I am working as an Assistant Professor (Akademischer Rat a.Z.) at the Department of German Language and Literature I of the University of Cologne.

I am also associated with the ERC project 'The lexical semantics of lexical categories' (PI: Andrew Koontz-Garboden) at the University of Manchester and the DFG Research Unit on Experimental Syntax and Heritage Languages (RUESHeL; PI: Artemis Alexiadou) at the Humboldt-University of Berlin. 

Research Interests

My research centers around syntax with its interfaces to morphology, semantics and prosody with a strong commitment to comparative research and fieldwork.

Generally, I am interested in morphosyntactic and semantic variation in the composition of meaning in the world's languages. In my studies, I primarily focus on lesser documented languages from the Oceanic region, including Daakaka (Vanuatu) and Samoan, as well as Mandarin and the Niger-Congo language Igbo.

Currently, I am working on argument and event structure in complex predications like resultatives, nominalizations in syntactic ergative languages, and applicative constructions, as well as the nature of root meaning.