Talk by Maya Cortez (Graz University) in the Phonology Colloquium

We are happy to announce the next talk in the Phonology Colloquium by Maya Cortez (Graz University) Title: Intonating Pragmatically Diverse Rising Declaratives. Evidence from a German Production Experiment Date: Wednesday, 28.10.2026 Time: 16:30-18:00 (note: we will start 15 min later than usual) Location: on ZOOM; possibility to meet in the seminar room (IG 4.301) If you are registered in Olat you'll find the Zoom link there. If you want to participate via Zoom and do not have the link yet, please send an email to: gregori@lingua.uni-frankfurt.de...
Read More

Corinna Langer und Anna Pressler verteidigen erfolgreich ihre Dissertationen

Am 26.06.2026 wurden zwei Dissertationen aus dem Phonologie-Lehrstuhl erfolgreich verteidigt. Corinna Langer verteidigte ihre Thesis mit dem Titel Focus and Prosody in Hungarian - investigating syntactically unmarked focus am Morgen und Anna Pressler verteidigte ihre Thesis zu Prosodic factors at the phrase level: the positioning of French adjectives am Nachmittag. Wir gratulieren beiden herzlich zu diesem Erfolg! Corinna Langers Dissertation untersuchte zwei Fälle von Fokusmarkierung im Ungarischen in den keine syntaktische Disambiguierend des Skopus von Fokus möglich ist. Durch eine Kombination von Produktions- und Perzeptionsstudien fand sie heraus, dass Prosodie den Skopus von solchen ungarischen Fokuskonstruktionen disambiguieren kann. Sie diskutiert ihre Ergebnisse im Hinblick auf existierende Syntax-Prosodie Mappings. Anna Presslers Dissertation untersuchte die Positionierung von französischen Adjektiven (prä- oder postnominal), welche keine syntaktische oder semantische Präferenz für eine Position haben. In vier empirischen Studien erforschte sie den Einfluss von den prosodischen Faktoren Relative Länge und Rhythmische Alternation, mit der Erkenntnis, dass diese die Positionierung der Adjektive beeinflussen. Sie schlägt Anforderungen für ein Sprachmodell vor,...
Read More

Tokyo-Frankfurt Phonetics-Phonology Colloquium: 2nd edition

We are happy to announce the second edition of the Tokyo-Frankfurt Phonetics-Phonology Colloquium Room: Online (please contact Alina at gregori@lingua.uni-frankfurt.de for access) Date: February 6th Time: 9-12 The colloquium is a collaboration between the Phonology groups at International Christian University in Tokyo and Goethe University Frankfurt, lead by Seunghun Lee and Frank Kügler. It brings together Early Career Researchs to exchange and discuss about the Phonological topics. Program: 09.00 Seunghun J. Lee (ICU) & Frank Kügler (GU) Opening 09.05 Ren Hasegawa (ICU) Tonal Iconicity Study of Xitsonga: observing correlation of weight, speed and height 09.30 Manuel Lipstein (GU) Timing or privativity? New perception data on the representation of Urban East Norwegian tonal accents 10.00 Haruka Yatabe (ICU) Disyllabic words in Niigata Japanese follow a Prosodic Template 10.30 Sotaro Arakaki (ICU) The Phonetic Analysis of...
Read More

Talk by Caroline Féry

We are happy to announce a talk by Caroline Féry in the Phonology Colloquium. Room: IG 4.301 Date: Wednesday January 28th Time: 16-18 ct. Title: On Negative Verum Answers Abstract: Höhle (1988, 1992) introduced the notion of Verum Fokus, nowadays often called Polarity Focus, see also (Lohnstein 2012, Goodhue 2018 and many others). The focus is put on the affirmative or negative content of a sentence and is expressed by a nuclear accent on the finite part of the verb (or on Comp), see (1B). (1) A: I asked Hanna what Karl is doing these days and she made the silly claim that he is writing a screenplay. B: Das stimmt. Karl schreibt ein Drehbuch. ‘It is true. Karl is writing a screenplay.’ I am interested in cases such as (2B), also from Höhle (1988), in which the sentence is negated, but the nuclear accent is still on the finite verb. (2) A: I hope Anna finally writes a book. B: Aber Karl sagte mir, sie schreibt nicht an einem Buch. ‘But Karl told me she...
Read More

Talk by Aleksandra Ćwiek (ZAS Berlin)

We are happy to announce a talk by Aleksandra Ćwiek in the Phonology Colloquium. Room: IG 4.301 Date: Wednesday May 21st 2025 Time: 16-18 ct Title: Vocal iconicity and... what beats the bouba-kiki effect? Abstract:  Iconicity is a fundamental phenomenon where a form resembles its meaning, bridging perception and communication across modalities. While iconicity has been widely accepted in gesture and sign language research, the iconic potential of vocal communication has often been questioned. This talk delves into vocal iconicity, showcasing that sounds can convey meaning far beyond traditional language boundaries. Drawing on cross-linguistic research on novel vocalizations, I demonstrate the expressive power of vocal iconicity. The second part of the talk explores cross-modal correspondences, where sensory modalities interact to form iconic mappings, such as associating shapes with sounds. I begin by presenting the classic bouba-kiki paradigm, which demonstrates a cross-modal correspondence between vision and sound bridged across cultures by iconicity. I then move on to a recent study revealing that trilled [r] is associated...
Read More