Institut für Linguistik

Welcome to the Institute of Linguistics! On this website you can find all the important information about the institute.

Talks and events

Information for freshman/beginners

Information for students

• In order to lessen the risk of an infection, please contact us generally by email first.
• Please hand in or pick up your certificates (“Scheine”) once the semester has started. Paper work that cannot be done by e-mail can be deposited in the mail box “Hauspostfach 2” at the central mailroom (IG 257).
• Important websites with current information:
  • Information about exams (no „Staatsexamen“):
    https://www.pgks.de/
    https://www.uni-frankfurt.de/73862497/ZPL___Aktuelles
  • Information for teachers (ABL):
    https://lehrkraefteakademie.hessen.de/lehrerausbildung/pruefungsstellen/frankfurt-am-main/aktuelle-infos

The Department of Linguistics at Goehte University Frankfurt offers in collaboration with the Department of English and American Studies, the Department of Psycholinguistics and the Teaching of German, and the Department of Romance Literatures and Languages two linguistic programs, a BA Linguistik taught in German and an  MA Linguistics taught in English. In addition, the Department takes part in the BA Germanistik and in the Teacher Education Program.

Aktuelles: DAAD PROMOS – Stipendium zur Förderung von kurzfristigen studienrelevanten Auslandsaufenthalten 2022, 1. Jahreshälfte. Weitere Infos finden Sie hier.

Coordination of studies

For more information on the linguistic programs, please contact

• Matthias Schulze-Bünte (Office hours: Monday, 14:00–15:00 pm)

The Institute of Linguistics, which is based in the Faculty of  Modern Languages (FB 10), has special expertise in the fields of language structure (syntax and phonology), semantics and pragmatics, psycholinguistics (language acquisition, language processing) and historical linguistics represent known researchers. In addition, there are close contacts and cooperation with the linguists in the Institutes of English and Romance Studies, with philosophy (Faculty of Philosophy and History, FB 08), and the Institute for Empirical Linguistics (Faculty ofLinguistics and Cultural Studies, FB 09).

Besides the Institute of Linguistics, there is also research and teaching in linguistics in other institutes. More details can be found here:

• Institute of English and American Studies
• Institute of Psycholoinguistics and Didactics of the German Language
• Institute of Romance Languages and Literatures

The potential of the Frankfurt linguistics is especially in the realm of foundational research in linguistics. The active research is bundled in various projects.

Current externally funded projects:

• Co-speech gestures and prosody as multimodal markers of information structure (DFG Priority Programme: Kügler/Prieto Vives; starts 2022)
• The VP-periphery of Mabia languages (DFG-Sachbeihilfe: Hartmann)
• Visual Communication (DFG Priority Programme: Ebert; starts 2022)
• Nominal Modification (DFG Graduiertenkolleg)
• Propositionalismus (Reinhard Kosselleck Projekt: Zimmermann)
• Interactions between dynamic effects and alternative-based inferences (AHRC-DFG research grant: Ebert)
• The Pragmatic Status of Iconic Meaning in Spoken Communication (Part of XPrag.de: Ebert)
• App-based vocabulary learning: combination effects of prior knowledge activating and gesture-based learning strategies (Initial funding by IDeA: Ebert)

Previous externally funded projects:

• A General Theory of Multivaluation (DFG-Sachbeihilfe: Smith, Hartmann)
• Graduiertenkolleg Satzarten (DFG-Graduiertenkolleg)
• Relativsätze (DFG-Forschergruppe)
• Syntax hessischer Dialekte (SyHD: Weiß)

The following professorships belong to the Department of Linguistics:

• Professur Historische Linguistik (Weiß)
• Professur Phonologie (Kügler)
• Professur Psycholinguistik (Bader)
• Professur Semantik (Ebert)
• Professur Syntax (Hartmann)

In teaching, the following professorships are affiliated to the Institute of Linguistics:

• Professur für die Didaktik der deutschen Sprache (Grimm, kooptiert)
• Professur für Philosophie (Fuhrmann, kooptiert)
• Professur für Spracherwerb (Schulz, kooptiert)

Information Corona

The Institute of Linguistics would like to point out that direct contact with our employees is still limited by the current requirements of the City of Frankfurt am Main and the Goethe University.

Current regulations (starting April 04, 2022):

• Access to the university buildings is possible for everybody, including externals. There is no access control anymore.
• For staff, there is an obligation to wear masks, unless you are in the office by yourself or can keep distance to your office mate(s) of at least 1.5 metres.
• For lecturers, there is an obligation to wear a mask unless you can keep a distance of at least 4 metres to the first row of the audience.
• For students/externals there is a strong recommendation to wear masks at all times in the buildings (surgical masks or FFP2). There is no obligation to wear masks.

All the current information for employees and students of the Goethe University regarding Corona can be found here. Please contact the respective sectetariats or lecturers (all contacts can be found on our homepage). 

Further information for students:

• Please remember to register for your courses in Olat. This is the only way you will (usually) have access to all learning material of the respective courses. If you have any problems, please contact the relevant lecturer.
• For the coming semester it is planned to return completely to in-person teaching.  There are no regulations, including no obligation to wear. However, it is strongly recommended to wear a mask (surgical ones or FFP2). Please check the course descriptions in the course catalogue and further the associated Olat courses for the specific schedule of the relevant courses.
• Workrooms for students are available on the Westend Campus.
• If you have any further questions, please contact the respective lecturers.

We wish you a good start of the semester,

Your Institute for Linguistics