Forschung

Research

We are an interdisciplinary research group combining work in the fields of formal semantics and pragmatics, psycholinguistics and neurolinguistics, psychology and philosophy. We conduct theoretical, experimental and modeling research on linguistic meaning and language use. The SPA Lab is currently involved in three main projects, in addition to external collaborations:

Emmy Noether project "Scales in language development and processing"
(DFG, GO 3378/1-1)

The Emmy Noether project aims to gain new perspectives on long-standing debates about the nature of Horn scales and alternatives by examining a large number of such expressions in language processing and acquisition. The overall goal is to develop a new model of scales and implicatures that accounts for the variability of such expressions. We will investigate (a) the extent to which a single mechanism underlying the computation of implicatures can be maintained for different Horn scales, and (b) the types of alternatives that form the basis for the computation of implicatures. One focus will be on the interpretation of adjectival Horn scales, which are well studied in semantics but still under-researched in pragmatics. We will use a variety of psycholinguistic methods as well as probabilistic modeling tools to integrate insights from semantic and pragmatic theory as well as cognitive science. This project represents the first large-scale attempt to test how different scales are processed and how semantic and pragmatic representations of scales are developed in parallel.

h ttps://gepris.dfg.de/gepris/projekt/441607011

DFG collaboration grant: Modeling the role of loopholes in polite communication

Prof. Dr. Nicole Gotzner and Prof. Dr. Gregory Scontras have won a grant to establish a collaboration between Osnabrück University and UC Irvine through bilateral workshops and guest visits. Their project will focus on polite communication and combine the existing strengths of both centers in experimental pragmatics and computational modeling. The kickoff workshop took place at Osnabrück University in September 2023.