Arbeitsgruppen

AG 1 | Visual Patterns in the Phonetics of Gestures

Alina Gregori (Goethe University Frankfurt), Frank Kügler (Goethe University Frankfurt), Petra Wagner (Bielefeld University)

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Human communication is a multimodal system (e.g., Wagner et al. 2014, Perniss 2018). Research on the contribution of the visual modality - in terms of gestures - to linguistics has grown in the last years. While aspects of gesture meaning and function have been intensively studied, less attention has been paid to visual and kinematic features, which nevertheless form the building blocks from which multimodal utterances constitute their meaning. To fully grasp the meaning and function of gestures and gradual variations in meaning, the phonetic characteristics of gestures need to be considered as well. Therefore, this workshop aims at bringing together researchers working on the phonetics of gestures, contributing to specify which gestural features are relevant for meaning constitution in communication and in what way. This entails features like the timing or rhythmical aspects of gestures, their physiological characteristics, as well as their (hand) shape, movement trajectories or other kinematic measures.
In this workshop, we aim at discussing the properties of visual constituents and kinematic features that affect meaning constitution and comprehension of language. We want to engage in discussions on 1) methodological issues and advancements of investigating phonetic aspects of gestures, 2) new perspectives on which gestural features are relevant individually or in an integrated relation for meaning constitution, and 3) theoretical implications for linguistic and multimodal research that can be derived from the investigation of phonetic aspects of gestures.

References
Perniss, Pamela (2018). Why We Should Study Multimodal Language. Front. Psychology 9, 1109. doi: 10.3389/fpsyg.2018.01109
Wagner, Petra, Malisz, Zofia & Kopp, Stefan (2014). Gesture and speech in interaction: An overview. Speech Communication 57, 209–232.

AG 2 | Tracing patterns across modalities – similarities and differences in speaking, writing and signing

Julia Muschalik (Heinrich-Heine-Universität Düsseldorf), Dinah Baer-Henney (Heinrich-Heine-Universität Düsseldorf), Dominic Schmitz (Heinrich-Heine-Universität Düsseldorf)

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There is ever-growing evidence of a direct influence of central processing stages on the peripheral stages in language production across modalities. In other words, structural properties directly modulate the linguistic output, which mostly surfaces as variation in the output signal. Although processing stages are generally regarded as highly integrated, the mere existence of such direct influence challenges most traditional theoretical approaches, according to which central processing would be complete before the initiation of peripheral production processes, such as articulation for speaking or hand movements for both writing and signing.
For the spoken modality, we find traces of semantic transparency, morphological status, or syntactic environment in the acoustic signal (e.g., Schmitz et al. 2021). Similarly, written and signed language production have been shown to be susceptible to sublexical differences (e.g., Börstell et al. 2024; Muschalik et al. 2024). It seems there are striking parallels between the modalities, yet findings are still mostly discussed modality-specific and independently of one another. We argue that the traces of central processing we find in the cross-modal periphery can be used to shed further light on more general patterns in language processing and the intricate interplay between language modalities.
This workshop aims at taking a cross-modal perspective, highlighting similarities and differences between existing modality-specific findings, to discuss language production as a modality-spanning cognitive process. The workshop invites researchers with different areas of complementary expertise, ranging from spoken and written to signed language processing. Contributions that may build bridges between modalities and invite cross-modal comparison are particularly welcome.
Börstell, C., Schembri, A. C., & Crasborn, O. (2024). Sign duration and signing rate in British Sign Language, Dutch Sign Language and Swedish Sign Language. Glossa Psycholinguistics, 3(1), doi.org/10.5070/G60111915
Muschalik, J., Schmitz, D., Kakolu Ramarao, A., Baer-Henney, D. (2024). Typing /s/—morphology between the keys? Reading and Writing. doi.org/10.1007/s11145-024-10586-9
Schmitz, D., Baer-Henney, D., & Plag, I. (2021). The duration of word-final /s/ differs across morphological categories in English: Evidence from pseudowords. Phonetica, 78(5–6), 571–616. doi.org/10.1515/phon-2021-2013

AG 3 | m e e e e e e g a g e i l e Muster von InTeNsIvIeRuNG!!11elf

Annelen Brunner (IDS Mannheim), Louis Cotgrove (IDS Mannheim), Katja Politt (Universität Bielefeld), Alexander Willich (Heinrich-Heine-Universität Düsseldorf)

