Short biography

I obtained a Magister (Freiburg, 1993), an MA (King's College London, 1994), and a PhD (philosophy, Bern, 1996), prior to becoming a Swiss government funded postdoctoral researcher in Stuttgart (1996-7) and New York (1997-9). I was first employed in an academic position as Assistant Professor in Regensburg (1999), then at the Universitat van Amsterdam (2003-2006), before becoming a full professor in Durham (2006-) and an ICREA Research Professor in Barcelona in April 2013. I also was a guest professor at Hong Kong University (2010) and at Universitat Autonoma de Barcelona (2011).

Research interests

Language is specific to our species, as is our mind. How do the two relate? I pursue this question philosophically, linguistically, and experimentally, by studying disorders of language in the context of mental disorders. I have inaugurated the `Un-Cartesian hypothesis', which is that the evolution of language is also the evolution of a particular cognitive type. This research program is documented in 'Mind Design' (2006), `Essay on Names and Truth' (2007), and 'The Philosophy of Universal Grammar' (2013, with M. Sheehan), all from Oxford UP. I have directed three international projects (NWO, 2006-2011; AHRC/DFG, 2009-2012) and currently 'Language and Mental Health' (AHRC, 2014-2017), dedicated to the comparative study of language disorder in schizophrenia and aphasia. Locally in Barcelona, I have founded the Grammar & Cognition group (www.grammar.cat), which pursues the project of a typology of linguistic diversity across clinical populations.

Key words

Theoretical linguistics; language and cognition; cognitive disorders; clinical linguistics; philosophy of mind and language