Simon Cornelis Dik (September 6, 1940 in
Delden – March 1, 1995 in
Holysloot) was a Dutch
linguist
Linguistics is the scientific study of language. The areas of linguistic analysis are syntax (rules governing the structure of sentences), semantics (meaning), Morphology (linguistics), morphology (structure of words), phonetics (speech sounds ...
, most famous for developing the theory of
functional grammar. He occupied the chair of General Linguistics at
University of Amsterdam
The University of Amsterdam (abbreviated as UvA, ) is a public university, public research university located in Amsterdam, Netherlands. Established in 1632 by municipal authorities, it is the fourth-oldest academic institution in the Netherlan ...
between 1969 and 1994. During these 25 years he developed the theory of functional grammar, the foundations for which had been laid in his 1968 dissertation on coordination.
Two years before his death, Dik fell ill. As much as his illness allowed, he worked on developing his theory until his death. The second part of his work, ''The Theory of Functional Grammar'', was published posthumously in 1997.
Career
Simon Dik took a degree in classical language. His PhD dissertation was done under the supervision of Anton Reichling, and after it he became chair of general linguistics in Amsterdam at only 28 years old, which was a point of discussion. During the 70s and 80s he worked on formulating his theory of functional grammar, including various discussions with proponents of
generative grammar
Generative grammar is a research tradition in linguistics that aims to explain the cognitive basis of language by formulating and testing explicit models of humans' subconscious grammatical knowledge. Generative linguists, or generativists (), ...
which formed a big part of linguistics departments in the Netherlands. He was the supervisor of
Kees Hengeveld who then became his closest collaborator, and helped part II of ''The theory of functional grammar'' materialize as Dik fell ill in 1992.
Selected publications
* ''The Theory of Functional Grammar (Part I: The Structure of the clause)'', 1989
* ''The Theory of Functional Grammar (Part II: Complex and Derived Constructions)'', 1997 (pt. I); (pt. I paperback); (pt. II); (pt. II paperback)
References
{{DEFAULTSORT:Dik, Simon C.
1940 births
1995 deaths
People from Hof van Twente
Academic staff of the University of Amsterdam
20th-century Dutch linguists