Inhaltliche Ziele und Forschungshintergrund: Die AG widmet sich der formalen und funktionalen Vielfalt von Intensivierung, z.B. welche Strategien und Konstruktionen in sprachlichen Ausdrücken verwendet werden, in welchen Kontexten sie auftreten und welche semiotischen Elemente intensivierbar sind. Das Spektrum umfasst nicht nur lexikogrammatische (z. B. Gradpartikeln, Wiederholungen), sondern auch darüberhinausgehende Phänomene wie graphische Mittel (z. B. Großschreibung, Interpunktionsverstärkung) als Formen der schriftsprachlichen Intensivierung (Napoli/Ravetto 2017).
Ein besonderes Augenmerk gilt der Musterhaftigkeit und Kreativität von Intensivierungs-strategien. Während sich bestimmte Verfahren als konventionalisierte Muster beschreiben lassen, sind andere höchst variabel, für Innovationen anfällig und kom-binierbar (Cotgrove 2025). Dies wirft theoretische und empirische Fragen nach dem Verhältnis von Konvention und Variation auf: In welchem Maße folgen Intensivierungen wiederkehrenden Form-Funktions-Mustern? Welche Formen der Variation (sozial, stilistisch, medial) lassen sich beobachten, und wie sind diese zu beschreiben?
angesprochener Interessentenkreis und mögliche Themenbereiche: Wir freuen uns auf einen Austausch zu einem Phänomen, das an der Schnittstelle von Lexik, Grammatik, Pragmatik und Semantik liegt. Willkommen sind aktuelle Arbeiten, die sich mit empirischen Untersuchungen zu spezifischen Intensivierungsstrategien befassen sowie mit der Rolle von Intensivierung in unterschiedlichen Diskursen, Genres oder Varietäten. Ebenfalls von Interesse sind Arbeiten, die sich mit der Frage auseinandersetzen, wie sich von der empirischen Analyse ausgehend theoretische Modelle sprachlicher Intensivierung entwickeln lassen – und umgekehrt, wie theoretische Konzepte die empirische Analyse leiten können.

Cotgrove, L. (2025): Entstehende Arten von Intensivierung in der digitalen Kommunikation junger Menschen. In: Deutsche Sprache 1/2025, 2–18.
Napoli, M./Ravetto, M. (2017): New insights on intensification and intensifiers. In: Napoli, M./Ravetto, M. (Hg.): Exploring Intensification. Amsterdam: Benjamins, 1–12.

AG 4 | Finding patterns through Fieldwork in African Languages

Johannes Mursell (Goethe-Universität Frankfurt), Katharina Hartmann (Goethe-Universität Frankfurt)

Linguistic research and theory construction has for a long time been conducted from a very Eurocentric perspective and mainly based on intuition. This type of armchair linguistics has been rightfully criticized, but fortunately, the last decades have seen a shift to more empirically oriented methods. Naturally, these methods were initially applied to well-known languages like English and German. However, more recently, empirical methods have also been more consistently applied to understudied languages.
With his methodologically oriented workshop we want to initiate an exchange on how to elicit linguistic patterns in one of these linguistically understudied regions, in West-African languages. Set against the background of a rising interest in research in African languages in all linguistic disciplines, empirically oriented methods gain more and more importance. The first goal of this workshop is to create a platform for linguists to discuss and compare the broad variety of linguistic fieldwork methodologies that are used across the disciplines and the kind of data these methods serve to elicit, as well as the advantages and disadvantages of the diverse approaches. Since the languages of West Africa show typologically very interesting patterns, combining rich functional morphology with properties of tonal languages, we expect to discuss a variety of approaches targeted at different types of data.
As a second goal, the workshop seeks to combine the methodological insights with potential results in theoretical linguistics, thus the question of which kind of data can be best gathered with which type of methods will be central. The more theoretically oriented aims of the workshop are first, to discuss how patterns leading to new predictions in theoretical linguistics can be elicited; second, to show how fieldwork may develop theoretical knowledge into hitherto poorly understood areas of linguistics, and third, to evaluate to which extent fieldwork may be filling gaps in the theoretical model.
The workshop will not only address classical approaches to fieldwork but also invite contributions from more recent methods, including experimental work. Thus, the workshop addresses linguists from different fields such as syntax, phonology, semantics, morphology, psycholinguistics who perform empirically oriented work on West-African languages.

AG 5 | Tracing mismatches: Deviations from One-to-one Patterns

Luke Adamson (ZAS), Zorica Puškar-Gallien (ZAS), Kazuko Yatsushiro (ZAS)

While mismatch-related phenomena are often analyzed independently of each other, the objective of this workshop is to bring together different strands of research and identify common patterns and their underlying causes. We understand ‘mismatches’ as deviations from one-to-one mappings between categories across grammatical modules (Francis & Michaelis 2003, Fenger & Weisser 2023).
Questions include: When do mismatches occur? What are the common/diverging characteristics of mismatches across different modules of grammar? What do mismatches tell us about interfaces? What are the effects of adult-grammar mismatches on language acquisition?
We welcome submissions across subfields (e.g. syntax, semantics, morphology, pragmatics, phonology) on mismatches within word-, phrase- and clause-levels. Relevant topics include, but are not limited to, markedness (morphological vs. semantic), mismatches in conjunctions/disjunctions (agreement, subordination), locality domains, hybrid agreement, honorification (e.g. Kaur & Yamada 2022), sequence of tense, tense/aspect/mood interactions, perspectival shifts, suppletion, syncretism, multiple exponence, and commission errors in language acquisition.

