Research Topics

    

• Reference
• Information structure
• Discourse processes
• Syntax-semantics interface
• Experimental pragmatics
• Speaker-hearer interaction
• Psycholinguistics
• Speech disorders

                   

Current Research Projects

• "Communication electrified - towards a natural investigation of real-time language processing" (Momentum-Funding of the  VolkswagenStiftung)
• Project in the DFG Special Priority Program ViCom: "The gesture-to-sign trajectory: Phonological parameters in production and real-time comprehension" (with Pamela Perniss)
• Project in the DFG Collaborative Research Center 1252 Prominence in Language "Intonation and attention orienting: Neurophysiological and behavioral correlates" (with Martine Grice)
• Project in the DFG Collaborative Research Center 1252 Prominence in Language "Forward and backward functions of discourse anaphora" (with Ingmar Brilmayer)  
• Project in the DFG Collaborative Research Center 1252 Prominence in Language "Predictive modelling" (with Martine Grice & Nikolaus Himmelmann)  
• “Basal-Ganglia-Cortex interaction in motor speech” (UoC Forum Funding; with Michael Barbe & Doris Mücke)

Betreute Dissertationsprojekte

• Yu-Chen Hung (2011, Johannes Gutenberg-Universität Mainz): Topic matters - impact of information structure on referential processing: Evidence from Chinese and German
• Stefanie Reitz (2013, Johannes Gutenberg-Universität Mainz): Context-dependent interpretation of the conjunction 'und' in different age-groups
• Hanna Weiland (2014, Johannes Gutenberg-Universität Mainz): Experimental research into non-literal language: ERP studies on metaphors and metonymies
• Janina Kalbertodt (2019, Universität zu Köln): Right dislocation and afterthought in German - Investigations on mulitple levels
• Florian Bogner (2020, Universität zu Köln): The morphosyntactic parser – Developing and testing a sentence prrocessor that uses underspecified morphosyntactic features
• Lena Straßburger (2020, Universität zu Köln): It's a matter of life and death: Incongruity in humor and horror
• Caterina Ventura (2020, Universität zu Köln): Production, perception and online processing of prominence in the post-focal domain
• Melanie Fuchs (2021, Universität zu Köln): Interpretation and shift functions of emonstrative pronouns  
• Paul Compensis (2022, Universität zu Köln): Processing and representation of clitic doubling and scrambling
• Christina Rath (2024, Universität zu Köln): The grammar-pagmatics interface in learners of German: Insights into the acquisition of speech act modification
• Maria Lialiou (2024, Universität zu Köln): Prosody and attention orienting: The role of rising intonation in speech processing  
• Magdalena Repp (2024, Universität zu Köln): D-pronouns in narrative texts: Examining referential behavior and neural processing
• Guendalina Reul (2025, Universität zu Köln): The conventionalization of ad hoc metonymy in naturalistic contexts: Investigating meaning shift and meaning adaptation in the brain
• Fabian Eckert (Universität zu Köln): Temporal alignment and processing of kinematic and acoustic prominence
• Robert Voigt (Universität zu Köln): Effects of referential competition on the resolution of German personal and demonstrative pronouns
• Ariana Acosta Araujo (Universität zu Köln): Stereotypes, argument structure and affective language in pronominal processing