Contact
Pfaffenwaldring 5 b
70569 Stuttgart
Deutschland
Subject
My main research area is the lexicon and its interfaces. In my research, I combine insights and methods from theoretical linguistics and natural language processing.
I am the principal investigator of the DFG project "DistRoot: From distributions to roots - Towards a linguistically grounded theory of the conceptual underpinnings of verb meaning". The project investigates whether there is a systematic, theoretically informed and computationally supported way to perform the drastic dimension reduction that is required to convert a high-dimensional distributional semantic representation of a verb into a low-dimensional conceptual structure that can be understood as a theoretically reasonable and sensible representation of the conceptual meaning of that verb.
Distributional semantics and the conceptual foundations of verb meaning: how neural word embeddings memorize the unaccusative hypothesis, Manuscript under revision for Empirical Issues in Syntax and Semantics.
Concepts in space: a linear regression model for lexical decomposition, Manuscript, 2020.
Cheap and simple, yet effective: Interpreting neural word embeddings with k-means sparsification, Manuscript, 2020.
Zur Ontologie der Bedeutung sprachlicher Ausdrücke. Kumulative Habilitationsschrift, 2019.
Towards a correlation of form, use and meaning of ge-prefixed predicative participles in German (with Antje Roßdeutscher). Glossa: A Journal of General Linguistics, 4(1), 93. DOI: 10.5334/gjgl.753, 2019
Dispositions and the verbal description of their manifestations. A case study on Emission Verbs. Linguistics & Philosophy. Online First, DOI:10.1007/s10988-019-09268-5, 2019
What about lexical semantics if syntax is the only generative component of the grammar? A case study on word meaning in German. Natural Language and Linguistic Theory 37(1), pp. 215--261. DOI:10.1007/s11049-018-9410-7, 2019
The Grammar of Dispositions. (with Fabienne Martin, Marcel Pitteroff) Glossa Special Collection, 2018.
Integrating lexical-conceptual and distributional semantics: a case report. (with Antje Roßdeutscher, Sebastian Pado, Gabriella Lapesa, Max Kisselew), in: Cremers, A. and van Gessel, T. and Roelofsen, F. (ed.): Proceedings of the 21st Amsterdam Colloquium 2017. pp. 75 -- 85.
Measuring out the relation between formal and conceptual semantics. (with Antje Roßdeutscher) In: Balogh, Kata and Petersen, Wiebke (ed.): Postproceedings of the Workshop on bridging formal and conceptual semantics, Düsseldorf University Press, 2017. pp 119 --149
(with Fabienne Martin, Marcel Pitteroff) Morphological, Syntactic and Semantic Aspects of Dispositions. SinSpeC - Working Papers of the SFB 732 "Incremental Specification in Context" 13, 2016.
On reporting attitudes: an analysis of desire reports and their reading-establishing scenarios. In Brochhagen, Thomas and Theiler, Nadine (ed.): Proceedings of the Amsterdam Colloquium 2015.
Mono-eventive verbs of emission and their bi-eventive nominalizations. In Buy, T. and Özyildiz, D.,(ed.): Proceedings of NELS 45, pp. 257–266, Amherst, MA. GLSA, 2016.
Fodor's puzzle and the semantics of attitude reports. Unpublished Manuscript, 2015.
German medium verbs and their -ung nominalizations, in: Roßdeutscher, A. (ed.): Ontology and Argument Structure in Nominalizations (SinSpec 10), Working Papers of the SFB 732, University of Stuttgart, pp. 24-37, 2013.
Dealing with sortal ambiguity of nominalizations by underspecification, in: Roßdeutscher, A. (ed.): Ontology and Argument Structure in Nominalizations (SinSpec 10), Working Papers of the SFB 732, University of Stuttgart, pp. 1 - 23, 2013.
On the meaning of context. A case study. In: Proceedings of the 2013 Meeting of the European Society for Philosophy and Psychology, Granada, 2013.
(Philosophical) Challenges of free human-robot interaction. In: Proceedings of the 8th European Computing and Philosophy Conference (p. 236 - 240), Munich, 2010.
Metalanguage Dynamics. In: Proceedings of the Workshop on Theories of Information Dynamics and Interaction and their Application to Dialogue (TIDIAD@ESSLLI2010), (p. 66-78) Copenhagen, 2010.
Grounded Discourse Representation Theory. Dissertation. Short-listed for Deutscher Studienpreis 2010: "Roboter auf dem Weg in die Mitte unserer Gesellschaft. Auf eigene Faust?"
An action-theory based treatment of temporal individuals. In: Hagengruber, R. and Riss, U.: Philosophy, Computing and Information Science. Pickering & Chattoo, 2013.
The Pragmatics of Aspect. Diploma Thesis, Institute for Natural Language Processing, University of Stuttgart, 2006.
Argumentationslinien der formalen Pragmatik. Student Research Project, Institute for Natural Language Processing, Unviersity of Stuttgart, 2005.
