About the SFB Network "Language between Redundancy and Deficiency"
1 Special Research Area (SFB): 9 Subprojects at 3 Universities
SFB - Language between Redundancy and Deficiency
Language is one of our most fundamental cognitive capacities.
This Special Research Area (SFB) Network is developing a new approach to modeling the linguistic system. The starting point is the hypothesis that the cognitive core of language ability is based on logical-symbolic calculations, but is embedded in a cognitive system of stochastic nature. As an interface between the symbolic and stochastic components, grammar uses the central optimization factors of redundancy and deficiency, which can underlie linguistic operations and make it possible to process both under- and over-specified inputs. The Network brings together the particularly strong linguistic research at the Universities of Graz, Vienna, and Salzburg and deals with uniformly defined, comprehensive empirical areas of grammar (pronouns and ellipsis). The sub-projects illuminate, classify and model these theoretically and empirically from the perspective of the concepts of redundancy and deficiency. Expected findings not only promise a deeper understanding of the basic mechanisms of the grammatical system, but also open up new perspectives for central questions in cognitive science regarding the role of language in cognition.
This Research Network is financed by the Austrian Science Fund for Special Research Areas (SFB Grant F1003).
University of Graz
Central Administration and Coordination
Mozartgasse 8, 8010 Graz
Coordinator: Univ.-Prof. Dr.phil. Edgar Onea
Grammatical gender in discourse and grammar
PI: Univ. - Prof. Dr.phil. Edgar Onea
PhD student: Simon Dampfhofer, BA BSc MA
Subproject 2 is interested in an analysis of the discourse structural interpretation of gender features. The main focus of the subproject is the study of gender mismatches, which describe cases where grammatical gender does not agree with semantic gender (e.g., in German “das Mädchen”, where a neuter determiner is used in an expression referring to a semantically feminine girl). The goal is to construct a detailed theory for the syntax-semantics interface of gender, enabling the explanation of gender mismatch phenomena. One central hypothesis is that gender might be described analogously to an analysis of so-called referential loci in sign languages. Methodologically, the subproject will conduct several empirical studies to gain a solid understanding of underlying phenomena. For theory building, frameworks of dynamical semantics and DRT will be the basis.