Select References
Fenger, Paula and Philipp Weisser. 2023. Matching domains in syntax, morphology, and phonology in the Sinhala verb. Manuscript.
Francis, Elaine J. and Laura A. Michaelis. 2003. Mismatch: a crucible for linguistic theory. in Elaine J. Francis & Laura A. Michaelis (eds.), Mismatch: Form function Incongruity and the Architecture of Grammar. 1-27. Stanford, CA: CSLI.
Kaur, Gurmeet and Akitaka Yamada. 2022. Honorific (mis)matches in allocutive languages with a focus on Japanese. Glossa 44(1).

AG 6 | Patterns in linguistic avoidance

Jones Anam (Technische Universität Dortmund), Lena Jubeliu (Technische Universität Dortmund), Natalie Verelst (Technische Universität Dortmund), Christian Zimmer (Technische Universität Dortmund)

Linguistic avoidance arises in contexts where language users either choose not to, cannot, or are not permitted to use certain forms directly – due to individual preferences, institutional constraints, or social norms. Avoidance may require a certain degree of metalinguistic awareness on the part of the language user and can sometimes be linked to taboo (cf. Allan & Burridge 2006). Numerous examples from various contexts show how it may impact language on different levels: structural effects emerge in the phonemisation of click consonants in Nguni languages, where taboo lexical items were replaced by borrowings containing clicks (Irvine & Gal 2000); avoidance is a key strategy in mitigating face threats in politeness (cf. Brown & Levinson 1987); strategies like algospeak (e.g., k!ll for kill) aim to circumvent algorithmic context moderation online; politically correct language use is a prominent example, including gender-neutral forms as alternatives to gendered expressions (e.g., German Studierende for Studenten und Studentinnen or Student*innen ‘students’); avoidance shapes naming practices: vegan or vegetarian food names often allude to, but do not explicitly name animal products (e.g., Visch for vegetarian “fish”, whereby <v> carries a conventionalised meaning) to sidestep food-labelling regulations (De Wilde 2024); certain proper names may be replaced by alternatives such as lexemes, pronouns, or initials for various reasons (Nübling 2023), and grammatical taboo describes the avoidance of specific grammatical structures in a certain register (Vogel 2018).
While avoidance in pragmatics and semantics has been widely studied, less attention has been paid to its structural dimensions and the specific linguistic forms that arise from it. This raises a number of open research questions, including but not limited to:

  • What linguistic patterns emerge through avoidance, and to what extent do these alternative structures become conventionalised or systematised within a language? How do processes of avoidance affect language change?
  • In which contexts – whether social, institutional, or psychological – is direct communication restricted, discouraged, or impossible, and how do avoidance strategies relate to the underlying reasons for avoidance?
  • How do language users interact with avoided content? What attitudes and/or ideologies are associated with avoidance practices, how is meaning negotiated, and how (if at all) is it reflected metalinguistically in the absence of direct expression?
  • To what extent do avoidance practices differ across languages, registers, or modalities, and what does this reveal about the interface between linguistic structure, usage, and sociocultural constraints?

References
Allan, Keith & Kate Burridge. 2006. Forbidden words. Taboo and the censoring of language. Cambridge: Cambridge University Press.
Brown, Penelope & Stephen C. Levinson. 1987. Politeness: some universals in language usage. Cambridge: Cambridge University Press.
De Wilde, Truus. 2024. Naming strategies for vegetarian and vegan food. Presented at the Germanic Sandwich 9, Lancaster University, UK.
Irvine, Judith T. & Susan Gal. 2000. Language Ideology and Linguistic Differentiation. In Paul V. Kroskrity (ed.), Regimes of language: ideologies, polities, and identities, 35–84. Santa Fe, NM: School of American Research Press.
Nübling, Damaris. 2023. Verweigerte Referenz? Was es bedeutet, Namen nicht in den Mund zu nehmen. Beiträge zur Namenforschung 58(1/2). 229–254.
Vogel, Ralf. 2018. Sociocultural Determinants of Grammatical Taboos in German. In Liudmila Liashchova (ed.), The Explicit and the Implicit in Language and Speech, 116–153. Newcastle upon Tyne: Cambridge Scholars Publishing.

