Klaus Von Heusinger
Biographic Data
| ID | 956447 |
|---|---|
| NAME | Klaus Von Heusinger |
| GIVEN NAMES | Klaus |
| FAMILY NAME | Von Heusinger |
| SIGNATURE | VON HEUSINGER K |
| AFFILIATIONS | University of Cologne |
| ORCID | 0000-0001-8108-3191 |
| VERIFIED | Yes |
| TOTAL WORKS | 37 |
| TOTAL CITATIONS | 42 |
| AUTHOR COUNT | 31 |
| EDITOR COUNT | 6 |
| FIRST PUBLICATION YEAR | 1996 |
| LATEST PUBLICATION YEAR | 2025 |
| H-INDEX | 3 |
Individual differences in discourse management
Every utterance in discourse we produce arises from the interaction of numerous cognitive functions, such as semantic memory, where we store the meanings of words, executive function and working memory as required for maintenance of a discourse goal, and social cognitive abilities, such as mind-reading capacity as required for tuning what we say to what others know or believe. In this way, a single utterance potentially integrates very different …
Its prominence is her prominence: On the relationship between propositional and individual anaphoric reference
The Discourse Function of Differential Object Marking in Turkish
Differential Object Marking (DOM) is a cross-linguistic phenomenon in which the overt marking of direct objects of certain transitive verbs exhibits distinct morpho-syntactic properties. In Turkish, DOM is realized by the accusative suffix -(y)I and is considered to be determined by parameters such as referentiality/specificity, affectedness, and topicality. In addition, Enç argues that discourse-linking, which is a backward-looking discourse fun…
Informativity, information status and the accessibility of indefinite noun phrases
In discourse processing, speakers collaborate toward a shared mental model by introducing discourse referents and picking them up with the adequate linguistic forms. Discourse referents compete with each other with respect to their prominence and their accessibility for pronouns. This study focuses on transitive sentences with proper names as subjects and indefinite noun phrases as second arguments, typically direct objects. An ambiguous pronoun …
German demonstrative pronouns differ in their sensitivity to discourse and sentence topics
German has two demonstrative pronoun series: the short form der , die , das , and the long form dieser , diese , dieses . Both forms can be used anaphorically, and they contrast with the personal pronouns er , sie , es in that they refer to an antecedent that is less prominent at that point in the discourse when the discourse provides different potential antecedents. Demonstrative pronouns are typically used in the preverbal position in a German …
The role of alternatives in the cognitive processing of German demonstratives: Insights from online and offline processing
This study, employing eye-tracking reading and sentence completion experiments, explores the impact of competing antecedents on the German demonstratives der and dieser . It challenges prior assumptions, revealing that in competitive alternative antecedent contexts, processing dieser initially posed challenges, indicating sensitivity to alternatives. Dieser exhibited less processing difficulties than der , potentially influenced by a register eff…
Relating agent prominence to discourse prominence: DO-clefts in German
The article investigates the hypothesis that prominence phenomena on different levels of linguistic structure are systematically related to each other. More specifically, it is hypothesized that prominence relations in morphosyntax reflect, and contribute to, prominence management in discourse. This hypothesis is empirically based on the phenomenon of agentivity clines, i.e. the observation that the relevance of agentivity features such as voliti…
Affectedness and Differential Object Marking in Turkish and Uzbek
This article explores the relationship between affectedness and Differential Object Marking (DOM) of indefinite direct objects in Turkish and Uzbek. We argue that the distribution of DOM in the two Turkic languages is determined by the direct objects' specificity and animacy as nominal semantic properties, and affectedness as a verbal semantic property associated with the direct object. We provide original empirical evidence from two forced-choic…
Questions in Discourse: Volume 2: Pragmatics
Gradient Effects of Animacy on Differential Object Marking in Turkish
Animacy is a pervasive cognitive category that is displayed in the grammatical behavior of the world’s languages through categorical or gradient effects. We argue in this paper that animacy is a crucial parameter for Differential Object Marking (i.e., the optional marking of the direct object) in Turkish. DOM languages are typically categorized according to their dependency on definiteness and animacy. Turkish has thus far been assumed to depend …
Semantics - Foundations, History and Methods
Discourse prominence: Definition and application
We argue that prominence is a structure-building principle throughout the grammar of languages, and in particular for building discourse representations. We provide an explicit characterization of prominence as a) relational, b) dynamic, and c) as an attractor of operations. This characterization allows us to better account for other key notions of discourse representation and discourse models on prominence, such as referential activation, attent…
Introduction to prominence in discourse
Effects of Information Status and Uniqueness Status on Referent Management in Discourse Comprehension and Planning
