The Centre for General Linguistics, one of the centres functioning within the Institute for the Languages and Cultures of the Baltic, was created in 2018. It is a successor to the Chair of General Linguistics headed between 1994 and 2001 at the Faculty of Philology by Prof. Aleksas Girdenis. We teach various subjects of general linguistics, such as Trends in Contemporary Linguistics, Linguistic Diversity and Language Science, Linguistic Typology, Grammatical Theory and Syntax. We carry out research in both functional and formal frameworks. Our seminars for PhD students and staff provide a forum for theoretical discussion and for the presentation of research work on topics of linguistics at Faculty level and beyond.
Axel Holvoet, distinguished professor
I am a functional linguist working on problems of grammatical semantics, the syntax-semantics interface and historical syntax, usually with a special emphasis on the Baltic and Slavonic languages. The topics I have been interested in over recent years include the middle voice, the functions of irrealis moods, non-directive imperatives, quotativity and echoic use, and most recently the Talmyan typology of event conflation. At Vilnius University I have headed two international research projects funded by the Research Council of Lithuania, on the syntax-semantics interface in Baltic (2012–2015) and on verbal grams in Baltic (2018–2021) respectively.
My recent research topics include the middle voice, non-directive imperatives, the irrealis controversy and the category of mood. In earlier years I have also worked on case marking and grammatical relations, definiteness, verbal aspect, modality, echoic use and other subjects.
A hitherto unnoticed type of verb-framed construction in Lithuanian and the typology of event conflation
Studies in Language online first, 2022
Preprint on ResearchGate
The dual nature of irrealis in complementation
Studies in Language 44.1 (2020)
Preprint on ResearchGate
Sources and pathways for non-directive imperatives
Linguistics 58.2 (2020), pp. 333–362
Preprint on Academia.edu
Epistemic modality, evidentiality, quotativity and echoic use
In: Epistemic Modalities and Evidentiality in Cross-Linguistic Perspective,
Zlatka Guentchéva (ed.),
De Gruyter Mouton, Berlin, 2008
Preprint on Academia.edu
Vladimir Panov, associate professor
I am a scholar in linguistic typology and general linguistics. The sphere of my research interests covers such topics as the typology of grammatical categories of the verb, the typology of discourse particles, boundaries between morphology, syntax and discourse, language-particular description of grammatical and discourse phenomena, the areal typology of Eurasia. In my research, I combine the traditional Greenbergian typology based on comparative concepts with elements of multivariate typology, but I am also interested in constructionist usage-based approaches and, recently, practice-oriented frameworks of linguistic anthropology.
I have fieldwork experience studying the living Greek dialects of Italy (Salento) and the Buriat language.
My last personal project (a postdoctoral study, 2018-2020) was devoted to the study of areal patterns of distribution of discourse particles in Eurasia. More recently, I have been involved in “The Baltic verb” project studying aspects of the grammar of the Lithuanian verb in a typological context.
Toward a non-aprioristic approach to discourse-associated devices.
In: Discourse Phenomena in Typological Perspective, ed. Alessandra Barotto & Simone Mattiola, 2023, pp. 13–34,
Amsterdam: John Benjamins
A peculiar Lithuanian particle mat or Mat ją bala, irgi mat dalelytė!
Vilnius University Open Series 16, 2021, pp. 291–308
The marking of uncontroversial information in Europe: presenting the enimitive
Acta Linguistica Hafniensia 52.1, 2020, pp. 1–44
Preprint on Academia.edu
Final particles in Asia: Establishing an areal feature
Linguistic Typology 24.1, 2020, pp. 13–70
Preprint on Academia.edu
Exploring the asymmetric coding of autobenefactive in Lithuanian and beyond
Baltic Linguistics 11, 2020, pp. 343–371
Juk and gi, and “particles” in contemporary Lithuanian: Explaining language-particular elements in a cross-linguistic context
Kalbotyra 72, 2019, pp. 58–86
Alexandre Cremers, associate professor
I am a researcher in linguistics, more specifically in semantics and pragmatics. My research focuses on phenomena at the interface between linguistic meaning and general reasoning, in particular questions, implicatures, and gradable adjectives. My work combines psycholinguistic approaches (studying linguistic behavior both in adults and in children), traditional formal approaches inspired by logic, and quantitative probabilistic modeling.
