Frans Zwarts (born 26 March 1949 in

The Hague The Hague ( ; nl, Den Haag or ) is a city and municipality of the Netherlands, situated on the west coast facing the North Sea. The Hague is the country's administrative centre and its seat of government, and while the official capital of ...

) was the rector magnificus (academic president) of the

University of Groningen The University of Groningen (abbreviated as UG; nl, Rijksuniversiteit Groningen, abbreviated as RUG) is a Public university#Continental Europe, public research university of more than 30,000 students in the city of Groningen (city), Groningen in ...

(2002–2011) and a

linguist Linguistics is the scientific study of human language. It is called a scientific study because it entails a comprehensive, systematic, objective, and precise analysis of all aspects of language, particularly its nature and structure. Linguis ...

and professor in the Department of Dutch Language and Culture with a specialty in

semantics Semantics (from grc, σημαντικός ''sēmantikós'', "significant") is the study of reference, meaning, or truth. The term can be used to refer to subfields of several distinct disciplines, including philosophy Philosophy (f ...

. His first degree was in general linguistics at the

University of Amsterdam The University of Amsterdam (abbreviated as UvA, nl, Universiteit van Amsterdam) is a public research university located in Amsterdam, Netherlands. The UvA is one of two large, publicly funded research universities in the city, the other being ...

, and his PhD was completed at the University of Groningen in 1986 with the dissertation ''Categoriale grammatica en algebraïsche semantiek; een onderzoek naar negatie en polariteit in het Nederlands'' (Categorial grammar and algebraic semantics: An investigation of negation and polarity in Dutch). He was appointed professor of Dutch linguistics in Groningen in 1987, and was scientific director of the research school (onderzoekschool) Behavioral & Cognitive Neurosciences (BCN) from 1999 until 2002, when he was elected rector magnificus. He is the president of the National Dyslexia Commission and member of the Royal Netherlands Academy of Arts and Sciences (KNAW). He is best known for his work on negation and polarity, in particular the so-called Zwarts hierarchy of

polarity item In linguistics, a polarity item is a lexical item that is associated with affirmation or negation. An affirmation is a positive polarity item, abbreviated PPI or AFF. A negation is a negative polarity item, abbreviated NPI or NEG. The linguistic ...

s. This hierarchy recognizes three types of polarity items: weak items, acceptable in all downward-entailing contexts, strong items, acceptable in anti-additive contexts and superstrong items, acceptable in antimorphic contexts. See Zwarts (1998). Other work includes a study of the relational properties of determiners (a contribution to generalized quantifier theory), Zwarts (1983), and a paper on extraction from prepositional phrases in Dutch (Zwarts 1978). More recent work includes a number of publications on dyslexia and neurolinguistics. Zwarts is member of the

Royal Netherlands Academy of Arts and Sciences The Royal Netherlands Academy of Arts and Sciences ( nl, Koninklijke Nederlandse Akademie van Wetenschappen, abbreviated: KNAW) is an organization dedicated to the advancement of science and literature in the Netherlands. The academy is housed ...

since 1999.

References

*Zwarts, F. 1978, ‘Extractie uit prepositionele woordgroepen in het Nederlands.’ In: A. van Berkel et al. (red.), ''Proeven van Neerlandistiek'', Aangeboden aan prof. dr. Albert Sassen. Nederlands Instituut Groningen, Groningen, pp. 303–399. *Zwarts, F. 1983, 'Determiners: A Relational Perspective.' In Alice ter Meulen, ed., ''Studies in Modeltheoretic Semantics''. Foris, Dordrecht, pp. 37–62. *Zwarts, F. 1998, 'Three types of polarity items.' In Fritz Hamm and Erhard Hinrichs, eds., ''Plurality and Quantification.'' Kluwer, Dordrecht, pp 177–238. *Stowe, L.A., Haverkort, M., & Zwarts, F., 2005, 'Rethinking the neurological basis of language.' ''Lingua'',115, 997–1042.

References

External links

University of Groningen webpage with information on Frans Zwarts
1949 births Living people Linguists from the Netherlands Semanticists University of Groningen alumni University of Amsterdam alumni University of Groningen faculty Scientists from The Hague Members of the Royal Netherlands Academy of Arts and Sciences {{Netherlands-linguist-stub

See also

References

References

External links