AG 7 | More than just Noise: Detecting Patterns in Acceptability Judgement Data

Jana Häussler (Universität Bielefeld), Thomas Weskott (Georg-August-Universität Göttingen), Sarah Zobel (Leibniz Universität Hannover / Humboldt-Universität zu Berlin)

One of the most widely employed tools to detect patterns in linguistics is the Acceptability Judgment Task (AJT; see Goodall 2018). In its controlled, experimental form, it is usually employed to investigate a certain linguistic phenomenon (the fixed effect) by presenting multiple instantiations of the factor conditions (a sample of items) to a sample of participants. The goal is to generalize from these samples to the respective populations of participants and items by means of inferential statistic procedures. These procedures usually treat the variance contributed by the participant and item samples, the random effects, as “unsystematic” which is just used to estimate the variance of the population parameters. This view, which mostly discards participant and item properties as “noise”, has recently been challenged (cf. Barr 2018) by shifting the target of generalization from item and participant populations to encounters of stimuli and participants’ cognitive systems. We contend that this shift in perspective opens up a more prolific view on what is measured in the
AJT. Acceptability is, after all, the result of a multifactorial process involving participant-related properties (attention, working memory, literacy, proficiency in first/second language, etc.), as well as item-related ones (complexity, frequency, canonicity/normativity, dialect/register, etc.), all of which may interact with the fixed
effects and with each other, and potentially do so in a systematic fashion. In order to explore this alternative perspective, we invite contributions from all subfields of experimental lingusitics. They should be directed at detecting patterns from the “random” effects in AJT data by systematically investigating the effects of participant/item-related properties on phonological, morphological, syntactic,
or semantic-pragmatic effects. Pertinent contributions will address the problem of how to detect patterns in participant/item-related variables by presenting empirical work that employs, e.g., norming/benchmarking techniques, stratified sampling, hierarchical regression models, multi-dimensional scaling, or any other methodological or statistical tool that shows how we can make more sense of the variance in acceptability data. We are confident that by providing a forum to discuss both the theoretical and the empirical implications of this shift in perspective will contribute to a better understanding of how sampling contributes to the patterns in linguistic acceptability judgments.

Barr, Dale J. (2018). Generalizing over encounters: Statistical and theoretical considerations. In Rueschemeyer & Gaskell (eds.). Oxford Handbook of Psycholinguistics, 917–929. Oxford: OUP.
Goodall, Grant (ed.). 2018. The Cambridge Handbook of Experimental Syntax. Cambridge, UK: CUP.

AG 8 | Zur psycholinguistischen Fundierung grammatikdidaktischer Methoden

Anja Müller (Johannes Gutenberg-Universität Mainz), Björn Rothstein (Ruhr-Universität Bochum), Sabrina Geyer (Pädagogische Hochschule Heidelberg)

Die im schulischen Grammatikunterricht (GU) eingesetzten linguistischen Analyseverfahren (= Methoden; z.B. die Umstellprobe zur Satzgliedbestimmung oder zur Überarbeitung von Satzanfängen) werden seit Jahrzehnten kontrovers diskutiert, i.d.R. aus didaktischer und/oder linguistischer Perspektive (u.a. Hoffmann, 2012). Mit dem erfolgreichen Einsatz dieser Methoden gehen eine Reihe bestimmter sprachlicher Fähigkeiten einher, die auf Seiten der Lernenden vorausgesetzt werden, wie bspw. die Produktion und Interpretation topikalisierter Sätze, Grammatikalitäts- und Akzeptabilitätsurteile. Inwieweit Lernende über die geforderten sprachlichen Fähigkeiten bereits verfügen, scheint jedoch für den Einsatz der Methoden im GU keine Rolle zu spielen. Spracherwerbstheoretische und sprachstandsbezogene, auch heterogenitätssensible Erkenntnisse werden bei der Auswahl von grammatischen Methoden bislang nicht berücksichtigt, weswegen die Reflexion sprachlicher Muster und sprachreflexives Lernen ggf. nicht oder nur eingeschränkt erfolgen kann. Dieses Desiderat greift die AG auf. Im Rahmen der AG sollen die Methoden des GU und die sprachlichen Anforderungen, die mit ihnen einhergehen, diskutiert werden. Erwünscht sind Beiträge, die aus einer psycholinguistischen Perspektive untersuchen,

  • welche sprachlichen Anforderungen mit dem im GU verwendeten Methoden einhergehen,
  • inwieweit Lernende über die für einen erfolgreichen Einsatz der Methoden benötigten sprachlichen Fähigkeiten bereits verfügen,
  • inwieweit die Methoden des GU für ein- und mehrsprachig aufwachsende Lernende die gleichen Anforderungen mit sich bringen.

