The bi-weekly colloquium for Ph.D. students ("Doko") of the SFB 833 gave our doctoral students the opportunity to present their research or to give test talks before conferences in an informal setting.
Twice, there was a Doko summer school where (also external) speakers informed about topics relevant for the Ph.D. studies.

Our milestone program offered additional help for the Ph.D. studies: Together with their supervisors, our doctoral students set specific goals at regular intervals, the achievement of which advanced the doctorate as a whole.

In the research group “Psycholinguistics Lunch”, especially staff members who were part of projects working psycholinguistically or experimentally came together. According to desire, the results of current experiments were discussed, assistance for planned studies was given or specific experimental methods were presented. A further topic of the Psycholinguistics Lunch was the general discussion of a semantic processing model.

Contributing projects: A1, A2, A5, A7, B1, B2, B5, B7, B8, B9, C2, C3, C4, Z2

How can our linguistic assumptions and insights be sensibly used in grammar education in schools or in the development of teacher's skills? What is the state of the art with regard to research? What kind of research is done in the SFB on this topic? These and other questions were addressed in the research group.

Aims: scholarly exchange, possibility to present your own research, invitation of national & international guests, discussion of central research papers / books, discussion of methodology

Contributing projects: A1, A2, A4/T1, Z1, German Department

Among others, the following topics were discussed: Syntactic deviations in poetry, tropes (metaphor, synecdoche, metonymy) and the analysis of syntactic stylistic devices. 

Contributing projects: A2, A5, German Department

The R and statistical methods course invited all SFB-staff and associated who wanted to learn programming and doing statistics in R or wanted to refresh their skills.
AK Linear Models: The AK Linear Models worked towards an foundational understanding of linear models (simple linear models as well as logistic regression models), their general conception and applicability in linguistics.

Executing project: Z2

The research group was interested in the question of which systematic rules can be used to adequately capture combinatorial meanings that arise at the level of lexical semantics. One of the theories dedicated to this task can be found in Nicholas Asher's Type Composition Logic (Lexical Meaning in Context: A Web of Words, Cambridge University Press, 2011). This theory was intended as a base to (i) explore further theories about meaning adaptations to the semantics/pragmatics interface and (ii) to contrast these theories.

Contributing projects: A1 & B8

In the syntax research group, members of different projects came together in order to present their syntax work and to discuss issues of common interest. There were meetings to jointly read the literature in the field, to discuss research plans, and to assist with the construction of syntax experiments.

Contributing projects: A5, B8, C6

The Information Structure research group offered the opportunity to discuss topics based on the research interests of participants, providing an opportunity to present and discuss ongoing information structure related research. Central themes included the role of context in information structure interpretation, the annotation of information structure in corpora, the interaction of information structure with prosody, the role of syntax as well as the role of information structure for processing. Besides reading and discussing current papers on information structure together, our meetings provided a platform to informally discuss our own experimental studies, methodological issues, as well as to practice talks in which information structure features prominently.

Contributing projects: A4, A7, B8

Publications of the Information Structure Research Group:

Editions

• Egerland, V., Molnár, V. & Winkler, S. (Eds.) (2019). Architecture of Topic. Studies in Generative Grammar. Berlin/Boston, MA: De Gruyter.
• Featherston, S., Hörnig, R., von Wietersheim, S. & Winkler, S. (Eds.) (2019). Experiments in Focus: Information Structure and Semantic Processing. Linguistische Arbeiten. Berlin/Boston, MA: De Gruyter.
• Hartmann, J., Jäger, M., Kehl, A., Konietzko, A. & Winkler, S. (Eds.) (2018). Freezing: Theoretical Approaches and Empirical Domains. Studies in Generative Grammar. Berlin/Boston, MA: De Gruyter.

Individual Publications:

