Research
It has been a standard assumption in linguistic theory, based on Frege’s principle of compositionality (cf. Frege 1884, 1892), that the meaning of a sentence is composed on the basis of the meaning of its parts and the way these parts are structured. However, it is not really clear that there exists a transparent, bi-directional mapping between (morphosyntactic) form and (semantic/pragmatic) meaning. Many phenomena challenge the existence of such a mapping. Such challenges either exist in the form of morphosyntactic elements that do not seem to provide a semantic/pragmatic contribution, or in the form of meaning parts that lack a morphosyntactic realization. Hence, either the mapping between form and meaning (in its broadest sense) in natural language is less transparent than one might think, or morphosyntactic and/or semantic/pragmatic structures may be richer than they appear. This RTG seeks to investigate and understand what this mapping exactly amounts to.
To this end, the RTG will examine a wide range of case studies involving potential challenges for this mapping. The case studies cover a wide range of languages, and the specific questions of the projects cover all core areas of linguistics: grammatical theory (morphology, syntax, semantics, pragmatics), linguistic variation including sign languages, language change, language processing and language acquisition.
PhD Projects-Second Cohort (start 2024)
- • Ideophones in spoken languages
- PhD student: Josiah Neequaye
- Supervisors: Markus Steinbach, Hedde Zeijlstra, Anke Holler
- Supervisors: Markus Steinbach, Hedde Zeijlstra, Anke Holler
- • Variation and multifunctionality in Cabo Verdean Creole
- PhD student: Rebecca Arkell
- Supervisors: Stavros Skopeteas, Marco Coniglio
- Supervisors: Stavros Skopeteas, Marco Coniglio
- • Probing the systematicity of early mappings
- PhD student: Felicia Stich
- Supervisors: Nivedita Mani, Markus Steinbach, Lisa Beinborn
- Supervisors: Nivedita Mani, Markus Steinbach, Lisa Beinborn
- • The semantics of plural morphology in selected Niger-Congo; Kwa languages
- PhD student: Madeline Ladore
- Supervisors: Stavros Skopeteas, Hedde Zeijlstra
- Supervisors: Stavros Skopeteas, Hedde Zeijlstra
- • Left Branch Extraction in hyperbata
- PhD student: Yasaman Sanei
- Supervisors: Götz Keydana, Marco Coniglio
- Supervisors: Götz Keydana, Marco Coniglio
- • Multiple Wh-questions: Ex-situ/in-situ variation in Avatime
- PhD student: Dinah Adom Mac-Arthur
- Supervisors: Uwe Junghanns, Thomas Weskott
- Supervisors: Uwe Junghanns, Thomas Weskott
- • Null subjects typologically
- PhD student: Rishabh Suresh
- Supervisors: Marco Coniglio, Hedde Zeijlstra
- Supervisors: Marco Coniglio, Hedde Zeijlstra
- • The development of clitics in Georgian
- PhD student: Tekla Gabunia
- Supervisors: Götz Keydana, Guido Mensching
- Supervisors: Götz Keydana, Guido Mensching
- • Intersentential clausal exceptive constructions
- PhD student: Sumedha Gupta
- Supervisors: Thomas Weskott, Clemens Steiner-Mayr
- Supervisors: Thomas Weskott, Clemens Steiner-Mayr
- • Questions and conditionals
- PhD student: Ateş Çalışır
- Supervisors: Clemens Steiner-Mayr, Uwe Junghanns
- Supervisors: Clemens Steiner-Mayr, Uwe Junghanns
- • Functions of iconicity: A cross-modal and cross-linguistic perspective
- PhD student: Marta Herget
- Supervisors: Guido Mensching, Stavros Skopeteas
- Supervisors: Guido Mensching, Stavros Skopeteas
- • Classifier constructions in sign languages
- PhD student: Vanessa Tsang
- Supervisors: Markus Steinbach, Anke Holler, Nina-Kristin Meister
- Supervisors: Markus Steinbach, Anke Holler, Nina-Kristin Meister
PhD Projects- First Cohort (start 2021)
- •Serial verb constructions in spoken and sign languages
- PhD student: Gautam Ottur
- Supervisors: Markus Steinbach, Hedde Zeijlstra
- Defense date: tba
- Supervisors: Markus Steinbach, Hedde Zeijlstra
- • Verb-Subject orders in Old Romance and the emergence of a subject position
- PhD student: Andrea Matticchio
- Supervisors: Stavros Skopeteas, Marco Coniglio
- Supervisors: Stavros Skopeteas, Marco Coniglio
- • How form and meaning overlap shape vocabulary development
- PhD student: Judith Kalinowski
- Supervisors: Nivedita Mani, Markus Steinbach
- Defended on 17.06.2025
- Supervisors: Nivedita Mani, Markus Steinbach
- • Nominal concord in Arabic
- PhD student: Feras Saeed
- Supervisors: Hedde Zeijlstra, Sascha Alexeyenko
- Defended on 12.08.2025
- Supervisors: Hedde Zeijlstra, Sascha Alexeyenko
- • Split Noun Phrase Topicalization in Dutch and its varieties
- PhD student: Lieke Hendriks
- Supervisors: Götz Keydana, Marco Coniglio
- Defended on 13.06.2025
- Supervisors: Götz Keydana, Marco Coniglio
- • Wh-less degree questions
- PhD student: Karen Hovind
- Supervisors: Uwe Junghanns, Stavros Skopeteas
- Supervisors: Uwe Junghanns, Stavros Skopeteas
- • The expression of imperative speech acts in sign languages
- PhD student: Marianthi Koraka
- Supervisors: Markus Steinbach, Nivedita Mani
- Supervisors: Markus Steinbach, Nivedita Mani
- • Null objects in Late Latin and Early Romance languages
- PhD student: Prudence de Pontbriand
- Supervisors: Guido Mensching, Götz Keydana
- Defended on 10.07.2025
- Supervisors: Guido Mensching, Götz Keydana
- • Experimental investigation of presupposition projection in German and English
- PhD student: Maik Thalmann
- Supervisors: Thomas Weskott, Clemens Steiner-Mayr
- • Mandarin dou and its multiple semantic uses
- PhD student: Zeqi Zhao
- Supervisors: Clemens Steiner-Mayr, Uwe Junghanns
- • Presentational Particles in Romance Languages. A diachronic syntactic study of French and Italian
- PhD student: Katja Friedewald
- Supervisors: Guido Mensching, Anke Holler
- • Variability in idiomatic multiword expressions
- PhD student: Irene Pagliai
- Supervisors: Anke Holler, Caroline Sporleder
- Defense date: 30.10.2025