A talk by Heidi Klockman (University of Agder)

by Nelli Kerezova Comment Closed
We are happy to announce a talk by Heidi Klockman (University of Agder) in the Historical Linguistics Colloquium. The talk will take place online and in English. Date: February 5th, 2026 Time: 2pm - 4pm c.t. Place:  https://uni-frankfurt.zoom-x.de/j/68838298277?pwd=e8ONY8oIWw7ani8jprI3bkhdUD8FCy.1  Title:  "The noun-to-quantifier shift in English and Polish quantificational pseudopartitives" Abstract:  This talk will reflect on the process by which a noun becomes a quantifier, drawing empirically on ongoing corpus work into English and Polish quantificational pseudopartitives (QPsPs). The QPsP refers to a binominal construction in which one noun (N1) quantifies over another noun (N2), as in English an ocean of ideas and lots of money or Polish kupaNOM robotyGEN ‘a heap/lot of work’. The QPsP has been a source of interest for cognitive-functional and generative linguists alike: how does a quantificational meaning arise? What changes do the N1 and QPsP undergo as grammaticalization progresses? What is the underlying syntactic structure producing the morphosyntactic properties of QPsPs? Work on English has investigated such questions primarily through advanced N1s such...
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Talk by Marius Wecker (Bochum) in the Semantics Colloquium

by Lennart Fritzsche Comment Closed
We are happy to announce a talk by Marius Wecker (Bochum) 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: January 29, 2025 Time: 4 pm – 6 pm c.t. The talk will be held in German.  Title: (Diskurse)-Commitments als Elemente politischer Positionierung. Ein theoretischer Ansatz zur Verknüpfung von formaler Pragmatik und Diskursanalyse  Abstract:  Pragmatik und Diskursanalyse repräsentieren zwei unterschiedliche Paradigmen innerhalb der Linguistik, was sich maßgeblich aus ihren jeweiligen ideengeschichtlichen Verortungen erklären lässt. Während die Pragmatik in der angloamerikanischen Tradition der analytischen Philosophie verankert ist, weist die Diskursanalyse – insbesondere in ihrem Rückgriff auf Foucault – deutliche Bezüge zu kontinentalphilosophischen Denkströmungen auf. Ziel der Arbeit ist es, beide Ansätze systematisch miteinander zu verbinden, da davon ausgegangen wird, dass sich ihre unterschiedlichen theoretischen Perspektiven und methodischen Zugänge wechselseitig fruchtbar ergänzen. Zu diesem Zweck greife ich mit dem Table-Model (Farkas & Bruce 2010) und dem Begriff des Commitments (Geurts 2019;...
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Talk by Christoph Bracks (GU, Southeast Asia Studies)

by Anna Pressler Comment Closed
We are happy to announce a talk by Christoph Bracks in the Phonology Colloquium. Room: IG 4.301 Date: Wednesday January 14th Time: 16-18 ct. Title: Phonetics, Segmental and Suprasegmental Phonology of Totoli Abstract: This talk presents key aspects of the phonetics, phonology, and prosody of Totoli, an Austronesian language, based on a forthcoming Illustration of the IPA paper to appear in the Journal of the International Phonetic Association (JIPA). As a novelty within the Illustration of the IPA genre, the paper places particular emphasis on prosody. Totoli exhibits several typologically unusual features for the region, including phonemic length contrasts in both vowels and consonants, as well as distinct allophonic realizations of /l/. These include, among other features, compensatory lengthening when in word-final position, which may give rise to potential triple-length contrasts. Furthermore, the prosodic systems of Austronesian languages remain comparatively understudied. Hence, the prosodic features observed in Totoli may offer a useful point of departure for further comparative research toward a more comprehensive understanding...
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Talk by Cécile Meier (Frankfurt) in the Semantics Colloquium

by Lennart Fritzsche Comment Closed
We are happy to announce a talk by Cécile Meier (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 18, 2025 Time: 4 pm – 6 pm c.t. Title: Adjectival Horn Scales Conzeptualized  Abstract:  Pairs of adjectives forming a Horn Scale like <smart, brilliant> are empirically quite well investigated with respect to whether they trigger scalar implicatures or not. The inference of a scalar implicature to the negation of the extreme adjective is rare and more readily derived if the extreme adjective is mentioned in the context (Doran et al. 2009). That mentioning is the not the only factor that governed the derivation of the implicature is until now under discussion. More recently, Hu et al. (2022) argued by investigating Language Models like GPT2 that the expectedness of the stronger alternative captures scalar implicature rates regardless whether the more informative alternative is mentioned in the context or...
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A talk by Ralf Plate (Frankfurt) in the Historical Linguistics Colloquium

by Nelli Kerezova Comment Closed
We are happy to announce a talk by Ralf Plate (Frankfurt) in the Historical Linguistics Colloquium. The talk will take place in person. Date: December 18, 2025 Time: 2pm - 4pm c.t. Place:  IG 2.201 Title:  "Nutzungsmöglichkeiten der Wortfamilien-Datenbank 'Wortfamilien diachron' (WoDia) am Beispiel der althochdeutschen Adjektive mit dem Präfix un-" Abstract:  Im DFG-Langfristprojekt 'Wortfamilien diachron' (WoDia) wird eine Wortfamilien-Datenbank zum älteren Hoch- und Niederdeutsch (Althochdeutsch, Mittelhochdeutsch, Altsächsisch, Mittelniederdeutsch) erarbeitet. Grundlage sind die Wortschätze der Referenzwörterbücher der vier Varietäten. Sie werden wortbildungsmorphologisch analysiert und nach ihrer Stammverwandtschaft in Wortfamilien geordnet. Das Ergebnis der Analyse wird für jedes Wort in einer hierarchisierten Strukturformel festgehalten, die seinen Wortbildungspfad beschreibt. – Im ersten Teil des Referats sollen das Projekt und seine halbautomatischen Analyseverfahren genauer vorgestellt werden. Der zweite Teil demonstriert die Recherchemöglichkeiten in der Datenbank exemplarisch an den mit dem Präfix un- abgeleiteten althochdeutschen Adjektiven und ihren verschiedenen Bildungstypen, wie sich sich an den Strukturformeln ablesen lassen. Informationen zum Projekt: https://www.uni-frankfurt.de/153903162...
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