Work
My newest line of work is in the area of NLP and focuses on LLMs. Specifically, I am working on how to build a Dutch LLM in an ethical way and how to evaluate LLMs as one of the team leads of the GPT-NL project. My work also includes research on adversarial attacks on ASR systems and the automatic extraction of causal relations from text.
Previously, my research (including my dissertation) was concerned with the semantic and pragmatic aspects of scope interactions between modified numerals and modals, focus-sensitive operators, and split scope. I also worked on embedded questions, the degree to which different question-embedding predicates give rise to exhaustive readings, and the role of universal quantifiers in those types of expressions.
- Detecting and mitigating representation bias in GPT-NL training data, poster at New Perspectives on Bias and Discrimination in Language Technology, University of Amsterdam, November 2024 (with Eliza Hobo and Duuk Baten) [poster available upon request]
- GPT-NL: Ethical AI development for the Dutch language, keynote talk at Computational Linguistics in the Netherlands, August 2024 (with Erik de Graaf) [slides available upon request]
- Don’t twist my words (nay Google): Adversarial Automatic Speech Recognition, Computational Linguistics in the Netherlands, June 2022 (with Saskia Lensink and Anne Merel Sternheim) [abstract]
- Homogeneity and universal quantification in embedded questions, Sinn und Bedeutung, September 2020 (with Jordan Chark) [recorded talk and slides]
- The pragmatic status of strongly exhaustive readings of embedded questions, DGfS 2020, workshop Diversity in pragmatic inferences, March 2020 (with Lea Fricke and Malte Zimmermann) [poster]
- Exhaustivity in embedded questions, XPrag Annual Meeting, ZAS, Berlin, November 2019 (with Lea Fricke, Malte Zimmermann, and Edgar Onea) [slides]
- Pragmatic inferences of modified numerals and modals, Inquisitive Semantics Colloquium, ILLC, University of Amsterdam, May 2019 [handout]
- Pragmatic inferences of modified numerals and modals, Syntax-Semantics Colloquium, Universität Potsdam, May 2019 [handout]
- Splitting Germanic negative indefinites, Amsterdam Colloquium, University of Amsterdam, December 2017 (with Lisa Bylinina and Rick Nouwen) [slides]
- Focussing on Split Scope, Syntax-Semantics Colloquium, Universität Potsdam, July 2017 [handout]
- A plea for optional QR, Colloquium on Generative Grammar 2017 [handout]
- Splitting Germanic n-words, Leiden Utrecht Semantics Happenings, April 2017 (with Lisa Bylinina and Rick Nouwen) [handout]
- A plea for optional QR, GLOW 2017 [poster]
- Modals and Scope Economy, New Ideas in Semantics and Modelling 2016 [handout]
- Scope interactions between modals and modified numerals, Amsterdam Colloquium 2015 [handout]
- Directional numeral modifiers: an implicature-based account, NELS 2015 [handout]
- The degree of upper-bound construals among different modified numerals: a crosslinguistic and experimental investigation, Sinn und Bedeutung 2015 (with Yaron McNabb, Stavroula Alexandropoulou, Rick Nouwen, and Sofia Bimpikou) [poster]
- Directional prepositions as numeral modifiers, SLE 2015, workshop ‘The syntax and semantics of numerals’ [handout]
- The likelihood of upper-bound construals among different modified numerals, XPRAG 2015 (with Yaron McNabb, Rick Nouwen, Stavroula Alexandropoulou, and Sofia Bimpikou [poster]
- The extent of upper-bound construals among different modified numerals, MXPRAG 2015 (with Stavroula Alexandropoulou, Yaron McNabb, Sofia Bimpikou, and Rick Nouwen) [slides]
- The semantics and pragmatics of directional numeral modifiers, SALT 2015 [handout]
- The semantics and pragmatics of directional numeral modifiers, Proportions and quantities workshop, DGfS 2015 [handout]
- The semantics and pragmatics of directional numeral modifiers, TIN-dag (Linguistics in the Netherlands Day) 2014 [handout]
- From text to model: Leveraging natural language processing for system dynamics model development, in System Dynamics Review, 2024, with Guido Veldhuis, Maaike de Boer, Gino Kalkman, Roos Bakker, and Rob van Waas
- Exploring knowledge extraction techniques for system dynamics modelling: comparative analysis and considerations, in Proceedings of BNAIC/BeNeLearn 2023, with Roos Bakker, Gino Kalkman, Ioannis Tolios, Guido Veldhuis, Stephan Raaijmakers, and Maaike de Boer
- Homogeneity and universal quantification in embedded questions, in Proceedings of Sinn und Bedeutung 2020, with Jordan Chark
- Splitting Germanic negative indefinites, 2020, with Lisa Bylinina and Rick Nouwen
- A plea for optional object QR, 2020, with Rick Nouwen
- On the pragmatics of modified numerals and modals, 2020
- The pragmatics of embedded questions: an experimental comparison of four verbs of embedding, 2020, with Lea Fricke, Malte Zimmermann, and Edgar Onea
- Splitting Germanic negative indefinites, with Lisa Bylinina and Rick Nouwen, in Proceedings of the 21st Amsterdam Colloquium, 2017
- The semantics and pragmatics of directional numeral modifiers, 2017
- Directional numeral modifiers: an implicature-based account, in Proceedings of NELS 46, 2016
- Scope interactions between modals and modified numerals, in Proceedings of the 20th Amsterdam Colloquium, 2015
- The likelihood of upper-bound construals among numeral modifiers, in Proceedings of Sinn und Bedeutung 2015, with Yaron McNabb, Stavroula Alexandropoulou, Sofia Bimpikou, and Rick Nouwen
- The semantics and pragmatics of directional numeral modifiers, in Proceedings of SALT 25, 2015
- Directional prepositions as numeral modifiers, Master’s thesis, 2013
Data
Teaching
I have taught several general linguistics courses in the French department at Utrecht University:
- 2014: Linguistique Française A (TK1) (teacher, with Janine Berns)
- 2013: Analyse Linguistique (TK2) (teacher, with Bert Le Bruyn)
- 2011: Analyse Linguistique (TK2) (TA, for Frank Drijkoningen)
Service
- Organiser of the Leiden Utrecht Semantics Happenings (LUSH)
- Organiser of the ROSE talks
- PhD candidate member of the LOT Education Committee (Netherlands Graduate School of Linguistics)
- Member of the PhD Council of the Faculty of Humanities, Utrecht University