Yuqiu Chen joins the Semantics team in the central project of the DFG priority program “Visual Communication” (ViCom)

by Lennart Fritzsche Comment Closed
Yuqiu Chen has joined the Semantics team in April 2026 as a postdoctoral researcher in the central project of the DFG priority program “Visual Communication” (ViCom). In addition to teaching classes in semantics and pragmatics, she also serves as the experimental consultant for the ViCom priority program. Yuqiu's research lies in theoretical and experimental linguistics, and focuses on the semantics–pragmatics interface, in particular implicatures and presuppositions, as well as first and second language acquisition of German. More recently, she has also worked on lying and commitment distinctions in speech-accompanying gestures. We are very happy to welcome her to Frankfurt and to the Semantics team....
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Cornelia Ebert gives a public lecture at “Wissen(schaft) häppchenweise”

by Lennart Fritzsche Comment Closed
On June 20, 2026, Cornelia Ebert will give a talk at the Science Talk "Wissen(schaft) häppchenweise" organized by the Kathinka Platzhoff Stiftung. Her talk, held in German, is titled "Semantics and Pragmatics – When Language Gets Hands: How Words and Gestures Create Meaning Together" (original title: "Semantik und Pragmatik – Wenn Sprache Hände bekommt: Wie Worte & Gesten gemeinsam Bedeutung erschaffen"). The event series combines science, conversation, cabaret, and live music in an open and accessible format. Further information about the event can be found on the website of the Kathinka Platzhoff Stiftung (in German)....
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Talk by Yichi (Raven) Zhang (Düsseldorf) in the Semantics Colloquium

by Lennart Fritzsche Comment Closed
We are happy to announce a talk by Yichi (Raven) Zhang (Düsseldorf) in the Semantics Colloquium. The talk will take place on campus in IG 4.301. If you wish to participate virtually via Zoom, please contact Lennart Fritzsche for the link.  Date: April 30, 2026 Time: 4 pm – 6 pm c.t. Title: Retraction and Quasi-Retraction Abstract: Download abstract here...
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Talk by Cornelia Ebert (Frankfurt) in the Semantics Colloquium

by Lennart Fritzsche Comment Closed
We are happy to announce a talk by Cornelia Ebert (Frankfurt) in the Semantics Colloquium. The talk will take place on campus in IG 4.301. If you wish to participate virtually via Zoom, please contact Lennart Fritzsche for the link.  Date: April 23, 2026 Time: 4 pm – 6 pm c.t. Title: Describing vs. depicting: two ways to convey meaning Abstract: In my talk, I will argue that meaning can be conveyed via two fundamentally different methods: (1) descriptively by the use of arbitrary conventionalized signs and (2) depictively by showing or demonstrating certain referents or events and thereby introducing a communicative act that asks the communication partner to extract conceptual or propositional information from this act, e.g. via ad-hoc analogy building. Formal linguistics and semantics in particular have originally only taken care of descriptive and conventionalized expressions and although recently the interplay of linguistic items and depictive components has been investigated, so far the question of what it actually means to interpret a depictive iconic gesture in...
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Approaches to NPIs and their Licensing Conditions: Anything New?

by Lennart Fritzsche Comment Closed
Approaches to NPIs and their Licensing Conditions: Anything New? (Working group at DGfS 2026) Organized by Carolin Reinert & Farbod Khouzani (Goethe-Universität Frankfurt, CRC NegLaB) On 26 and 27 February 2026, the workshop Approaches to NPIs and their Licensing Conditions: Anything New? took place as part of the 48th Annual Conference of the German Linguistic Society (DGfS 2026). The workshop brought together researchers working on negative polarity items (NPIs) from theoretical, experimental, corpus-based, and cross-linguistic perspectives, with the goal of reassessing classic questions about NPI licensing in light of recent developments. We kicked off the workshop with a stimulating Warming Up Dinner on the evening of 25 February, which gave us the occasion to get to know each other and start exchanging our ideas on NPIs. Invited Talks We had the pleasure and honor to welcome two wonderful invited speakers to our workshop. Our first invited speaker Manfred Sailer (Goethe-Universität Frankfurt) presented corpus-based work on The NPI that licensed itself, offering fine-grained corpus profiles that...
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