• De Kuthy, K. & Konietzko, A. (2019). Information-structural constraints on PP topicalization from NPs. In V. Egerland, V. Molnár & S. Winkler (Eds.), Architecture of Topic (pp. 203-222). Studies in Generative Grammar. Berlin/Boston, MA: De Gruyter.
• De Kuthy, K. & Stolterfoht, B. (2019). Focus projection revisited: Pitch accent perception in German. In S. Featherston, R. Hörnig, S. von Wietersheim & S. Winkler (Eds.), Experiments in Focus: Information Structure and Semantic Processing (pp. 57-70). Linguistische Arbeiten. Berlin/Boston, MA: De Gruyter.
• Hartmann, J. M. (2019). Focus and prosody in nominal copular clauses. In S. Featherston, R. Hörnig, S. von Wietersheim & S. Winkler (Eds.), Experiments in Focus: Information Structure and Semantic Processing (pp. 71-103). Linguistische Arbeiten. Berlin/Boston, MA: De Gruyter.
• Hartmann, J. M. (2018). Freezing in it-clefts: The role of the focus phrase. In J. Hartmann, M. Jäger, A. Kehl, A. Konietzko & S. Winkler (Eds.), Freezing: Theoretical Approaches and Empirical Domains (pp. 195-224). Studies in Generative Grammar. Berlin/Boston, MA: De Gruyter.
• Jäger, M. (2018). An experimental study on freezing and topicalization in English. In J. Hartmann, M. Jäger, A. Kehl, A. Konietzko & S. Winkler (Eds.), Freezing: Theoretical Approaches and Empirical Domains (pp. 430-450). Studies in Generative Grammar. Berlin/Boston, MA: De Gruyter.
• Konietzko, A. (2018). Heavy NP shift in context: On the interaction of information structure and extraction from shifted constituents. In J. M. Hartmann, M. Jäger, A. Kehl, A. Konietzko & S. Winkler (Eds.), Freezing: Theoretical Approaches and Empirical Domains (pp. 387-402). Studies in Generative Grammar. Berlin/Boston, MA: De Gruyter.
• Störzer, M. & Stolterfoht, B. (2018). Is German discourse-configurational? Experimental evidence for a topic position. Glossa: A journal of general linguistics 3(1): 20, 1-24.
• Ziai, R., De Kuthy, K. & Meurers, D. (2016). Approximating givenness in content assessment through distributional semantics. Proceedings of the Fifth Joint Conference on Lexical and Computational Semantics (*SEM) (pp. 209-218). Berlin, Germany.
• De Kuthy, K., Ziai, R. & Meurers, D. (2016). Focus annotation of task-based data: Establishing the quality of crowd annotation. Proceedings of the 10th Linguistic Annotation Workshop (LAW) 2016 (pp. 110-119). Berlin, Germany.

For further publications see the websites of the individual projects.

Contributing projects: A7 & C1

Work created within the framework of the research group:

Publications

• Berezovskaya, P. & Hörnig, R. (2019). The processing of ambiguous degree constructions in German. In A. Gattnar, R. Hörnig, M. Störzer & S. Featherston (Eds.), Proceedings of Linguistic Evidence 2018: Experimental Data Drives Linguistic Theory. Tübingen: University of Tübingen.
• Hohaus, V. & Konietzko, A. (2017). (Pseudo-)extraction from VP-proforms: The case of the comparative clause. Proceedings of the Annual Meeting of the Israel Association for Theoretical Linguistics (IATL) 31 (pp. 53-65).

Workshops

• "Reference Beyond the DP: Towards a Crosslinguistic Typology of the Syntax and Semantics of Proforms", organized by V. Hohaus (B1/C1) & A. Konietzko (A7) as part pf the DGfS-Tagung in Stuttgart, March 2018.
• "International Workshop on Variables at the Interface between Form and Meaning", July 2012.

Presentations & Posters

• Berezovskaya, P. (C1), Schlotterbeck, F. (ass. B1) & Bott, O. (ass. B1). “Processing of Ambiguous Degree Constructions in German”, Linguistic Evidence 2018, Tübingen, February 2018.
• Hohaus, V. (C1) & Konietzko, A. (A7). “VP-Proforms in Comparative Clauses: A Contrastive View on English and German.” Universität des Saarlandes, Saarbrücken, December 2016.
• Hohaus, V. (C1) & Konietzko, A. (A7). "VP-Proforms and Logical Form: The Perspective from English and German", Alternate Annual Meeting of the Israel Association for Theoretical Lingistics (IATL), October 2015.
• Hohaus, V. (C1) & Konietzko, A. (A7). “On the Concept of Proforms.” Poznań Linguistic Meeting 45, Uniwersytet im. Adama Mickiewicza w Poznaniu, September 2015.

One main focus of the research group was to discuss current theories that systematically seek to understand the interplay of lexical meaning on the one hand, and context and world knowledge on the other hand (e.g. Asher 2011, Recanati 2010). Furthermore, concrete questions of members of the working group were addressed, e.g. the interpretation of event- and state-nominalizations in context as well as the semantic annotation of nouns in the context of corpus studies.

Contributing projects: A1 & A5