Interview with Geert Booij

Abstract

Geert Booij (1947) is professor emeritus of linguistics at the University of Leiden where he worked from 2005-2012. From 1981-2005 he was professor of General Linguistics at the Vrije Universiteit Amsterdam, and from 1971-1981 assistant / associate professor at the University of Amsterdam, where he also obtained his Ph.D. degree in linguistics in 1977. He studied Dutch and general linguistics at the University of Groningen (1965-1971) where he obtained his MA degree (cum laude). He was dean of the Faculty of Letters at the Vrije Universiteit (1988-1991, 1998-2002), conrector of the Vrije Universiteit (1999-2002), dean of the Faculty of Letters of the University of Leiden (September 2005- October 2007), and member (1997-2002) and chair (2002-2004) of the Dutch Research Council for the Humanities of NWO (the Dutch organization for scientific research). He served on a number of national and international committees for the assessment of linguistic research achievements, and on audit committees for the quality of language programs at various universities in the Netherlands. Geert Booij also taught at the University of Canterbury in Christchurch, New Zealand (Erskine Fellow) in 2002, the Linguistic Society of America Institute at the University of Berkeley in 2009, at Harvard University (Erasmus professor of Dutch language and culture) in 2010, and at the Freie Universitat Berlin (Germanic Department, section Dutch) in 2011. In 2011 he received the Alexander von Humboldt Research Award for his overall achievements in linguistic research. He is an honorary member of the Linguistic Society of America . Geert Booij is one of the two founders and editors of the book series Yearbook of Morphology (1988-2005), which is, as of 2006, continued as the journal Morphology , of which he was one of the three editors until 2014. He is the author of a number of Dutch textbooks on grammar, morphology, and phonology, and of four English monographs: The Phonology of Dutch (1995), The Morphology of Dutch (2002, 2019 2 ), The Grammar of Words (2005, 2012), and Construction Morphology (2010), all published by Oxford University Press. He has published linguistic articles in a wide range of Dutch and international journals and volumes (see https://geert.booij.com for a list of, mostly downloadable, publications).