Researchprofile


In my research program I combine the latest methodologic and theoretical insights of modern linguistics, following a comparatistic approach including detailed descriptions of (a few) languages, to receive a universal picture of the structure of language. I examine this central interest from different perspectives.



Other Researchactivity


Current projects

closed projects

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Scientific cooperations and networks

since 2002 International network "research network for referntial categories in spanisch and other romance languges (Nereus)" including a conference series (every second year) and other events.
October 2008 Founding member, director and speaker of the interfaculty research association "Sprachwissenschaft und Kognition (FSK)" at the University of Stuttgart.
October 2009 Founding member of the networtk "Semantik und Pragmatik im Südwesten" and organizer of the first conference (SPSW1) in Stuttgart.
October 2010 -
september 2011		 On my suggestion Mrs. Prof. Jaklin Kornfilt, Syracuse University, USA, received the "Humboldt-Forschungspreis". In this time, as guest at my chair, she will run a project about partitivity in altaistic languages with me.
January 2010 Founding member for the "Stuttgart Resarch Center für komplexe Systeme und Kommunikation".


Linguistics in public

Reseach Interests


Philosophy of Language / General Linguistics

Historical and systematic foundations of linguistics, foundations of semantics, Philosophy of language, reference, truth, antinomies, semiotics, interdisciplinary work


Semantics / Pragmatics

semantics of noun phrases and anaphora, definiteness and specificity, choice function and epsilon operator, salience, semantics-pragmatics interface


Syntax / Morphology

categorial grammars and their historical foundations, relative clauses and nominalizations, semantics of derivational morphology


Prosody / Discourse / Information Structure

focus and information structure, prosody, intonation and discourse structure


Diachronic Linguistics

meaning change and variation, diachronic morphology


Crosslinguistic Approaches

crosslinguistic analyses (definiteness, specificity), differentiated object marking (Romance Languages, Turkish)