Since 2018
Lecturer in English Linguistics at Universität Rostock

2017
Guest Lecturer for Digital Humanities at Tartu Ülikool (Estonia)
Visiting researcher at the research group “Language Variation and Text Categorisation", Universidade de Vigo (Galicia, Spain)

2013 – 2017
Lecturer in English Linguistics at Albert-Ludwigs-Universität Freiburg

2009 - 2013
Member of the Research Training Group „Frequency Effects in Language“ (DFG 1624), Albert-Ludwigs-Universität Freiburg
Dissertation project: „Contractions of English Semi-Modals: The Emancipating Effect of Frequency“

2003 - 2009
Studies in Linguistics and English Language & Literature (Magister Artium) at Universität Stuttgart and the Australian National University

• Cognitive Linguistics
• Mental representations of language
• Spoken language / speech perception
• Language variation and change
• Grammaticalization
• Quantitative data analysis

– All publications are also available at https://uni-rostock.academia.edu/DavidLorenz –

2022
(with Natalia Levshina) Communicative efficiency and the Principle of No Synonymy: predictability effects and the variation of want to and wanna. Language and Cognition 14(2), 249–274. doi:10.1017/langcog.2022.7

2021
(with David Tizón-Couto) Variables are valuable: making a case for deductive modeling. Linguistics 59(5): 1279–1309.

2020
Converging variations and the emergence of horizontal links: to-contraction in American English. In Lotte Sommerer & Smirnova (eds.), Nodes and Links in the Network: Advances in Diachronic Construction Grammar, 243–274. Amsterdam: John Benjamins.

(with David Tizón-Couto). Not just frequency, not just modality: production and perception of English semi-modals. In Pascal Hohaus & Rainer Schulze (eds.), Re-Assessing Modalising Expressions. Categories, co-text, and context, 79–107. Amsterdam: John Benjamins.

2019
(with D. Tizón-Couto) Chunking or predicting – frequency information and reduction in the perception of multi-word sequences. Cognitive Linguistics 30(4). 751-784.

2018
(with D. Tizón-Couto) Realizations and variants of have to: What corpora can tell us about usage-based experience. Corpora 13(3). 371-392.

2017
(with D. Tizón-Couto) Coalescence and contraction of V-to-V_inf sequences in American English – evidence from spoken language. Corpus Linguistics and Linguistic Theory, ahead of print. doi:10.1515/cllt-2015-0067

2016
Form does not follow function (but variation does): the origin and early usage of possessive have got in English. English Language and Linguistics 20(3). 487-510. doi:10.1017/S1360674316000332
(with D. Tizón-Couto) Perception of reduced words: chunking and predictability. Proceedings of the 7th Tutorial and Research Workshop on Experimental Linguistics. 95- 98.
Review of Diachronic Construction Grammar, ed. by J. Barðdal, E. Smirnova, L. Sommerer & S. Gildea (2015). The Linguist List 09/05/2016. http://linguistlist.org/issues/27/27-2134.html

2013
Semi-Modal Contractions in English: The Emancipating Effect of Frequency. Book series “New Ideas in Human Interaction (NIHIN)”. Freiburg: Rombach. Full text: http://www.freidok.uni-freiburg.de/volltexte/9317
From reduction to emancipation: is gonna a word? In H. Hasselgård, J. Ebeling & S. O. Ebeling (eds.), Corpus Perspectives on Patterns of Lexis, 133-152. Amsterdam: John Benjamins.
On-going change in English modality: Emancipation through frequency. Zeitschrift für Literaturwissenschaft und Linguistik 43(1). 33-48. doi:10.1007/BF03379871

2012
The perception of gonna and gotta – a study of emancipation in progress. Proceedings of the 5th ISEL Conference on Experimental Linguistics, ed. by Antonis Botinis. 77-80. http://conferences.phil.uoa.gr/exling/2012/proceedings.html

2010
(with A. Riester & N. Seemann) A recursive annotation scheme for referential information status. Proceedings of the Seventh International Conference of Language Resources and Evaluation (LREC), Valetta. 717-722.

WiSe 2021/22
Hauptseminar - English as a Global Language
Hauptseminar - Corpus Linguistics

SoSe 2021
Proseminar - Variation and Change in the English Language
Hauptseminar - Cognitive Linguistics

WS 2020/21
Hauptseminar - English is a Global Language

SoSe 2020
Proseminar - Variation and Change in the English Language
Hauptseminar - Cognitive Linguistics

WiSe 2019/20
Grundkurs - English Linguistics: An Introduction
Hauptseminar - English is a Global Language

SoSe 2019
Proseminar - Variation and Change in the English Language
Hauptseminar - Cognitive Linguistics

WiSe 2018/19
Hauptseminar - English is a Global Language
Hauptseminar - Corpus Approaches to English Grammar

SoSe 2018
Proseminar - Linguistic Variation & Change
Hauptseminar - Analyzing Spoken English