Hoffmann, L. (2012). Testverfahren für den Grammatikunterricht? Versuch einer Einschätzung. In H. Roll & A. Schilling (Eds.). Mehrsprachigkeit im Fokus (pp. 169–189). Universitätsverlag Rhein-Ruhr.

AG 9 | Linguistic patterns of textual organization across registers

Stella Neumann (RWTH Aachen University), Stephanie Evert (FAU Erlangen-Nürnberg), Gerold Schneider (Universität Zürich)

Register refers to linguistic patterns associated with particular situational contexts (Seoane & Biber, 2021, p. 2), where the linguistic patterns are clusters of features having a greater-than random likelihood to co-occur. In register studies, the focus has traditionally been on the aggregative analysis of lexico-grammatical features in entire texts, thus neglecting the dynamic unfolding of situations – linked by the above definition to register – over time. However, the situational characterisation of a text as unfolding over time should not only allow predictions about characteristic linguistic features, but also when these features can be expected to occur in the unfolding text. In linguistics, this sequential character has been mainly linked to genre, defined as a goal-oriented activity enacting social practices of a culture that exhibits a recurring structure in the form of stages or moves (Swales, 1990). These approaches, however, tend to neglect the well-documented linguistic variation across registers, as well as recent progress in large language models (LLM), which have been applied to text structure segmentation (e.g. Braud et al., 2023). This workshop aims to bring together research from all three fields – register, genre, and computational linguistics – to explore the interface between them and the possibility of integrating the temporal dynamics of textual organisation with the situational patterning reflected in register.
Expected theoretical and empirical submissions would cover the cross-section of register studies with (i) rhetorical structure theory, (ii) genre/move analysis, (iii) interactional linguistics, (iv) computational approaches to discourse structure, or (v) quantitative linguistics and LLM research.

Braud, C., Liu, Y. J., Metheniti, E., Muller, P., Rivière, L., Rutherford, A., and Zeldes, A. 2023. The DISRPT 2023 shared task on elementary discourse unit segmentation, connective detection, and relation classification. In Proceedings of the 3rd Shared Task on Discourse Relation Parsing and Treebanking (DISRPT 2023), 1–21. Toronto: Association for Computational Linguistics.
Seoane, E., & Biber, D. 2021. A corpus-based approach to register variation. In E. Seoane & D. Biber (Eds.), Corpus-based approaches to register variation, 2–17. Amsterdam: Benjamins.
Swales, J. M. 1990. Genre Analysis. English in Academic and Research Settings. Cambridge: CUP.

AG 10 | Tracing the patterns of (non-)splittability in Germanic: structures, methods, comparison (Kurz-AG)

Nicholas Catasso (Bergische Universität Wuppertal), Nathalie Fromm (Bergische Universität Wuppertal), Benjamin L. Sluckin (Ruhr-Universität Bochum)

All Germanic languages exhibit patterns in which two components of a constituent interpreted as a semantic complex surface in a discontinuous syntactic configuration. Such constructions include, e.g., so-called what-for-phrases (1), locative adverbs featuring indexical particles (2), preposition adverbs (3), and aggressively non-D-linked expressions (4):

  1. [Hva]ihar du lest [tifor slags bok]? (Norwegian)
    what have you read for sorts book
    ‘What kind of book did you read?’ (Leu 2008: 5)
  2. [Waar]iis jy op pad [tiheen]? (Afrikaans)
    where are you on way LOC.PRT
    ‘Where are you going?’ (Donaldson 1993: 323)
  3. [Da]i richten sich die Leute [tinach]. (German)
    there follow REFL the people to
    ‘People act accordingly.’ (Negele 2012: 79)
  4. [Waarom]iheb je [ti in godsnaam] toch Obama geïnterviewd? (Dutch)
    why have you in God’s.name PRT Obama interviewed
    ‘Why on Earth did you interview Obama?’ (Corver 2021: 166)

These patterns, which are all optional and complete with their non-split counterpart, are interesting for a numer of reasons. Syntactically, they appear to challenge both the Left-Branch Condition (Ross 1967) – the most leftward element should not be extractable from the original NP – and the Subjacency Principle (Chomsky 1973) unless explained away via explicit formal postulations (Corver 1990). As for the environmental conditions governing their use, the alternation between these constructions and their non-split competitors in individual languages is subject to strong dialectal, sociolinguistic and interspeaker variation (e.g. Donaldson 1993: 223, Fleischer 2002, Leu 2008: 16, Negele 2012, Höder 2014). However, the specific (conspiracies of) conditions that license the split patterns are yet to be fully and satisfactorily unveiled. Furthermore, many aspects concerning their diachronic developement are still lacking in-depth investigation (Cirkel & Freywald 2021). The aim of this workshop is to bring together linguists from different areas of morphosyntax and of different theoretical persuasions who are interested in exploring the factors influencing the realization of these patterns both in synchrony and in diachrony. The workshop will focus on – but will not be limited to – the following research questions: (i) What factors favor or hinder split vs. non-split patterns? (ii) What structural correlates of (individual) Germanic (languages) license the use of the discontinuous patterns and why is this optional splittability excluded in other language groups (e.g. in Romance)? (iii) Which empirical methods are most effective for investigating such patterns? (iv) Are such alternations evidence for genuine syntactic optionality (cf. Biberauer & Richards 2006)?

