UNIVERSITÄT ZU KÖLN

Research Interests

• Neurolinguistics
• Event-related brain potential technique
• Psycholinguistics
• Eyetracking technique
• Language processing
• Syntax-semantics interface
• Experimental pragmatics
• Semantic and pragmatic processing of language
• Typology of language

Academic Career

• since 2011
  Academic Councilor (Akademischer Rat), permanent
  Department of Language and Literature I, University of Cologne
• 2010
  Dr. phil. German Linguistcs - specialization on neurolinguistics
  Department of German Linguistics
  Philipps-University Marburg
• 2009-2011
  Research assistant
  Department of German Linguistics, Philipps-University Marburg
• 2008-2010
  Research assistant, doctoral student
  Department of English and Linguistics, Johannes Gutenberg-University Mainz
• 2005-2008
  Research assistant, doctoral student
  Department of German Linguistics, Philipps-University Marburg
• 2003
  Research assistant
  Department of German Linguistics and Language History, Technical University Dresden
• 2003
  M.A. German Linguistics
  Department of German Linguistics and Language History Technical University Dresden

Publications

Dissertation:

• Philipp, M. (2010). Neurophysiologische Korrelate auditiver Sprachverarbeitung im Mandarin-Chinesischen: Zum Einfluss von Animatheit, Coverben und Verbtypen auf transitive Argument-Relationen. Dissertation, Philipps–University Marburg. (http://archiv.ub.uni-marburg.de/diss/z2010/0760/)

Articles (peer reviewed):

• Bardají, M., Schneider-Blum, G., Philipp, M., & Dolscheid, S. (2025). Why agent prominence persists even under challenging conditions. Glossa: a journal of general linguistics 10 (1). pp. 1–41. DOI: https://doi.org/10.16995/glossa.11581
• Kretzschmar, F., Graf, T., Philipp, M., & Primus, B. (2019). An Experimental Investigation of Agent Prototypicality and Agent Prominence in German. In: A. Gattnar, R. Hörnig, M. Störzer & S. Featherston (Eds.). Proceedings of Linguistic Evidence 2018: Experimental Data Drives Linguistic Theory Tübingen: University of Tübingen https://publikationen.uni-tuebingen.de/xmlui/handle/10900/87132.
• Kretzschmar, F., Graf, T., Philipp, M., & Primus, B. (2018). What is a sentient agent? Pre-Proceedings of the International Conference of Linguistic Evidence 2018, Tübingen, 47-49.
• Graf, T., Philipp, M., Xu, X., Primus, B. (2017). The interaction between telicity and agentivity: Experimental evidence from intransitive verbs in German and Chinese. Lingua, 200, 84-106. http://dx.doi.org/10.1016/j.lingua.2017.08.006
• Philipp, M., Graf, T., Kretzschmar, F., Primus, B. (2017). Beyond verb meaning: experimental evidence for incremental processing of semantic roles and event structure. Frontiers in Psychology. https://doi.org/10.3389/fpsyg.2017.01806
• Bornkessel-Schlesewsky, I., Philipp, M., Alday, P. M., Kretzschmar, F., Grewe, T., Gumpert, M., Schumacher, P. B., Schlesewsky, M. (2015). Age-Related Changes in Predictive Capacity Versus Internal Model Adaptability: Electrophysiological Evidence that Individual Differences Outweigh Effects of Age. Frontiers in Aging Neuroscience, 7:217. doi: 10.3389/fnagi.2015.00217
• Schlesewsky, M., Philipp, M., Kretzschmar, F., Grewe, T., Schumacher, P., Gumpert, M., & Bornkessel-Schlesewsky, I. (2015). Two sides of the predictive coin: age-related P300 vs. N400 dissociations in language processing differentiate prediction fulfilment from internal model updating. Conference Abstract: XII International Conference on Cognitive Neuroscience (ICON-XII). Frontiers in Human Neuroscience 9, doi: 10.3389/conf.fnhum.2015.217.00369
• Wang, L., Schlesewsky, M., Philipp, M., & Bornkessel-Schlesewsky, I. (2012). The role of animacy in online argument interpretation in Mandarin Chinese. In de Swart, P., & Lamers, M. (eds.). Case, word order, and prominence. Psycholinguistic and theoretical approaches to argument structure. Berlin, Springer, 91 – 120.
• Bornkessel-Schlesewsky, I., Kretzschmar, F., Tune, S., Wang, L., Genç, S., Philipp, M., Roehm, D., Schlesewsky, M. (2011). Think globally: Cross-linguistic variation in electrophysiological activity during sentence comprehension. Brain and Language 117(3), 133-52.
• Philipp, M., Bornkessel-Schlesewsky, I., Bisang, W., & Schlesewsky, M. (2008). The role of animacy in the real time comprehension of Mandarin Chinese: Evidence from auditory event-related brain potentials. Brain and Language 105, 112-133.

