Department of German Language and Literature

Winfried Lechner is Professor for German Linguistics and Theoretical Linguistics.His main research interests are located in the areas of natural language syntax, formal semantics, and the interface between these two components, giving special attention to the impact of syntactic properties of natural language on the logical syntax of formal semantic representations.

Undergraduate studies at the University of Vienna (Linguistics and Japanese, 1986-1992), Ph.D. at the Department of Linguistics, University of Massachusetts at Amherst (1999; Title of thesis: Comparatives and DP-Structure). From 1999 on research and teaching positions at the universities of Tübingen, Vienna, Stuttgart and Nikosia. Postdoctoral visiting positions at the Department of Linguistics and Philosophy, MIT; the Leibniz-Center General Linguistics, Berlin and the Department of Linguistics, University of Vienna. Erwin Schrödinger fellow (2001); APART (Austrian Program for Advanced Research and Technology) fellow (2001-2004); Alexander von Humboldt fellow (2006-2007).

Recent projects include studies on reflexivization; syntactic constraints on quantifier scope; a calculus of reconstruction; structural conditions on the distribution of silent situation variables: the typology of same/different; semantic effects of head movement; Duke of York derivations; and the search for evidence in support of a syntacto-centric model of the grammar. Monograph: Ellipsis in Comparatives (2004; Mouton de Gruyter).

more:  users.uoa.gr/~wlechner/index.html