AG 11 | Approaches to NPIs and their licensing conditions – Anything new? (Kurz-AG)

Carolin Reinert (Goethe-Universität Frankfurt), Farbod Khouzani (Goethe-Universität Frankfurt)

Negative polarity items (NPIs) and their licensing conditions have long been the subject of extensive research. The fact that NPIs display certain distributional similarities and differences at the same time is a discernible pattern across languages. There have been several attempts to account for the heterogeneous distribution of NPIs by referring to syntactic, semantic, or pragmatic properties of the contexts containing them (Buyssens 1959, Ladusaw 1979, von Bergen & von Bergen 1993, Krifka 1995, van der Wouden 1997, Zwarts 1998, Zeijlstra 2004, Hoeksema 2012, Sailer 2021 among others). While there appears to be more or less consensus on the ability of specific contexts (e.g., sentential negation, conditional clauses) to license NPIs, other contexts (e.g., interrogatives, consecutive clauses) have caused more controversy. Cross-linguistically, the distributional patterns diverge. For instance, only negation can license the English NPI yet, whereas the NPI ever can additionally be licensed by interrogatives and many other downward entailing contexts. In contrast, the German semantic equivalent je(mals) (`ever`) cannot be licensed by clause-mate sentential negation, and others like irgendwann (`sometime/ever`) and noch (`still/yet`) are not even NPIs. For these reasons, it seems difficult to clearly define a unified and cross-linguistically applicable notion of NPI and NPI licensing conditions. In this working group, we therefore wish to provide a platform for researchers from all career stages to share and discuss new findings (e.g., from synchronic and diachronic corpus research, different experimental methodologies, fieldwork, and research on language acquisition) on the following questions:

  1. Can NPIs and their distribution be predicted uniformly and cross-linguistically, or must NPIs be considered individual descriptive phenomena, each with unique characteristics?
  2. How do syntax, semantics, or even pragmatics play a role in NPI licensing?
  3. Is NPI licensing only a matter of negativity (often captured in terms of downward entailment, e.g., Ladusaw 1979), or are other factors (such as scalarity, e.g., Israel 2011) also involved?
  4. Are the crucial properties, whatever they may be, structured hierarchically (Zwarts 1998, Hoeksema 2012 among others), or do they have an idiosyncratic distribution?

AG 12 | Exploring what is not the case – Methods for investigating negation (Kurz-AG)

Merle Weicker (Goethe-Universität Frankfurt), Carolin Dudschig (Universität Tübingen), Yvonne Portele (Freie Universität Berlin)

Negation is a universal property of human language that allows us to express and to reason about what is not the case. Although negation is a ubiquitous phenomenon, experimental investigation has repeatedly shown that negative sentences are more difficult to process and more difficult to elicit than affirmative ones. A second key finding is that contextual support can facilitate negation processing and can increase the likelyhood of producing negation. Despite the substantial progress in empirical negation research, there are still unresolved questions. The workshop aims to address, but is not limited to, the following issues:

  • Negation is a propositional operator that must be processed. A comparable operator is usually absent in affirmative sentences. Is their comparison appropriate? Are there structures that would be more suitable for comparison with negative sentences?
  • Previous research has manipulated contextual features in several ways with mixed results. What exactly makes a context likely to trigger negation in production and ease negation in comprehension? What are specific contextual markers establishing pragmatic licensing of negation that should be systematically varied?
  • What are requirements for specific methods (e.g., types of pictures used in visual world paradigms) or specific populations (e.g., children)?
  • Do previous negation findings generalize to related phenomena such as cancellation or prohibition?
  • Which role do prosodic features and nonverbal signals (e.g., a headshake) play in negation processing?
  • (How) can large language models, which sometimes still have difficulties with negation, contribute to the experimental investigation of negation?

The primary goal of the workshop is to discuss challenges and best practices in empirical negation research in order to advance current methodologies used in this area. We particularly invite contributions from a processing, acquisition, and experimental linguistic perspective. The workshop may also be relevant for corpus or fieldwork research that addresses the above topics. We explicitly welcome contributions on languages beyond English.

