Carolin Reinert at SALT 36 in Buenos Aires

From July 29-31, 2026, Carolin Reinert attended the 36th Semantics and Linguistic Theory (SALT) conference at the University of Buenos Aires, Argentina, where she presented a joint poster with her co-author Carla Spellerberg (University of Massachusetts Amherst). The poster, entitled "Telling World Knowledge and Linguistic Knowledge Apart: Experimental Evidence for a Meaning-Based Perspective on Nominal Event Arguments", presented new experimental evidence on how lexical meaning and world knowledge interact in the interpretation of adjective-noun combinations. Combining theoretical semantics with psycholinguistic experimentation, the project investigates which nouns encode typical activities as part of their linguistic meaning. The results of a maze experiment support a meaning-based account according to which both deverbal and certain non-deverbal nouns are associated with event arguments, contributing to our understanding of how linguistic knowledge differs from general conceptual knowledge. The conference offered an inspiring environment for scientific exchange, with talks and poster sessions covering a wide range of topics in formal semantics. Presenting the poster sparked engaging discussions with...
Read More

Talk by Frank Kügler (GU) as part of his Tenure-Track Evaluation Process

We are happy to announce a talk by Prof. Frank Kügler (Institute for Linguistics, GU), which takes place as a part of his tenure track evaluation process. Title: Prosodie in der Linguistik – multimodale Perspektiven auf Sprache Date: Friday, February 03, 2023 Time: 12:30-13:30 Uhr Room: IG 1.411 (in person) Access via Zoom: If you would like to participate via Zoom, please contact Anke Himmelreich for the link...
Read More

Talk by Caroline Féry (GU)

We are happy to announce the next talk in the Phonology Colloquium by Caroline Féry (GU). Title: The recursive structure of the prosodic word in German Date: Wednesday, 25.01.2023 Time: 16-18 ct. Location: in person on campus IG 4.301 (we will stream the talk via Zoom) If you are registered in Olat you'll find the Zoom link there. If you want to participate via Zoom, please register via email to Alina Gregori: gregori@lingua.uni-frankfurt.de Abstract: We will look at the interface between morphology and prosodic structure, i.e., how morphemes and words are mapped to prosodic constituents such as moras, syllables, feet and prosodic words. Beside a demonstration of the recursive prosodic structure of inflection, derivation and compounding – the typical concatenative morphological processes of German – the outputs of the non-concatenative part of morphology – usually a disyllabic trochee – will also be addressed. Ito & Mester’s (2012) min-max model of prosodic structure will be used and a formal OT approach will be sketched. Talk by Caroline Féry (GU)...
Read More

Talk by Alice Turk (University of Edinburgh)

Title: The Smooth Signal Redundancy Hypothesis and Prosodic Structure. Date: Wednesday, 14.12.2022 Time: 16-18 ct. Location: in person on campus IG 4.301 (if necessary, we will stream the talk via Zoom) If you are registered in Olat you'll find the Zoom link there. If you want to participate via Zoom, please register via email to Alina Gregori: gregori@lingua.uni-frankfurt.de Abstract: The Smooth Signal Redundancy Hypothesis and Prosodic Structure In this talk, I review the claims of the Smooth Signal Redundancy hypothesis in speech production.  The Smooth Signal Redundancy view hypothesizes that speakers plan the complementarity of language redundancy (recognition likelihood based on lexical, syntactic, semantic, pragmatic factors as well as real world knowledge) and acoustic redundancy (recognition likelihood based on acoustic salience) in order to achieve a smooth signal redundancy profile (even recognition likelihood of all elements in an utterance).  I discuss evidence that speakers control signal redundancy through the manipulation of planned prosodic structure, which includes both prominence and constituent structure. This evidence suggests that the Smooth...
Read More

Roundtable discussion by Cécile Meier (Frankfurt), Carla Umbach (Cologne), and Louise McNally (Barcelona)

We are happy to announce a roundtable discussion by Cécile Meier (Frankfurt), Carla Umbach (Cologne), and Louise McNally (Barcelona) in the Semantics Colloquium. The talk will take place on campus in IG 4.301. Title: Ways of adjectival modification Date: November 24 Time: 4 pm – 6 pm ct Abstract: This week we will have a round table discussion on the topic of nominal modification. Participants are Louise McNally, Carla Umbach and me, Cécile Meier. Louise McNally is currently a Mercator Fellow at Frankfurt University and Carla Umbach is a Goethe Teaching professor at Frankfurt University. We are all concerned with the semantics of noun phrases, modification and reference to kinds. Semantic research states that there are different types of kinds. Carlson introduced well-established kinds, Dayal and Krifka discuss regular kinds, atomic kinds and sub-kinds, and taxonomic readings of kind-referring expressions (see also Pelletier’s work).  What is not well-researched is the effect of modification. McNally argues that there are so-called relational adjectives modifying kinds instead of tokens, and Umbach argues that ad-hoc kinds...
Read More