Conference Articles / Talks / Poster:

• Çokal, D., Poesio, M., Schumacher, P. B., von Heusinger, K., & Philipp, M. (2024). Ambiguous Plural Pronouns in German: ERPs attest Prediction Error and Competition. Poster at the 30th AMLaP conference: Architectures and Mechanisms for Language Processing. Edinburgh, September 5-7, 2024.
• Çokal, D., Poesio, M., Schumacher, P. B., von Heusinger, K., & Philipp, M. (2024). Prediction error and antecedent competition: ERPs on ambiguous plural pronouns in German. Poster at the HSP 2024: 37th Annual Conference on Human Sentence Processing. University of Michigan, Ann Arbor, Michigan, May 16-18, 2024.
• Kretzschmar, F., Graf, T., Philipp, M.  & Primus, B. (2018). Prototype vs. prominence: Experimental studies on the decomposition of agentivity. Talk presented at the international conference "Cognitive Structures 2018", September 12-14, 2018, Heinrich-Heine University Düsseldorf, Düsseldorf, Germany.
• Kretzschmar, F., Graf, T., Philipp, M.  & Primus, B. (2018). The prominence of sentience. Poster presented at the international conference "Prominence in Language", 11th - 13th July 2018,  University of Cologne, Cologne, Germany.
• Kretzschmar, F., Graf, T., Philipp, M.  & Primus, B. (2018). What is a sentient agent? Talk presented at the international workshop "Linguistic Evidence 2018 - Experimental data drives linguistic theory",  Eberhard Karls Universität Tübingen, Tübingen, Germany.
• Graf, T., Philipp, M., Kretzschmar, F. & Primus, B. (2017). The interaction of event structure and agentivity. An event-related potential study on German intransitive motion verbs. Poster presented at the international workshop "Event Representations in Brain, Language & Development (EvRep)", MPI for Psycholinguistics Nijmegen, October 27th - 28th, Nijmegen, The Netherlands.
• Philipp, M., Graf, T. & Primus, B. (2017). Inference-based incremental processing of semantic roles and event structure: minimality vs. pragmatic enrichment. Talk presented at the annual meeting of the DFG-priority program XPrag.de: New Pragmatic Theories based on Experimental Evidence (SPP 1727), Sep. 18th – 19th, Cologne, Germany.
• Philipp, M., Graf, T. & Primus, B. (2016). Agentivity Inferences and Verbal Aspect in German. Poster presented at the annual meeting of the DFG-priority program XPrag.de: New Pragmatic Theories based on Experimental Evidence (SPP 1727), June 20th – 21th, Tübingen, Germany.
• Graf, T., Philipp, M. & Primus, B. (2016). Agentivity in Impersonal Passives. Talk presented at the 2016 Annual Conference of the German Linguistic Society (DGfS), February 24th - 26th, Konstanz, Germany.
• Philipp, M. & Primus, B. (2015). Prominence in argument structure: Agentivity dimensions in impersonal passives. Talk presented at the Cologne Center of Language Sciences (CCLS) Lecture Series, November 30th, University of Cologne, Germany.
• Graf, T., Philipp, M. & Primus, B. (2015). Animacy, Agentivity and Verbal Aspect: An Experimental Case Study of the German Progressive with Position Verbs. Talk presented at the 48th Annual Meeting of the Societas Linguistica Europaea (SLE 2015), September 2nd - 5th, Leiden, The Netherlands.
• Philipp, M., Primus, B. & Graf, T. (2015). AATIC - Contextually driven agent demotion in impersonal passives and agentivity in German. Poster presented at the annual meeting of the DFG-priority program XPrag.de: New Pragmatic Theories based on Experimental Evidence (SPP 1727), June 26th – 27th, Goettingen, Germany.
• Philipp, M., Primus, B. & Graf, T. (2014). AATIC - Agentivity, Animacy and Telicity: Pragmatic Inferences in Intransitive Clauses. Talk presented at the kickoff meeting of the DFG-priority program XPrag.de: New Pragmatic Theories based on Experimental Evidence (SPP 1727), July 21st - 25th, Berlin, Germany.