AG 13 | Prosodic and Segmental Patterns in Morphology (Kurz-AG)

Dominique Stephan Bobeck (Universität Leipzig), Hamza Khwaja (Universität Leiden), Nabila Louriz (Universität Hassan II. Casablanca)

In the past few years, research on the interaction between distinct linguistic interfaces has gained a growing amount of interest. A particular fruitful research topic has turned out to be templatic morphology, constituting a special testing area for linguistic theory where the interfaces of phonology, morphology, and syntax interact. Templatic morphology (TM) is characterised by morphological exponents that are either expressed by an invariant prosodic shape or by affixes that require a templatic form of the base to which they attach. Typical examples are from the Semitic languages, such as Palestinian Arabic suxn ‘hot’, byusxun ‘it becomes hot’, saxxan ‘he heated (sth.) up’, sxūne ‘fever’, and Penutian languages, such as the stem for ‘to hunt’ in Southern Sierra Miwok: halːik-, halik-, halki-, and haːlik-. Templates are also visible in language games and the truncation of proper names in the sense that syllabic templates determine the truncated form, as in case of German Sebastian → Basti ~ Sebi.
It is still debatable what formal and functional mechanisms drive templatic morphology. According to various morphological approaches, templatic forms are either due to direct morphological manipulation of phonology or represent an emergent property resulting from complex interactions of exponents with contiguity and phonotactics. The topic is highly relevant to both phonological and morphological frameworks, different versions of Optimality Theory, feature-based vs. Government Phonology, word- vs. morpheme-based morphology, and processes vs. morphemes. Moreover, we seek to test the reality of these formalisations against cognitive approaches to TM which thus far have remained rare. This leads to a highly interdisciplinary approach for this workshop, addressing phonological and morphosyntactic, theoretical and cognitive linguists. Therefore, the following possible topics will be addressed in this working group: TM in general, root-and-pattern morphology, truncation, implications for linguistic theory, the cognitive reality of templates.
Several scholars are likely to be interested in this workshop, mostly phonologists and morphologists, such as R. van de Vijver (HHU Düsseldorf), J. Nieder (U Passau), A. Gafos (U Potsdam), R. Raffelsiefen (IDS), E. Zimmermann (U Leipzig), M. Krämer (U Tromsø), B. Alber (FU Bozen-Bolzano), S. Arndt-Lappe (U Trier), N. Faust (U Paris 8), O. Bat-El (U Tel Aviv), L. Laks (BIU), A. Idrissi (Qatar U), Si Berrebi (MIT), and I. Kastner (U Edinburgh).

AG 14 | Die Sprachentwicklung neuzugewanderter Schüler:innen in deutschen Schulen (Kurz-AG)

Sonja Eisenbeiß (Universität zu Köln), Nicole Marx (Universität zu Köln), Matthias Schwendemann (Universität Leipzig)

Aktuell machen Zugewanderte etwa 13% der Gesamtpopulation im Alter von 5-20 Jahren in Deutschland aus, wobei ca. 9% erst im schulpflichtigen Alter immigriert sind – eine deutliche Erhöhung gegenüber nur 3-5% im Jahr 2019 und nur 1% im Jahr 2013 (https://www-genesis.destatis.de/datenbank/online/statistic/12711/details). Diese Lernenden erlernen die deutsche Sprache i.d.R. erst ab dem Eintritt in das deutsche Bildungssystem, wo sie in unterschiedlichen Modellen – entweder direkt oder nach kurzer Zeit – den (deutschsprachigen) Fachunterricht gemeinsam mit nicht Zugewanderten belegen. Somit ist das zügige Erlernen der deutschen Sprache ein zentrales Ziel für deren schulischen Integration. Allerdings spiegelt sich die steigende bildungspolitische Bedeutung von neuzugewanderten Schüler:innen und ihrer sprachlichen Entwicklung nicht im aktuellen Forschungsstand wider (Fleckenstein et al. 2021; Gamper et al. 2020; Twente & Marx eingereicht): Sprachliche Fähigkeiten und Entwicklungsverläufe der Zielgruppe werden kaum – oder kaum aussagekräftig – erhoben. So erfassen selbst Großstudien wie PISA oder NEPS nur kleinere und heterogene Stichproben Neuzugewanderter und sind daher in ihrer Aussagekraft eingeschränkt, während auch spezifisch ausgerichtete, umfangreichere Untersuchungen wie ReGES primär soziale und allgemeine bildungsbezogene Faktoren – aber nicht Sprache – erheben. Die wenigen Forschungsarbeiten, die explizit auf Sprachkompetenzen abzielen, basieren typischerweise auf kleinen, nicht-repräsentativen Stichproben ohne longitudinales Design und konzentrieren sich häufig auf spezifische Subpopulationen. Die Beiträge der AG sollen vorhandene Ergebnisse zusammentragen, methodische und ethische Probleme diskutieren, dringende Forschungsdesiderata herausarbeiten, und die Basis für kooperative Forschungsprojekte zur sprachlichen Entwicklung dieser Schüler:innen unter verschiedenen schulischen und außerschulischen Rahmenbedingungen bilden.