I currently work on the LMT project “Efficient communication under uncertainty: Vagueness and Implicatures”. The goal is to find out how we manage to communicate efficiently using vague terms such as 'tall' or 'far', and how vagueness interacts with our ability to figure out the speaker's intentions.
Ignorance implicatures of modified numerals
Linguistics and Philosophy 2021
Vagueness in Implicature: The Case of Modified Adjectives
Journal of Semantics 2019
Preprint on semanticsarchive.net
Distributive ignorance inferences
Semantics & Pragmatics 2019
Preprint on semanticsarchive.net
Plurality effects in an exhaustification-based theory of embedded questions
Natural Language Semantics 26.3, 2019, pp. 193–251
Anna Daugavet, assistant professor
I have studied areal parallels in the development of phonological and grammatical categories in Baltic, Finnic and Slavonic languages. I have done research on tone and stress patterns and syllable weight, as well as their interaction with vowel and consonant changes. Since these features are often used in classification of dialects, my work also touches upon issues of dialect history. My current interests lie with verbal categories as they are reflected in monolingual and parallel text corpora, especially the expression of aspectual and modal meanings.
The perfects in Latvian and Lithuanian: A comparative study based on questionnaire and corpus data
Baltic Linguistics 12, 2022, pp. 73-165
Types of null arguments in Baltic
In: Null Subjects in Slavic and Finno-Ugric: Licensing, Structure and Typology, ed. Gréte Dalmi, Egor Tsedryk and Piotr Cegłowski, 2022, pp. 205-228
Berlin, Boston: De Gruyter Mouton
Central and Eastern Europe
In: The Oxford Handbook of Language Prosody, C. Gussenhoven & A. Chen (eds.) Oxford University Press, Oxford, 2020, pp. 225–235
Danguolė Kotryna Kapkan, PhD student
I am currently working on my PhD thesis, dealing with peripheral perfects in the European languages. My main research interests lie with linguistic typology, grammatical semantics, grammaticalization, corpus linguistics, linguistic variation, Lithuanian, Italian, and the dialects of Southern Italy. In my work, I try to combine qualitative and quantitative research methods while being conscious not only of the cross-linguistic, but also of the intra-linguistic variation. Previously, I studied English and Portuguese languages at the University of Bari, Italy (BA), and then General Linguistics at the University of Vilnius (MA), where I decided to stay for my PhD, after doing a couple of study semesters abroad in Antwerp, Belgium, and Lisbon, Portugal.
Perfect in Lithuanian: A case study based on the data from Facebook comments
Baltic Linguistics 12, 2021, pp. 21–71
La fraseologia calviniana in lituano: Il caso di Perplėštas vikontas
In: Si dice in molti modi. Fraseologia e traduzioni nel Visconte dimezzato di Italo Calvino. Sabine E. Koesters Gensini & Andrea Berardini (eds.), Sapienza Università Editrice, Roma, 2020
Yelyzaveta Drach, PhD student
I am working on my PhD thesis called The Middle and the Lexicon. A study in the lexical input of middle constructions on the basis of Ukrainian, French and English data at Vilnius University. In this work I will try to carry out a contrastive analysis of the middle, also called facilitative middle, taking into account data from corpora and questionnaires. I will focus on three languages belonging to different genera. Previously, I studied French and English languages at Taras Shevchenko National University of Kyiv, Ukraine (BA), and then Communicative strategies in French and English, also at Taras Shevchenko National University of Kyiv, Ukraine (MA).