Personal profile
SUMMARY of research interests (100 words)
My research focuses on tense, mood and modality, pragmatic markers, indefinites and negation. It deals mainly with (West) Germanic but I also have a keen interest in Standard Average European and typology. My work can be situated in the fields of areal linguistics, contrastive linguistics, corpus linguistics, functional/cognitive linguistics and historical linguistics.
Current Teaching
- LING103: Linguistics
- LING220 (convenor): Structures of the world's languages
- LING313 (convenor): Language change in English and beyond
- LING420tc (co-convenor): Linguistic Analysis
- LING439: Cognitive Linguistics
External Roles
- Editor-in-chief of the Trends in Linguistics - Studies and Monographs book series (https://www.degruyter.com/view/serial/16128)
- Former editor of Ampersand: An International Journal of General and Applied Linguistics (2014-2018) (http://www.journals.elsevier.com/ampersand)
Current Research
- corpus-driven approach to directive strategies in English and Dutch
- modality in World Englishes beyond auxiliaries
- impersonalization strategies in West Germanic
- typological study of imperative negation
Career Details
Previous employment
- postdoctoral research fellow at the North-West University Potchefstroom, South Africa
- pre- and postdoctoral researcher at the University of Antwerp, Belgium
- predoctoral research fellow of the Research Foundation Flanders (FWO), Belgium
Education
- PhD in linguistics at the University of Antwerp, Belgium
- MA in advanced studies in cognitive and functional linguistics at the University of Leuven, Belgium
- MA in Germanic linguistics and literature at the University of Antwerp, Belgium
- BA in Germanic linguistics and literature at the University of Antwerp, Belgium
Keywords
- Pragmatics
- Theoretical and corpus-based linguistics
Collaborations and top research areas from the last five years
Research output
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Insults as a sentence type: A cross-linguistic perspective
Giomi, R., Van Olmen, D. & van Oers, D., 10/02/2026, (Accepted/In press) The Interpersonal Layer in Functional Discourse Grammar. Mittendorfer, M., Serafim, M. & Hengeveld, K. (eds.). Amsterdam: John BenjaminsResearch output: Contribution in Book/Report/Proceedings - With ISBN/ISSN › Chapter (peer-reviewed) › peer-review
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Negation in Afrikaans
Van Olmen, D., Breed, A. & Kotzé, E., 15/01/2026, Negation in the World's Languages I: Africa. Miestamo, M. & Veselinova, L. (eds.). Berlin: Language Science Press, (Research on Comparative Grammar).Research output: Contribution in Book/Report/Proceedings - With ISBN/ISSN › Chapter (peer-reviewed) › peer-review
Open AccessFile33 Downloads (Pure) -
A corpus study of conventionalized constructions of impoliteness in Chinese
Hu, Y. & Van Olmen, D., 31/12/2025, In: Corpus Pragmatics. 9, 4, p. 517-539 23 p.Research output: Contribution to Journal/Magazine › Journal article › peer-review
Open AccessFile29 Downloads (Pure) -
Additive negation in Dutch, from synchrony to diachrony, cyclical and noncyclical
van der Auwera, J. & Van Olmen, D., 31/07/2025, Cyclic Change in Grammar and Discourse. Mosegaard Hansen, M.-B. & Waltereit, R. (eds.). Oxford: Oxford University Press (OUP), p. 21-49 29 p.Research output: Contribution in Book/Report/Proceedings - With ISBN/ISSN › Chapter (peer-reviewed) › peer-review
Open AccessFile32 Downloads (Pure) -
Are asymmetries in imperative negation based in usage?
Van Olmen, D., 31/01/2025, In: Linguistic Typology at the Crossroads. 4, 2, p. 158-219 62 p.Research output: Contribution to Journal/Magazine › Journal article › peer-review
Open AccessFile62 Downloads (Pure)
Activities
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Language Lab
Van Olmen, D. (Organiser), Nance, C. (Speaker), Kirkham, S. (Speaker), Lo, J. (Speaker), Siem, A. (Speaker) & Unger, J. (Speaker)
11/04/2025Activity: Other activity types › Types of Public engagement and outreach - Festival/Exhibition
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Exploring social media in the early twentieth century: the picture postcard
Gillen, J. (Speaker) & Van Olmen, D. (Organiser)
2/07/2018Activity: Talk or presentation types › Oral presentation
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Workshop 'Imperatives and other directive strategies', 46th Annual Meeting of the Societas Linguistica Europaea
Van Olmen, D. (Organiser)
20/09/2013Activity: Participating in or organising an event types › Participation in workshop, seminar, course
Impacts
Datasets
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YOU+NP in Dutch, English and Polish
Van Olmen, D. (Creator), Andersson, M. (Contributor) & Culpeper, J. (Contributor), Lancaster University, 21/06/2023
DOI: 10.17635/lancaster/researchdata/623
Dataset
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