• Philipp, M., Primus, B. & Graf, T. (2014). AATIC - Agentivity, Animacy and Telicity: Pragmatic Inferences in Intransitive Clauses. Poster presented at the kickoff meeting of the DFG-priority program XPrag.de: New Pragmatic Theories based on Experimental Evidence (SPP 1727), July 21st - 25th, Berlin, Germany.
• Primus, B. & Philipp, M. (2014). Agentivity, Animacy, and Telicity: Event Interpretation in Intransitive Clauses. Talk presented at the 11th International Conference on Actionality, Tense, Aspect, Modality/Evidentiality (Chronos 11), June 16th - 18th, Pisa, Italy.
• Schlesewsky, M., Philipp, M., Kretzschmar, F., Grewe, T., Schumacher, P., Gumpert, M., & Bornkessel-Schlesewsky, I. (2014). Two Sides Of The Predictive Coin: Age-Related P300 vs. N400 Dissociations In Language Processing Differentiate Prediction Fulfilment From Internal Model Updating. Poster presented at the 12th International Conference on Cognitive Neuroscience (ICON), Brisbane 27-31 July, Australia.
• Philipp, M. (2011). (to) „be“ or not (to) „be“: ERP-Correlates of Auxiliary Selection in German and the Role of Social Cognition. Talk at the Nijmegen's Optimal Communication Colloquium, 12. October, Radboud Universiteit Nijmegen.
• Kretzschmar, F., Bornkessel-Schlesewsky, I., Philipp, M., & Schlesewsky, M. (2009). Animacy interference in the comprehension of complex sentences in Mandarin Chinese. Poster at the 22th Annual CUNY Conference on Sentence Processing, Davis, California, 26.–28.03.2009.
• Kretzschmar, F., Bornkessel-Schlesewsky, I., Philipp, M., & Schlesewsky, M. (2008).  Word-Order Ambiguities in German: Evidence for interactive prominence hierarchies. Poster at the 21th CUNY Conference on Human Sentence Processing, Chapel Hill, 13.-15.03.2008.
• Roehm, D., Ramasamy, M., Philipp, M., & Bornkessel-Schlesewsky, I. (2008). Comparing ERP effects across languages: A frequency-based analysis. Poster at Extended Scientific Advisory Board MPI for Human Cognitive and Brain Sciences, Leipzig, 16.01.2008.
• Philipp, M., Bornkessel-Schlesewsky, I, Bisang, W., & Schlesewsky, M. (2007). The role of animacy in the processing of verb-final sentences in Chinese: An auditory ERP study of ba- and bei-constructions. Poster at the 20th Annual CUNY Conference on Human Sentence Processing, San Diego, California, 29.-31.03.2007.
• Wang, L., Philipp, M., Bornkessel-Schlesewsky, I., & Schlesewsky, M. (2007). The role of animacy in the processing of verb-final constructions in Chinese. Poster at the workshop on Case, Word Order and Prominence in Argument Structure, Nijmegen, 05.11.2007.

Conference / workshop organization

• 2016
  Workshop within the DGfS 2016 - Annual Conference of the German Linguistic Society: Agentivity and event structure: theoretical and experimental approaches (AG 3). Organized in collaboration with Beatrice Primus. Konstanz, Germany, 2/24/2016 - 2/26/2016. (https://www.dgfs2016.uni-konstanz.de/arbeitsgruppen/arbeitsgruppe-3/)
• 2012
  Language, Music and Cognition: Psychological and neurocognitive modelling of action, perception, processing and learning. Organized in collaboration with Beatrice Primus & Uwe Seifert, University of Cologne, 27th - 29th September 2012. (http://lmc.phil-fak.uni-koeln.de/13669.html)

Reviewer activities

• Brain and Language
• Brain Research
• Journal of Psycholinguistic Research
• Language, Cognition and Neuroscience
• Lingua
• Trends in Linguistics (De Gruyter Mouton)

Teaching

• Introduction to German linguistics
• Introduction to psycho- and neurolinguistics
• Advanced courses of psycho- and neurolinguistics
• Empirical linguistics
• Psycho- and neurolinguistic research methods
• Statistics