SFB 1629:  Negation in language and beyond (NegLaB)

• Subject Area: Humanities ; Social and Behavioural Sciences
• Term: since 2024
• Project identifier: Deutsche Forschungsgemeinschaft (DFG) - Project number 509468465

Negation is a fundamental and unique property of human language since it allows us to reason about what is not the case. It does not only express a clearly defined grammatical function, it also interacts with various aspects of grammar and cognition. The acquisition and processing of negation encompass linguistic as well as non-linguistic cognitive procedures. Hence, negation constitutes an ideal testing ground to differentiate cognitive mechanisms that are grammatical in nature from those that are shared with other cognitive domains, such as memory, attention, decision making and cognitive control. We intend to explore how the expression of negation is cross-linguistically associated with grammatical and non-linguistic cognitive operations and also whether the operations observed in negative utterances are part of negation itself or, rather, arises as an effect of the grammatical system and cognitive functions. While the semantics of negation is generally analyzed as a unique propositional operator, its morphosyntactic expression is much more varied and often involves more than one morphological exponent. Hence, there is a tension between a rich morphosyntax and a more straightforward semantics. The semantics of negation leads one to expect negation to be expressed by a single morpheme positioned at the beginning of the clause (Neg-Only Hypothesis). The rich and variable morphosyntax leads us to expect that negation requires a number of conditions in the semantics (Neg-Plus Hypothesis). We aim to solve this puzzle covering several empirical domains. More grammatical effects than semantics would lead us to expect are visible in the interaction between negative utterances and the cognitive processing and semantic evaluation of alternative propositions. This is reflected in acquisition, since children produce negative utterances relatively early, but all the aspects of negation take a rather long time to be acquired. Downstream effects of this can be seen in adult processing as the comprehension of negative sentences is costlier than for positive sentences. This is supposedly due to the inhibition of the corresponding positive sentence that is necessary for the interpretation of negative statements. Our exploration into the way negation and other grammatical categories or non-linguistic cognitive functions interact will lead us to identify how negation functions in natural language and how it favors or hinders other (extra-)grammatical components or processes. Why do some of them need to occur together with negation (e.g., negative polarity items) and why are others incompatible with it (as some types of imperatives)? Our general aim is to develop a theoretical perspective on the way negation manifests itself in natural language, how it is acquired and processed, and why it varies so much across languages. Thereby, we will gain a better understanding of the connections between linguistic competence and general cognition.

• DFG Programme: Collaborative Research Centres

Current projects

• A01 - Negation and cancellation (Project Heads Ebert, Cornelia ;  Fuhrmann, André )
• A02 - Negative adjectives in language change (Project Heads Meier, Cécile ;  Weiß, Helmut )
• A03 - A comparative approach to the mysteries of the Jespersen cycle (Project Heads Poletto, Cecilia ;  Weiß, Helmut )
• A04 - Resolving the Neg-Raising paradox (Project Heads Sailer, Manfred ;  Zeijlstra, Ph.D., Hedde )
• B01 - Negation at the interfaces: Negation and existential quantification in German (Project Heads Bader, Markus ;  Bargmann, Sascha ;  Webelhuth, Gert )
• B02 - Negative Concord in adult L2 acquisition (Project Heads Caloi, Irene ;  Poletto, Cecilia ;  Torregrossa, Jacopo )
• B03 - Syntactic and morphological interactions of negation – a crosslinguistic study (Project Heads Hartmann, Ph.D., Katharina ;  Mursell, Johannes )
• B04 - Negative Scope Mismatches in Coordination (Project Heads Hartmann, Ph.D., Katharina ;  Zeijlstra, Ph.D., Hedde )
• B05 - Negative Polarity Items in non-negative contexts (Project Heads Richter, Frank ;  Sailer, Manfred )
• C01 - The prosody of negation and its interpretation in sentence comprehension (Project Heads Bader, Markus ;  Kügler, Frank )
• C02 - Influences of negation on behavior, memory, and attitude (Project Heads Dudschig, Carolin ;  Kaup, Barbara )
• C03 - Negation beyond language: Interactions between verbal and nonverbal negation (Project Heads Dudschig, Carolin ;  Weicker, Merle )
• C04 - The role of non-linguistic cognitive abilities in children’s negation processing (Project Heads Grimm, Angela ;  Kaup, Barbara ;  Portele, Yvonne )
• C05 - Discourse matters? The role of discourse relations and type of events in child production and comprehension of sentence negation (Project Heads Grimm, Angela ;  Torregrossa, Jacopo )
• C06 - Comprehension of Negation in Child and Adult Speakers of Spanish and German (Project Heads Lago, Ph.D., Sol ;  Rinke, Esther ;  Schulz, Petra )
• INF - Scientific services and data management (Project Heads Lago, Ph.D., Sol ;  Mehler, Alexander ;  Sailer, Manfred )
• MGK - Integrated research training group (Project Head Rinke, Esther )
• Z - Central Services (Project Head Poletto, Cecilia )

• Applicant Institution: Goethe-Universität Frankfurt am Main
• Participating University: Eberhard Karls Universität Tübingen; Georg-August-Universität Göttingen
• Spokesperson: Professorin Dr. Cecilia Poletto