NegLaB
CRC 1629: Negation in language and beyond (NegLaB)
Funded by the German Research Foundation 4/2024 – 12/2027
The ability to express negation is one of the fundamental and universal characteristics of human language. Linguistic and non-linguistic cognitive processes are involved in the acquisition and processing of negation, the relationship between which is still poorly understood. Researchers from the fields of linguistics and psychology are working in the Collaborative Research Center "Negation in language and beyond (NegLaB)" on open questions about the function of negation in language (spokesperson: Professor Dr. Cecilia Poletto). The aim is to develop a theoretical perspective on how negation manifests itself in natural languages, how it is acquired and processed and why its concrete expression differs so much between languages. In this way, the network aims to contribute to a better understanding of the connections between linguistic competence and general cognition.
The CRC will start on April 1, 2024; the first funding period ends December 31, 2027. For this period, the CRC NegLaB receives total funding of around 9.3 million Euros. For more information about the CRC, see here: https://gepris.dfg.de/gepris/projekt/509468465
Merle Weicker and Petra Schulz will lead two projects within the CRC NegLaB.
C03: Negation beyond language: Interactions between verbal
and nonverbal negation
Caroline Dudschig (PI)
Merle Wecker (PI)
In this project,
negation is investigated as a multimodal phenomenon, i.e., in speech and in
speech-accompanying bodily expressions such as manual gestures, head shaking,
and facial expressions. Taking a psycholinguistic and cognitive-oriented
processing perspective, we address comprehension aspects of nonverbal negation
from the listener's perspective. We examine the types and functions of
nonverbal negation and their integration with verbal negation in both
German-speaking adults and children. Moreover, we aim to open our
investigations to the speaker's perspective and investigate aspects of adults'
usage of nonverbal and verbal negation to identify the contexts in which verbal
and nonverbal negation is used.
C06: Comprehension of
Negation in Child and Adult Speakers of Spanish and German (NegPos)
Sol Lago (PI)
Esther Rinke (PI)
Petra Schulz (PI)
Our project investigates the assumption that cross-linguistic
differences in the morpho-syntactic form of negation can lead to differences in
the processing and acquisition of negation in typologically different
languages. Specifically, we compare negation in German and Spanish: in Spanish,
the negator appears in an early surface position in the sentence, before the
finite verb. In German, the negator appears late and after the finite verb.
Furthermore, sentence negation in Spanish is restricted to a single, preverbal
position, whereas in German the sentence negator can appear in different
surface positions. We investigate whether these cross-linguistic differences
influence the way adults comprehend negated sentences and the way children
acquire negation.
