Institut für Linguistik

Goethe-Universität Frankfurt

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Welcome

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

Best student presentation of MMSYM 2024 is from Frankfurt

Employee and doctoral student Alina Gregori as well as Vera Wolfrum (Uni Würzburg) win the award for the best student presentation at this year’s MMSYM.

Best student presentation of Speech-Prosody 2024 is from Frankfurt

Employee and doctoral student Anna Preßler wins the award for the best student presentation at this year’s Speech-Prosody Conference.

Orientation event for BA Linguistics

The orientation event for first-semester students in the BA Linguistics program will take place on October 14, 2024 from 3 p.m. in room IG 454.

Jacob and Wilhelm Grimm Prizes for International German Studies awarded to Ermenegildo Bidese

Ermenegildo Bidese (University of Trento) completed his habilitation in the Department of Modern Philology in Frankfurt in 2021. In 2024 he received the Jacob and Wilhelm Grimm Prizes for International German Studies from the DAAD.

Summer schools Linguistics 2024

There are two relevant summer schools for students:

  1. DGfS Summer school on “Form Meaning Mismatches in Spoken and Visual Communication” in Göttingen (August 12-23, 2024):
    https://dgfssummer2024.blog/
    Participation fee: 50 € (Registration deadline: May 10, 2024!)
  2. Computer linguistics fall school 2024 (Python course, NLP, Argument Mining, Visual Analytics) in Passau (September 16-27, 2024):
    https://cl-fallschool-2024.github.io/
    Participation fee: 100 € (with registration until Augst 31, 2024)

End of Seminars = Start of Term Papers

With the conclusion of the lecture period, the work on the term papers begins. We kindly request all students writing term papers or theses in linguistics to follow our guidelines.

We celebrate Katharina Hartmann’s 60th birthday

During the birthday workshop “Syntax in Focus – A workshop in honour of Katharina Hartmann’s 60th birthday” we presented the festschrift in honour of Katharina on January 12, 2024: “To the left, to the right, and much in between“. It can be downloaded for free as an e-book (PDF) here.

We congratulate the Institute of Linguistics on the newly approved special research area NegLaB

From April 2024, the new DFG special research area “Negation in Language and Beyond” (SFB 1629 NegLaB) will start at Goethe University. The Institute of Linguistics is significantly involved in numerous projects at the SFB.

MA student Farbod Eslami Khouzani receives this year’s DAAD Prize

The MA linguistics student Farbod Eslami Khouzani (picture, middle) received this year’s DAAD Prize for international students on October 5th, 2023. His outstanding academic achievements as well as his social commitment were recognized. We congratulate him! More information

Prof. Katharina Hartmann and Prof. Frank Kügler nominated for the best doctoral supervision

The Goethe Research Academy for Early Career Researchers (GRADE) awards a prize every year for the best doctoral supervision. This year, two of the professors from linguistics have been nominated: Prof. Frank Kügler and Prof. Katharina Hartmann. More information

Apply now for the BA Linguistics until August 31, 2023
You can find information and links under: Freshmen/Beginners

Information for students

Studies

The Department of Linguistics at Goethe 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.

Further information:

Research

​Overview about the research at the institute

  

 

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, and represents 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:

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

Talk by Julia Bacskai-Atkari (Amsterdam) in the Syntax Colloquium

We are happy to announce a talk by Julia Bacskai-Atkari (Amsterdam) in the Syntax Colloquium.

The talks will take place in person. Room IG 4.301

Date: January 13, 2025

Time: 4 pm – 6 pm ct

Title: “Peripheral cases: Deviations in morphological case at the clausal edge”

Abstract:

bacskai-atkari.pdf 

Talk by Janek Guerrini (Frankfurt) in the Semantics Colloquium

We are happy to announce another talk by Janek Guerrini (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: December 19, 2024

Time: 4 pm – 6 pm c.t.

