Henk van Riemsdijk

In 2011, Van Riemsdijk became Honorary member of the Linguistic Society of America, and in 2012, he received Honorary Doctorates from the University of Bucharest and the University of Szeged.

Van Riemsdijk studied linguistics at the Paris 8 University Vincennes-Saint-Denis and at the University of Amsterdam, where he received his PhD in 1978. He was appointed assistant professor at Amsterdam University (1976-1981) and was later appointed full professor of Theoretical Linguistics at Tilburg University (1981-2006).

Van Riemsdijk made notable contributions to theoretical syntax. His 1978 dissertation on the syntax of prepositional phrases led to a better understanding of the internal structure of prepositional phrases and the phenomenon of preposition stranding. In later work he showed that, just like nominal and verbal projections, the adpositional projection can contain functional material, specifically so-called functional prepositions (Van Riemsdijk 1990). A second central research interest concerns linguistic expressions that cannot be captured easily in terms of a single canonical tree structure, such as far from simple in a far from simple matter. Van Riemsdijk proposes that these linguistic expressions have two distinct structures, both canonical tree structures, that are joined together (“grafted”) in a single complex tree structure (Van Riemsdijk 2001). A third important line of research addressed the question to what extent components of grammar, specifically syntax and phonology, are formally distinct or whether they overlap in some of their properties. In several publications, Van Riemsdijk proposed that there are fundamental formal similarities between principles of syntax and principles of phonology. Besides these major lines of research, he contributed to the study of many other linguistic phenomena, including case, pied piping, parasitic gaps, free relatives, semi-lexical categories, verb (projection) raising, and split topicalization.

Van Riemsdijk has served on the editorial and advisory board of many leading journals in linguistics. He was European editor for Linguistic Inquiry (1978-1980), editor (1980-1992) and consulting editor (1992 – present) of The Linguistic Review (1980-1992), and editor of The Journal of Comparative Germanic Linguistics (2001-2013). He was member of the advisory/editorial board of Linguistic Analysis (1975-1979), Linguistics (1992-2002), Biolinguistics (2006-present), English Linguistics (2010-present), Studies in Chinese Linguistics (2011-present),Transactions of the Philological Society (2016-2019), and Angelica Wratislaviensia (2017-present).

Van Riemsdijk played a major role in building a scientific infrastructure for generative linguistics in Europe. With Jan Koster and Jean-Roger Vergnaud, he was one of the founders of GLOW, the main European organization of generative linguistics. From 1977-1990, he served as chairman of GLOW. He was co-founder and editor of the journal The Linguistic Review (with Riny Huybregts and Jan Koster), and co-founder and editor of three book series: (i) Studies in Generative Grammar, published by Mouton de Gruyter (with Jan Koster and Harry van der Hulst); (ii) Comprehensive Grammar Resources, published by Amsterdam University Press (with István Kenesei): (iii) the Wiley-Blackwell Companions to Linguistics (with Martin Everaert).

Henk van Riemsdijk (born 27 April 1948 in The Hague, The Netherlands) is a Dutch linguist and professor emeritus at Tilburg University.