The research project “Obligatory presupposition triggers – experimental evidence” (ObTrEx) at the University of Tübingen is looking to fill a 2-year PhD position starting October 2015. Payment is according to the German TV-L pay scale (TV-L 13 65%).

Candidates are expected to have substantial previous knowledge of formal semantics and pragmatics. Some background in designing, conducting and analysing experiments would be ideal. There are no teaching obligations; time to pursue independent research will be available. Please send applications (a single PDF file containing a motivation letter, CV, list of publications and research statement) by email to Nadine Bade (nadine.bade-Irgend ein Text-@uni-tuebingen.de). Applications received by September 1st, 2015 will receive full consideration. The position is open until filled. For further information, send an email to Nadine.

On June 29th, Nadine Bade from XPrag.de project ObTrEx at Tübingen University defended her doctoral thesis on “The obligatory use of presupposition triggers – A comparison between maximize presupposition and obligatory implicatures” with highest honor (summa cum laude). Congratulations, Nadine!

XPrag.de member Joseph DeVeaugh-Geiss from project “ExCl” in Potsdam will give a talk on “Two Empirical Studies on Exhaustivity Inferences & It-Clefts” today, i.e. 30 June 2015, 16:15 at Potsdam University, Campus Golm, Hs. 14, 0.09

The defense of Nadine’s thesis will take place on June 29th at 11 pm in the “Brechtbau” of the University of Tübingen. Unfortunately, the defense is not open to the public, but afterwards there will be drinks and all XPrag.de members in Tübingen are cordially invited.

On Saturday, June 13th research institutions in Berlin opened for the public. It was the yearly “Lange Nacht der Wissenschaften Berlin” (“long night of science”). Visitors of all ages could learn about old and new insights of research in all disciplines.
The XPrag.de projects that are located in Berlin prepared little experiments with catchy titles for the visitors. The project “SIGames” asked whether people are “logical or pragmatic”: subjects had to decide whether sentences about girls and marbles containing some were true or false when compared to pictures. People were so excited that they immediately continued with the mouse-tracking experiment created by “SSI” in which traces of their mouse movements allowed them to visually explore whether they were “logical or pragmatic”. People were also queueing up to participate in the third experiment presented by the “YesNo” project to find out whether they are the “yes-” or the “no”-type regarding assertions and questions containing a negation.
In addition there were two talks, one by Uli Sauerland on how children interpret the German “oder” and one by Jack Tomlinson on what the computer mouse tells about cognition. And last but not least, about 100 people watched the video about XPrag.de.
It really was rewarding to talk to so many people being eager to learn about linguistics, pragmatics, and experimental pragmatics in particular. A big thank-you to everyone who contributed!

Manfred Krifka from project “YesNo” and Uli Sauerland from project “SSI” will give talks at the workshop on “Speech Act Theory”, which takes place at ZAS Berlin, June 11-13th 2015. Manfred will talk on Saturday, June 13th at 10:00 about “Bias in Commitment Space Semantics: Declarative Questions, Negated Questions, and Question Tags”. At 12:00, Uli will talk about “Question-Acts in the Particle Accelerator”.

XPrag.de participates in the “Lange Nacht der Wissenschaften 2015” in Berlin. There will be talks by Uli Sauerland and Jack Tomlinson as well as three experiments for visitors by Berry Claus, Nicole Gotzner and Jack Tomlinson. You will find us at the Humboldt University, main building on the 1st floor in the west wing! See you there! http://2lndw.de/PByo

The program of the workshop on “Formal and experimental pragmatics: methodological issues of a nascent liaison” to be held at ZAS from June 1st-3rd has slightly changed. The updated program can be found here!