My general research interest is in language change and its underlying mechanisms, with a particular focus on fitting insights from cognitive linguistics to the facts of language change and vice versa. The study of idiolectal variation can help further this goal, as it can be hypothesized that the differences in behaviour between language users must to at least some extent (and next to the well-known parameters of variation) reflect general principles of language use. If it is possible to relate seemingly independent features of an individual's usage preferences to one another, this can in turn throw light on the principles of grammatical organization and their role in language change.