Literaturangaben
Fleckenstein, Johanna, Débora B. Maehler, Steffen Pötzschke, Howard Ramos & Paul Pritchard. 2021. Language as a predictor and an outcome of acculturation: A review of research on refugee children and youth. In Sieglinde Jornitz & Annika Wilmers (eds.), International perspectives on school settings, education policy and digital strategies. A transatlantic discourse in education research, 110–119. Leverkusen-Opladen: Verlag Barbara Budrich.
Gamper, Jana, Nicole Marx, Evelyn Röttger & Dorotheé Steinbock (eds.). 2020. Themenschwerpunkt Beschulung von Neuzugewanderten. Informationen Deutsch als Fremdsprache (InfoDaF) [Special issue]. Info DaF, 47(4).
Twente, Leonie & Nicole Marx. eingereicht. How do we research language skills and linguistic repertoires of newly immigrated students? A scoping review of studies in German-majority contexts.

AG 15 | Phraseme in Beziehung: Phonologie – Assimilation – Informationsstruktur (Kurz-AG)

Carolin Cholotta (Otto-Friedrich-Universität Bamberg), Yeonsuk Yun (Otto-Friedrich-Universität Bamberg), Patrizia Noel (Otto-Friedrich-Universität Bamberg)

Die Phraseologie beschäftigt sich traditionell mit der Musterhaftigkeit der Sprache. Von Sprichwörtern über Idiome hin zu Phraseoschablonen spannt sich eine heterogene Gruppe. Allen Phrasemtypen gemein ist die Festigkeit, die die Wortkombinationen zu einem sprachlichen Muster verbindet. Die Interaktionen mit verschiedenen Bereichen des Sprachsystems sind genauso divers wie der Untersuchungsgegenstand selbst; allerdings stehen insbesondere Phonologie und Prosodie bislang nur vereinzelt im Fokus: Publikationen untersuchten u.a. die Realisierungen intonatorischer und syntaktischer Grenzen in verbalen Idiomen (Grigorova, Gâlâbova 2002), die Identifizierung formelhafter Sprache anhand prosodischer Merkmale (Lin 2018) oder die Akzentuierung von Phraseoschablonen (Pavlova 2022), die als maßgeblich für die Musterbildung dieses Phrasemtyps gilt.
Ein weiterer interaktionaler Aspekt ist die Rolle der Assimilation. Assimilationen zeigen, dass Phraseme nicht völlig starr sind, sondern sich flexibel verhalten, z.B. bei aufs Glatteis führen im Vergleich zu auf das Glatteis führen. Assimilation innerhalb von Phrasemen erweist sich nicht primär als Ausspracheerleichterung, sondern insbesondere als systemhaft.
Ein weiterer Bereich, der bislang in der Phraseologie selten beleuchtet wurde, sind informationsstrukturelle Aspekte. In diesem Zusammenhang ergeben sich Fragen zu den Auswirkungen von Topik und Fokus auf die prosodische Gestalt von Phrasemen und Mustern, wie z.B. in Sie [greift ihm unter die ARme]F im Gegensatz zu Sie greift ihm [UNter die Arme]F.
Die Arbeitsgruppe befasst sich mit Phrasemen im Bereich der Interaktionen zwischen Phonologie, Assimilationen und Informationsstruktur und richtet sich an Forschende aus unterschiedlichen theoretischen Ausrichtungen mit Interesse an Fragestellungen wie:

  • Welche phonologischen Faktoren beeinflussen die Form und Realisierung von Phrasemen?
  • Welche syntaktischen Bedingungen wirken auf die Struktur von Phrasemen?
  • Inwiefern regulieren informationsstrukturelle Aspekte die Gestaltung von Phrasemen?

Von Interesse ist dabei ein korpusphonologischer Zugang, der es erlaubt, prosodische und phonologische Eigenschaften phraseologischer Muster empirisch zu erfassen.

Grigorova, Evelina & Natalija Gâlâbova (2002). Einige prosodisch-intonatorische Besonderheiten deutscher Phraseologismen. In Festschrift für Max Mangold zum 80. Geburtstag. Phonus. W.J. Barry & Manfred Pützer (Hg.), 87–101. Saarbrücken.
Lin, Phoebe (2020). Prosody of formulaic sequences: a corpus and discourse approach. Research in Corpus and Discourse. London.
Pavlova, Anna: „Im Leben nicht!“: Prosodie in deutscher und russischer Phraseologie. In Aktuelle Trends in der phraseologischen und parömiologischen Forschung weltweit. A. Gondek et al. (Hg.), 355–376. Hamburg.