PHIL=Institut für Philosophie Uni Stuttgart, IMS=Institut für maschinelle Spachverarbeitung Uni Stuttgart, IGL=Institut für Linguistik/Germanistik Uni Stuttgart, PHL= Institut für Philosophie PH Ludwigsburg
- Logik, Handlung, Sprache und Bedeutung (WS 2006/2007, PHIL)
- Handlungstheorien (WS 2007/2008, PHL)
- Philosophie der Information (WS 2008/2009, PHIL)
- Klassiker der Sprachphilosophie (WS 2008/2009, PHIL)
- Logik II: Vollständigkeit, Korrektheit, Kalküle (SS 2009, PHIL)
- Philosophie der Künstlichen Intelligenz (SS 2009, SS 2011, PHIL)
- Der rationale Umgang mit einer ungewissen Zukunft: Zur Theorie intentionaler Agenten (WS 2009/2010, PHIL)
- Interdisziplinäres Doktorandenkolloquium Wissenschaftstheorie (WS 2009/2010, SS 2010, PHIL)
- Philosophie der Ereignisse (SS 2010, PHIL)
- Ethische Probleme gegenwärtiger Informationstechnologie (WS 2010/2011, PHIL)
- Einführung in die formale Semantik nat\"urlicher Sprache (WS 2010/2011, PHIL)
- Philosophisches Argumentieren (SS 2011, PHIL)
- Philosophy of Language (WS 2014/2015, IMS)
- Aktuelle Themen der Semantik-Pragmatik-Schnittstelle (SS 2017, ILG)
- Unakkusativität an der Syntax-Semantik-Schnittstelle (WS 2017/2018, ILG)
2019:
Habilitation in General and German Linguistics
since 2011:
Senior Researcher, Institute for Natural Language Processing, University of Stuttgart
2008 - 2011:
Assistant Professor of Philosophy, Institute of Philosophy, University of Stuttgart
2006 - 2009:
Doctoral Studies in Linguistics (Dr. phil.), Institute for Natural Language Processing, University of Stuttgart.
Dissertation: Grounded Discourse Representation Theory.
Advisors: Hans Kamp, Alois Knoll.
2000-2006:
Diploma Studies in Computational Linguistics (Dipl.-Ling., with distinction), Institute for Natural Language Processing, University of Stuttgart
DistRoot: From distributions to roots - Towards a linguistically grounded theory of the conceptual underpinnings of verb meaning (2018-2020)
The project investigates whether there is a systematic, theoretically informed and computationally supported way to perform the drastic dimension reduction that is required to convert a high-dimensional distributional semantic representation of a verb into a low-dimensional conceptual structure that can be understood as a theoretically reasonable and sensible representation of the conceptual meaning of that verb. On an overarching level, the project aims at showing that a combination of theoretical, lexical-conceptual and computational, usage-based approaches to verb meaning may pave the way towards an empirically grounded and theoretically sound theory of verb meaning.
For a detailed project description, click here: Project Outline
Lexikalische Information und ihre Entfaltung im Kontext von Wortbildung, Satz und Diskurs (2012-2018)
The project investigates the composition of meaning from sublexical units all the way up to that of sentences and discourse. We investigate the source and resolution of ambiguity in an architecture of syntactically driven composition that combines a syntax based on the principles of Distributed Morphology with semantic representation formalisms from Discourse Representation Theory.
For more information, click here: Project Description
- Lexical Semantics
- Distributional Semantics
- Word Embeddings
- Morphology
- Syntax-Semantics Interface
- Argument Structure
The talk titles link to handouts and slides.
2019:
Alice im Wunderland: Linguistik im Zeitalter von Big Data und Deep Learning. Habilitation exam talk, 12/2019
Probing embedding spaces for traces of recurrent meaning. Talk at the IMS colloquium, 10/2019
Distributional semantics and the conceptual foundations of verb meaning: how neural word embeddings memorize the unaccusative hypothesis. CSSP 2019, 10/2019
2018:
Integrating lexical-conceptual and distributional perspectives on word meaning. SFB 732 Final Colloquium, 03/2018
Eine syntaxgetriebene Analyse der Bildung und Bedeutung von Partizipialkonstruktionen. Wuppertaler Linguistisches Forum, 02/2018
Severing away the internal argument. Workshop Endpoints, scales, and results in the decomposition of verbal predicates, HU Berlin, 01/2018.
2017:
(with Antje Roßdeutscher, Sebastian Pado, Gabriella Lapesa, Max Kisselew) Integrating lexical-conceptual and distributional semantics: a case report. Workshop Integrating Formal and Distributional Semantics, Amsterdam Colloquium 12/2017.
On the syntax and semantics of participles, Workshop The Building Blocks and Mortar of Word Meaning II, Eberhard-Karls-Universität Tübingen 11/2017.
(with Gabriella Lapesa, Sebastian Pado and Antje Roßdeutscher): Are doggies really nicer than dogs?The impact of morphological derivation on emotional valence in German. 12th International Conference on Computational Semantics. Montpellier, 09/2017.
Low and high adjectival participles in German. Workshop Participles Form, Use and Meaning. Societas Linguistica Europaea. Zürich, 09/2017.
