Studies in Baltic and other languages : a Festschrift for Axel Holvoet on the occasion of his 65th birthday

ENPreface We dedicate this volume to Axel Holvoet, a talented linguist, a distinguished professor of Vilnius University, Honorary Doctor of the University of Latvia, a recipient of the Gold Cross of Merit of Poland, a member of the Academia Europaea, a teacher, a colleague and a friend. He is best characterised by three things: first, by his passion for Baltic and general linguistics, second, by his dedication to students, colleagues and friends, and third, by his role in Academia Salensis, a gem of academic excellence and a place of attraction to many linguists. In January 2021 Axel Holvoet celebrated his 65th birthday. He started his career as a linguist after graduating from the Department of Slavic languages and literatures at Ghent University in 1977, then moving to Poland and working mainly as a scholar of Slavic. He defended his PhD thesis on grammatical aspect in Polish in 1983 and began working at the Institute of Slavonic Studies, Polish Academy of Sciences. In 1991 he defended his habilitation thesis on transitivity and clause structure in Polish. His growing interest in the Baltic languages in the mid-eighties of the 20th century was a primary motive for him to learn first Latvian and later Lithuanian. In 1988 he started teaching Baltic linguistics at the University of Warsaw. In 1998 he moved to Lithuania; there he worked at the Institute of the Lithuanian Language and then at Vilnius University, where he has been teaching and doing research until now. His main subjects include trends in contemporary linguistics, syntax, language typology, and grammatical theory. [...]. [Extract, p. 8]