Title: Similatives as inherent generics

Abstract:
In this paper, I give an account of constructions expressing similarity such as like John and like a lawyer. The main point of the paper is that in like a lawyer, the indefinite receives a generic interpretation, which explains why under its most available reading, John looks like a lawyer is equivalent to John looks like a typical lawyer. However, this indefinite is generic in a surprising way. Generic quantification is standardly thought to be brought about by a silent quantificational adverb, Gen, bearing a meaning akin to generally (see e.g. Krifka et al. 1995). It is therefore expected, on the standard picture, that an indefinite that can receive generic interpretations should also be bound by explicit quantificational adverbs, as for instance in a bird flies ≈ typical birds fly, parallel to a bird rarely flies ≈ few birds fly. However, indefinites embedded by like escape this generalization: John looks like a lawyer ≈ John looks like a typical lawyer, but John rarely looks like a lawyer ≠ John looks like few lawyers. To solve this puzzle, I propose that like comes with a generic quantifier that is lexically hard-wired in its lexical entry, and show how this makes a number of surprising predictions which all turn out to be correct. Along the way, I also analyze properties of like that are not necessarily linked to genericity, mainly: (i) it is a gradable expression over a closed scale, since it supports proportional modification such as in the DNA of humans is 99% like that of chimps. (ii) It can be modified both by scalar modifiers like much and by with respect to phrases like with respect to size, in similar but non-identical ways. (iii) It gives rise to homogeneity (and non-maximality; see Križ 2015, a.o.), as John is like Mary suggests they share all relevant properties, while John isn’t like Mary suggests they share none of them.

Talk by Roland Hinterhölzl (Venice) in the Syntax Colloquium

We are happy to announce a talk by Roland Hinterhölzl (Venice) in the Syntax Colloquium.

The talks will take place in person. Room IG 4.301

Date: December 16, 2024

Time: 4 pm – 6 pm ct

Title: “Privileged Access, Verb Second and the that trace effect”

Abstract:

In this talk, I present a novel approach to the that trace-effect that is based on the insight that subjects stand out in having privileged access to the C-domain. Paradoxically, this privilege of subjects that is visible in various effects appearing with local, that is, clause-internal movement leads to a handicap in long distance movement. I argue that the effect is due to an economy condition operative with flexible phase edges in the C-domain. Flexible phase edges are also visible in V2-languages, which distinguish each other between low and high V2, corresponding to a low (FinP) or high (ForceP) phase edge in the C-domain.  

Talk by Alla Paslawska (Lwiw) in the Semantics Colloquium

We are happy to announce a talk by Alla Paslawska (Lwiw) 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. 

 

The talk will be held in German. 

Date: December 5, 2024

Time: 4 pm – 6 pm c.t.

Title: Wie viele Gesichter hat die Negation?

Abstract:
Jede der Wissenschaft bekannte Sprache verfügt über morphologische Mittel, die Negation zum Ausdruck bringen können. Dazu werden Partikeln, Affixe, Konjunktionen etc. zugerechnet. Bedeutet das, dass die Negation eine morphologische Kategorie ist? Bei näherem Hinsehen merkt man, dass im Fall der Negation die Morphologie uns oft im Stich lässt. Denn was bedeutet eigentlich niemand? Man denkt wohl nicht an Odysseus, der unter dem Namen „Niemand“ dem Polyphem einen glühenden Pfahl in das einzige Auge gerammt hat. Niemand bedeutet vielmehr jemand, nichts ist etwas etc., d.h. die Antwort nach dem kategorialen Status der Negation ist im Bereich der Semantik zu finden. Trotzdem haben auch die Syntax, Prosodie und Pragmatik über die Negation viel zu sagen. Der typologisch ausgerichtete Vortrag geht auf unterschiedliche Bereiche der sprachlichen Negation ein und begründet ein mehrdimensionales Modell der Negation.

Talk by Paul Koenig (Frankfurt) in the Semantics Colloquium

We are happy to announce a talk by Paul Koenig (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: October 28, 2024

Time: 4 pm – 6 pm c.t.

Title: Scale theory in adjective semantics

Abstract:
Gradable adjectives cause difficulties in the analysis of their semantic and logical form due to different phenomena such as references to comparative classes, dimensional references, units of measurement, factor phrases and norm references. How the constants of the semantic form relevant for graduation are represented in the logical form, taking into account the factors mentioned, is part of the work of Bierwisch (1987), on which the approaches in this paper are based. The main objective is to use a new definition of directed intervals to specify the definitions given in Bierwisch 1987, which are intended to provide a mathematical/logical framework for the representation of the logical form, and to close problems that arise and gaps in the underlying scale theory. Directional intervals are an extension of the classic interval with a directional component. The idea is that an interval differs in whether the direction is specified, for example, from 5 to 10 or from 10 to 5. This distinguishes [5;10] from [10;5], whereby both directed intervals still contain the set of all real numbers between 5 and 10 (inclusive). With these intervals and the new definitions of e.g. combination and multiplication of directed intervals, some definitions relevant for graduation, which were only vaguely specified by Bierwisch (1987), can be made more precise. In addition, antonym pairs and sentences with units of measurement can be better represented using directed intervals.