2016:
(with Antje Roßdeutscher, Hans Kamp, Boris Haselbach) Compositionality, Abstraction, Metaphor in German prefix- and particle constructions. Workshop on literal and non-literal meaning. Stuttgart, 10/2016.
(with Antje Roßdeutscher, Sebastian Pado, Gabriella Lapesa, Max Kisselew) Characterizing the pragmatic component of distributional vectors in terms of polarity: Experiments on German über-verbs. Workshop Distributional Semantics and Linguistic Theory. ESSLI 2016, Bolzano, 08/2016
(with Antje Roßdeutscher, Sebastian Pado, Gabriella Lapesa, Max Kisselew) 'Over reference': a comparative study on German prefix-verbs. Workshop Referential semantics one step further: incorporating insights from conceptual and distributional approaches to meaning. ESSLI 2016, Bolzano, 08/2016
Nominalizations as a window into the structure and analysis of participles. Workshop on Aspect and Argument Structure of Adjectives and Participles, Lille 06/2016
What about word meaning if syntax is the only generative component of languages? Syntax/Semantics Research Group, UT Austin, 5/2016
2015:
On reporting attitudes: an analysis of desire reports and their reading-establishing scenarios. Amsterdam Colloquium, 12/2015
Bridging Formal and Conceptual Semantics, Institutsversammlung IMS, Stuttgart, 10/2015
The Building Blocks of Intransitives. Workshop on the building blocks and mortar of word meaning, Stuttgart, 10/2015
Two dogmas of attitude reports. Semantics and Philosophy in Europe 8, Cambridge, 09/2015
The building blocks of word meaning: insights from ambiguous nominalizations. JeNom 6, Verona, 06/2015
(with Antje Roßdeutscher) Representing Force Dynamics at the Syntax-Semantics-Interface. Workshop Formal Semantics Meets Cognitive Semantics, Nijmegen, 01/2015
2014
Fodor's puzzle and the metasemantics of attitude reports. Workshop Naming Matters, Stuttgart 12/2014
(with Antje Roßdeutscher) The encoding of knowledge in linguistic structures. Workshop on Linguistic versus Non-Linguistic Knowledge. Tübingen 12/2014
Mono-eventive Verbs of Emission and their bi-eventive nominalizations.NELS 45, MIT, 10/2014
Grounded Event Semantics for Robots, Georg-August-University, Göttingen, 07/2014
On the natural language metaphysics of dispositions, Semantics and Philosophy in Europe 7, Berlin 06/2014
(with Antje Roßdeutscher) Measuring out the relation between conceptual structures and truth-conditional semantics. Session on Conceptual structures and truth-conditional semantics, Semantics and Philosophy in Europe 7, Berlin 06/2014
(with Antje Roßdeutscher) Sublexical bridging of formal and conceptual semantics, Workshop Bridging Formal and Conceptual Semantics (BRIDGE-14), HHU Düsseldorf, 04/2014
2013
On v and Voice: German medium verbs and their nominalizations, little v workshop, Leiden University, 10/2013
Below scope: on the semantics of attitudes and their reports. Conference on Attitudinal Semantics, Keio University, Tokyo, 09/2013
On the meaning of context. A case-study. 2013 Meeting of the European Society for Philosophy and Psychology, Linguistics Track, Granada, 07/2013
Dealing with sortal ambiguity of nominalizations by underspecification. 5th Workshop on Nominalizations JeNom5, Barcelona, 06/2013
Older Talks
Nominalizations, sortal ambiguity and ontological commitment. Slides. Semantics and Philosophy in Europe 5, Turin 06/2012
How to combine speech and action. Theoretical Pragmatics 2011, Berlin 10/2011
On Anchoring Sentences in Actions. Semantics and Philosophy in Europe 4, Roundtable on Alternatives to Davidsonian Event Semantics, Bochum 09/2011
Temporal Anchors in DRT. SFB 732 Colloquium, Stuttgart 07/2011
Roboter auf dem Weg in die Mitte unserer Gesellschaft. Auf eigene Faust ?!. Shortlisted for Deutscher Studienpreis 2010. Slides from the Jury Presentation.
Computers don't simulate. On the Semantics and Pragmatics of Computer Simulations in Science. Simulation Technology Colloquium, Stuttgart, 12/2010.
Knowledge and Practical Reason. Forschungsverbund Sprache und Kognition, Workshop on Jason Stanley's Work, Stuttgart, 05/2010.
Embodied Semantics. Computer Science Colloquium, TU Munich, 04/2009
On the mental background of simulations. Simulation Technology Conference, Stuttgart, 05/2008.
An action-theory based treatment of temporal individuals. Philosophy's relevance in Information Science, Paderborn, 10/2008.
Descriptions and Explanations of Temporal Variation. Workshop on Reference to Abstract Objects in Natural Language, Barcelona, 03/2008.
Grounded Discourse Representation Theory. PhD Forum of the German National Academic Foundation. Bonn, 12/2007.
Propositional Attitudes in DRT. Ferienakademie Sarntal, Computational Semantics Course. Sarntal/Italy, 09/2006.