Merry Christmas and a happy new Year

Dear colleagues, students and guests of the Institute of Linguistics. The year is coming to an end and we would like to take this opportunity to wish you a Merry Christmas and a happy New Year. Enjoy a few peaceful days and recharge your batteries for the new year. Stay healthy - we look forward to seeing you again next year, even if virtually. Best regards Your Institute of Linguistics...
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Talk by Carla Umbach (University of Cologne) and Britta Stolterfoht (University of Tübingen)

We are happy to announce a talk by Carla Umbach (University of Cologne) and Britta Stolterfoht (University of Tübingen) in the Semantics Colloquium. The talk will take place online. If you want to participate via zoom, please register via email to s.walter@em.uni-frankfurt.de. Title: Demonstratives of Manner, Quality and Degree – constraints on features of comparison  Date: December 16 Time: 4 pm – 6 pm ct Abstract: Demonstratives of manner, quality and degree occur across languages, e.g. Turkish böyle, Polish tak and German so (König & Umbach 2018). In (1) German so is used to express a quality modifying a car:  (1) (speaker points at a car):  Anna hat auch so ein Auto.  'Anna has a car like this, too.'  From the point of view of semantics, demonstratives of manner, quality and degree pose the problem of how to reconcile their demonstrative characteristics with their modifying capacity. Umbach & Gust (2014) suggest that these demonstratives are directly referential but express similarity (instead of identity) to the target of the demonstration gesture. Similarity is spelled out...
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Talk by Sophia Oppermann

We are happy to announce a talk by Sophia Oppermann (University of Jena) in the Historical Linguistics Colloquium. The talk will take place on campus. It will be held in German. Title: Koordinationsstrukturen im Alt- und Mittelhochdeutschen Date: December 14 Time: 2 pm – 4 pm ct Place: IG Farben, room 4.301 Abstract: Trotz oder gerade wegen der Universalität und scheinbaren Simplizität von Koordinationsstrukturen bestehen selbst in syntaktisch so gut erforschten Sprachen wie dem Englischen oder dem Deutschen nach wie vor zahlreiche offene Fragen, sowohl hinsichtlich der zugrundeliegenden syntaktischen Struktur als auch hinsichtlich der Abgrenzung gegenüber Subordination (vgl. Hartmann 2015). Die vorliegende Untersuchung verfolgt das Ziel, erstmals eine empirische Datenbasis für syndetische Koordinationsstrukturen im Alt- und Mittelhochdeutschen zu schaffen. Im Zentrum der Untersuchung stehen dabei diachrone Veränderungen sowie die Frage, welche Schlussfolgerungen daraus für die Syntax von Koordinationsstrukturen im Deutschen gezogen werden können. ...
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Talk by Thomas Weskott (University of Göttingen)

We are happy to announce a talk by Thomas Weskott (University of Göttingen) in the Semantics Colloquium where he will present joint work with Johanna Klages, Elsi Kaiser, and Anke Holler. The talk will take place online. If you want to participate via zoom, please register via email to s.walter@em.uni-frankfurt.de. Title: Testing Perspectivization Effects Online: The Case of Counteridenticals Date: December 9 Time: 4 pm – 6 pm ct Abstract: Taking on another person's perspective is a fundamental part of human cognition. Linguistic expressions play an important role in perspectivization: they can signal a shift in perspective, and their interpretation can be sensitive to different perspectives (see Bylinina et al., 2015). Although there is quite a lot of literature on the semantics and pragmatics of perspective shifting and perspective sensitivity, experimental investigations of the comprehension processes involved is relatively sparse, especially with respect to online measures. In this talk, we present a visual word eye-tracking experiment in which participants were presented with linguistic stimuli that contained counteridenticals, i.e. counterfactuals of the form...
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