Research Foundation (DFG) - 2009 – April 2014
Coordinator of the “Research Center of Social and Cultural Sciences in Mainz (SOCUM)” (Forschungszentrum Sozial- und Kulturwissenschaften in Mainz) - 2012/2013
Paris: Agence d’évaluation de la recherche et de l’enseignement supérieur (AERES), President of a visiting committee. - 2010 - 2013
Member of the Wilhelm von Humboldt Prize Committee of the German Linguistics Society (DGfS) - 2004 - 2011
Member of the Review Board for Linguistics of the German Research Foundation (DFG-Fachkollegium 104 “Sprachwissenschaften”) - 2009 – 2011
Member of the Selection committee of the French-German research program for the Humanities and Social Sciences: German Research Foundation (DFG)/Agence Nationale de Recherche (ANR). - 2007 – 2010
Editor-in-Chief (Federführender Redaktor) of Zeitschrift für Sprachwissenschaft - 2006 - 2010
Management Committee of COST 31A (European Science Foundation): Stability and Adaptation of Classification Systems in a Cross-Cultural Perspective - 1996 – 2010
Head of the Landesgraduiertenförderung at the University of Mainz (about 30 grants p.a. to excellent PhD students at the University of Mainz) - 1996 – 2009
Editor-in-Chief of Trends in Linguistics (together with W. Winter and H. H. Hock) - 2009
NCCR Selection Committee Social Sciences & Humanities of the Swiss National Foundation (Schweizerischer Nationalfonds, SNF) - 2009
Paris: Agence d’évaluation de la recherche et de l’enseignement supérieur (AERES), President of a visiting committee. - 2008
Bonn: Member of the “Committee for the Evaluation of Languages and Cultures of Selected Periods and Regions / Expertenkommission zur Evaluation von Sprachen und Kulturen ausgewählter Epochen und Regionen” at the Universities of North Rhine-Westphalia.