Arie Verhagen said farewell as the chair of Dutch Linguistics and is appointed as the new chair of Language, Culture and Cognition.

Are predictive archaeological maps a reliable tool to play an important role in the spatial planning? One of the goals of this project was to develop best practices for the production and application of the models.

From 2 to 5 September 2015, Leiden served as the stage for one of the world’s largest linguistics conferences: the Societas Linguistica Europaea (SLE) 2015 Annual Meeting. Marianne Mithun, a professor at University of California, Santa Barbara and outgoing president of the SLE, is not surprised that…

This dissertation is concerned with the development of grammar. Starting from a usage-based perspective, which holds that children use domain-general learning mechanisms to acquire the grammatical patterns of their mother tongue, Beekhuizen shows how to operationalize various concepts from this tradition…

Alumni event

ASLU 14

These are our lecturers (in alphabetical order) for the 2026 Summer School in Languages and Linguistics.

This project seeks to integrate scientific research and practical knowledge in the study of the mechanisms that make dialogue an effective tool for communication, teaching, and thinking.

How is social cognition shaped by our knowledge of language and stories?

This doctoral thesis elaborates Langacker’s reference-point model by applying it to lexical semantics.

When combined and used by specific people located in time and place, words can express something more than, different from, or even the opposite of their dictionary meanings.

On the 4th of June, Saskia Lensink successfully defended a doctoral thesis and graduated. The Leiden University Centre for Linguistics congratulates Saskia Lensink on this achievement!

On March 12th, Jonathan Brown succesfully defended his doctoral thesis and graduated. The Leiden University Centre for Linguistics congratulates Jonathan on this great result.

This dissertation investigates Extended Lexical Units (ELUs), elements that are bigger than just one word and which are stored in the Lexicon.

What is the difference between a minister saying that something is possible or that it is not impossible ?

In this dissertation, the types of context Dutch speakers need to interpret the poly-interpretable word ergens ‘somewhere/anywhere’ are studied.

On the 26th of January, Alex Reuneker successfully defended a doctoral thesis. The Leiden University Centre for Linguistics congratulates Alex on this achievement!

This thesis describes the use of the evolutionary approach in the study of language change, aiming to provide a better insight in the mechanisms that play a role in language change and to validate this approach in the field of language change.

The purpose of this programme is to join knowledge and insights from linguistics, literary analysis, and rhetoric, for the purpose of developing a set of methods for the stylistic investigation of any type of text in Dutch.

This dissertation investigates the interaction of aspect and subjectivity in modal constructions.

The linguistic project constitutes the connection between the two other subprojects. It consists of two parts.

Terms used by literary critics in characterizing the style of novels are often impressionistic (‘baroque’, ‘austere’, ‘vivid’, ‘cerebral’ etc.). Foundations for such evaluations are usually not provided. A scientific way of studying and explaining style is lacking in present day Dutch Studies. Suzanne…

This five year research project aimed to investigate the role of minor central places in the economy of Roman Central Italy.

A full overview of MCBIM PhD theses.

Barend Beekhuizen's dissertation has won the 2016 AVT/Anéla (Dutch Linguistic Association and Society for Applied Linguistics) dissertation prize!

The research programme Language Use in Past and Present brings together linguists within LUCL whose central focus is both on actual language data, including language use in earlier stages of the language, and, taking a variationist perspective, on language change in various aspects.

What is the size and composition of the Dutch urban mine? How will the urban mine develop over time, and how can it be used as a source of materials as part of a circular economy?

Many of the journal's issues contain short contributions from practitioners of diplomacy. These practitioners' essays offer unique insights into the world of diplomacy and they serve as a source of inspiration for researchers.

As part of the state visit to Mexico a theme lunch on indigenous cultures was organised.

Research collaborative of LUCAS, LUCL and Tabula Rasa (NWO KIEM-Grant)

The second instalment of the Humanities Lab - the three-year honours programme of the Humanities – has reached its conclusion. On 12 May, 11 groups of honours student presented their work in the Arsenaal building.

For a brief period Leiden University was the hub of the world of linguistics. The 48th annual conference of the Societas Linguistica Europaea was held here at the start of September. Almost 600 linguists came from all corners of the world to the city of discoveries to attend this prestigious event.

On Thursday 6 May 2021, alumni of the Bachelor Security Studies (BaSS) and the Master Crisis and Security Management (CSM) were gathered in an online event arranged by the Institute of Security and Global Affairs and the study association L.S.A. Custodia.

An overview of awards and prizes granted to our staff and students in 2021, as well as special appointments at Leiden University and other institutions.

On 8 October, the Leiden Bio Science Park won the Menzis award for the Best Business Park 2009. The jury particularly praised the fact that 25 years ago when the park was founded, the choice was made in favour of the biomedical life sciences, a specialisation still successful today.

He is the chair of the Faculty Council, Director of Education at the Institute for Philosophy and a Fellow of the Leiden Teachers’ Academy, and was recently appointed for three years as chair of the Humanities Lab. This is the Honours College programme of the Faculty of Humanities for students of all…

Leiden is proud to announce that the city has been selected to host the 33rd Annual Meeting of the European Association of Archaeologists (EAA), scheduled for 25-28 August 2027.

Alumni event

For many students, a summer school abroad is a fun and useful way to spend the summer. This year, because of the travel restrictions, many summer schools were held online. There was no less interest from students though. What is it like to study in a different country, but digitally? Or to travel abroad…

CML grants three Stans Awards each year, known as the best PhD paper, best student thesis and best outreach from the past year. The CML staff nominated students and colleagues and this year’s jury Prof.dr. Koos Biesmeijer and Prof.dr. Nicole de Voogd made the final decision.

You should start working now, and the positive results will only be seen long after your term has expired. That is just about the worst thing you can say to politicians and policymakers. Yet that is exactly the message of two recent reports on sustainable resource use from the Centre for Environmental…

Information provided by the Tax and Customs Administration is something that concerns every citizen. So it is not surprising that the Tax hotline receives around 10 million calls each year. The Benefits Affair emphasised the citizen’s perspective in communications with the Tax and Customs Administration.…

Anti-litter activist Dirk Groot photographed, tagged, and collected more than 400,000 pieces of litter in the Netherlands. Now, he and his data are included in a study on urban litter by researchers from Leiden University and Andrea Ballatore from Birkbeck, University of London.

This is an incomplete list of scientific publications by students and staff of the Creative Intelligence & Technology MSc programme.