Talk by Aleksandra Ćwiek (ZAS Berlin)

by Anna Pressler Comment Closed
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...
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Talk by Sebastian Walter (Frankfurt) in the Semantics Colloquium

by Lennart Fritzsche Comment Closed
We are happy to announce a talk by Sebastian Walter (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: May 15, 2025 Time: 4 pm – 6 pm c.t. Title: Adding to the expressive typology: Emblematic gestures as visual expressives (joint work with Cornelia Ebert) Abstract:  Emblematic gestures are gestures with a conventionalized form and meaning within a linguistic community. For example, if a speaker in the German-speaking community taps their index finger on their temple, it indicates that they believe the person being referred to is crazy (CRAZY-gesture, henceforth). These gestures differ significantly from iconic gestures, which are typically unconventionalized and depict specific aspects of their referent. While recent work in gesture semantics has largely focused on iconic gestures and their contribution to the meaning of the utterance they co-occur with (e.g., Ebert & Ebert, 2014; Schlenker, 2018), emblems have received comparatively little attention (but see Esipova, 2019)....
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Talk by Karen De Clercq (LLF/Université Paris Cité/CNRS) in the Semantics Colloquium

by Lennart Fritzsche Comment Closed
We are happy to announce a talk by Karen De Clercq (LLF/Université Paris Cité/CNRS) (work with Guido Vanden Wyngaerd, KU Leuven) 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: May 8, 2025 Time: 4 pm – 6 pm c.t. Title: *NEG-NEG: an argument against lexicalism from negation stacking View abstract...
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A talk by Andreas Jäger (Bremen) in the Historical Linguistics Colloquium

by Nelli Kerezova Comment Closed
We are happy to announce a talk by Andreas Jäger (Universität Bremen) in the Historical Linguistics Colloquium.   The talk will take place in person. Date: February 13, 2025 Time: 2 pm – 4 pm ct Place: Room IG 1.201 Title: "Wie dachte und denkt man in Australien und Neuseeland über Mehrsprachigkeit? Zwei postkoloniale Räume im Vergleich" Abstract: Mehrsprachigkeit ist ein prägendes Charakteristikum postkolonialer Gesellschaften. Das Aufeinandertreffen verschiedener Sprecher*innengruppen mit unterschiedlicher Machtverteilung während der Zeit des Kolonialismus zeigt durch sprachliche Koexistenz und Kontakt Nachwirkungen bis in die heutige Zeit. Ein Vergleich zweier benachbarter postkolonialer Staaten mit Englisch als Majoritätssprache, aber jeweils unterschiedlicher sprachlicher Ausgangssituation und Geschichte soll zeigen, in welchem Zusammenhang Mehrsprachigkeit und Dekolonisierung stehen. Sprachliche Diversität und Beziehung zwischen Kolonialmacht und indigener Bevölkerung sowie vorherrschende, teils widersprüchliche Vorstellungen über, beziehungsweise Einstellungen zu den in den Vergleichsräumen verwendeten Sprachen ist dabei von besonderer Relevanz, ebenso wie die geographische Verortung unterschiedlicher Aspekte der Mehrsprachigkeit....
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Talk by Prarthanaa Bharadwaj (Frankfurt) in the Semantics Colloquium

by Lennart Fritzsche Comment Closed
We are happy to announce a talk by Prarthanaa Bharadwaj (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: February 6, 2025 Time: 4 pm – 6 pm c.t. Title: Deconstructing Modal Necessity in Kannada Abstract: The study of modality in semantics has long focused on modal flavour (epistemic vs. root modality; Kratzer 1977, 1991) and modal force (possibility vs. necessity; Rullmann et al. 2008). More recent research has explored the previously understudied dimension of modal strength, particularly the distinction between weak and strong readings (Vander Klok and Hohaus 2020; Weingartz and Hohaus 2024). Languages employ diverse strategies to denote modal strength distinctions (von Fintel and Iatridou, 2008). Certain languages (English, German) mark this distinction lexically, while others employ morphological means, such as counterfactual constructions (Greek, French) or specialized derivational suffixes (Javanese). In some cases, this distinction remains unmarked (Afrikaans, Samoan). Kannada presents a novel case where strong...
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