Research Area
The Research Area Semantics and Pragmatics is concerned with linguistic meaning and the connection between language and non-linguistic thinking. The results of our foundational research can be applied in various fields: Information technology, comprehensibility optimisation (medical guidelines or textbooks), language diagnostics.
By combining small units such as single words or parts of words to larger units such as sentences, dialogues, and texts, complex thoughts can be expressed. Their meaning is mainly derived compositionally from the meaning of the parts and the way they are assembled (semantics). Non-verbal signals such as emphasis, gestures and context also have an influence on meaning (pragmatics).
DFG ANR project
(BooLL)
Research on the impact of language on arithmetic ability and early numerical learning has been growing significantly over the last decades. But when we turn to other areas of mathematical cognition, such as those involving basic logical concepts that can be expressed using everyday language, research on the impact of language is still lacking. The BooLL project seeks to fill this gap and brings novel methodology and evidence to bear on the issue of whether logical abilities are dependent on (native) language.
NWO project
DePoDe
Though originally spatial, demonstratives (‘this’/‘that’) are also used in non-spatial contexts. This project seeks to describe what drives the choice for proximal vs. distal demonstrative forms in such non-spatial contexts, using parallel corpora and experimental research.
EU Horizon 2020 project
(LeibnizDream)
This project develops a new linguistic theory to explain language and its acquisition. Our central hypothesis is that language radically compresses thought structures to sound or sign. We assume that thought is mapped to language by only realizing some pieces of conceptual representations.
Funded by Leibniz-Wettbewerb
(LMBayes)
The project addresses the mathematical modelling of logical conclusions and inferences as an essential part of our use of language.
Humboldt Research Fellowship
(MERLIN)
The aim of the project is to explore the role of structured part-whole configurations in natural language in order to provide novel evidence for a mereotopological approach to nominal and verbal semantics. Two empirical domains will be investigated: i) the morphology and semantics of role nouns and ii) the syntax and semantics of multiplicatives in the context of event-internal/external quantification.
DFG project
(CRC 1412-Register A05)
The subproject in the CRC 1412 „Register: Language-Users’ Knowledge of Situational-Functional Variation" investigates situationally and functionally driven intra-individual variation involving alternatives that differ in their core logical or truth-conditional content. In particular, the following two sub-questions will be addressed: i) How are existing alternatives recruited for register purposes, and ii) How do language users choose between register variants?
DFG project
(CRC 1412-Register B06)
The subproject in the CRC 1412 „Register: Language-Users’ Knowledge of Situational-Functional Variation" investigates and models the interaction between language change and register knowledge: how is change driven, in which direction, and is it propelled from above (by higher registers) or below (by lower registers)?
EU Horizon 2020 project
(SPAGAD)
The SPAGAD project will investigate speech acts, the basic linguistic units with communicative function. The project will propose a formal model for speech acts. In the light of this model it will investigate the role of speech acts in three areas: (1) in grammar in typologically diverse languages, (2) in discourse and (3) in communication.