In discourse processing, speakers collaborate toward a shared mental model by establishing and recruiting prominence relations between different discourse referents. In this article we investigate to what extent the possibility to infer a referent’s existence from preceding context (as indicated by the referent’s information status as inferred or brand-new) and a referent’s unique identifiability (as indicated by a referent’s uniqueness status) a…
Italian V+N compounds, inflectional features and conceptual structure
Referentialität, Spezifizität und Diskursprominenz im Sprachvergleich am Beispiel von indefiniten Demonstrativpronomen
Deutsch hat neben dem definiten Artikel und dem indefiniten Artikel noch zwei weitere indefinite Artikel, bzw. Gebrauchsweisen von Ausdrücken, die einem Artikelgebrauch sehr nahe kommen: (i) der indefinite Gebrauch des Demonstratives „dies“ und (ii) das aus „so“ und dem indefiniten Artikel verschmolzene „son“. In der vorliegenden Arbeit werden die referenziellen Eigenschaften dieser beiden indefiniten Demonstrativpronomen bezüglich ihrer Referent…
Handbücher zur Sprach- und Kommunikationswissenschaft / Handbooks of Linguistics and Communication Science
Semantics; Linguistic; Theories; Generative and Cognitive Linguistics
Semantics
Handbücher zur Sprach- und Kommunikationswissenschaft / Handbooks of Linguistics and Communication Science
Semantics: An International Handbook of Natural Language Meaning
Semantic aspects of case variation
Affectedness and Differential Object Marking in Spanish
The case of accusative embedded subjects in Mongolian
Zur Bedeutung von Derivationen an der Schnittstelle von lexikalischer Semantik und konzeptueller Struktur
Discourse Structure and Intonational Phrasing
Discourse prominence: Definition and application
We argue that prominence is a structure-building principle throughout the grammar of languages, and in particular for building discourse representations. We provide an explicit characterization of prominence as a) relational, b) dynamic, and c) as an attractor of operations. This characterization allows us to better account for other key notions of discourse representation and discourse models on prominence, such as referential activation, attent…
Affectedness and Differential Object Marking in Spanish
Effects of Information Status and Uniqueness Status on Referent Management in Discourse Comprehension and Planning
In discourse processing, speakers collaborate toward a shared mental model by establishing and recruiting prominence relations between different discourse referents. In this article we investigate to what extent the possibility to infer a referent’s existence from preceding context (as indicated by the referent’s information status as inferred or brand-new) and a referent’s unique identifiability (as indicated by a referent’s uniqueness status) a…
The case of accusative embedded subjects in Mongolian
Affectedness and Differential Object Marking in Turkish and Uzbek
This article explores the relationship between affectedness and Differential Object Marking (DOM) of indefinite direct objects in Turkish and Uzbek. We argue that the distribution of DOM in the two Turkic languages is determined by the direct objects' specificity and animacy as nominal semantic properties, and affectedness as a verbal semantic property associated with the direct object. We provide original empirical evidence from two forced-choic…
Introduction to prominence in discourse
Italian V+N compounds, inflectional features and conceptual structure
Semantic aspects of case variation
Eselssätze und ihre Pferdefüße
L'interpretation des phrases donkey repose sur une analyse de plusieurs phenomenes : la semantique des SN definis et indefinis, la representation des anaphores discursives et du conditionnel, et l'interaction des SN indefinis et des pronoms anaphoriques avec le conditionnel. L'A. examine la maniere dont ces differents domaines sont traites par la theorie E-Type et par la theorie des representations discursives. Il propose ensuite une approche alt…
Logische Beziehungskonzepte und Inferenzprozeduren
Reference and Anaphoric Relations
Anaphora, Antecedents, and Accessibility
In this paper I discuss the notion of accessibility in dynamic semantics and develop a refinement of the accessibility relation, which pays special attention to the description expressed in the anaphoric expression and the progression in a discourse. Anaphoric expressions are interpreted as referring to the most-accessible item of their kind. I employ choice functions as the formal means to represent this accessibility relation. Choice functions …
Specificity and definiteness in sentence and discourse structure
In this paper, I argue that this informally given list of characteristics covers only a certain subclass of specific indefinites. [...] In particular, I dispute the definition of specific indefinites as "the speaker has the referent in mind" as rather confusing if one is working with a semantic theory. Furthermore, I discuss "relative specificity", it. cases in which the specific indefinite does not exhibit wide, but intermediate or narrow scope …
Sentence type and specificity
...
Information structure and the referential status of linguistic expression: Workshop as part of the 23th annual meetings of the Deutsche Gesellschaft für Sprachwissenschaft in Leipzig, Leipzig, Februar…
This volume comprises papers that were given at the workshop Information Structure and the Referential Status of Linguistic Expressions, which we organized during the Deutsche Gesellschaft für Sprachwissenschaft (DGfS) Conference in Leipzig in February 2001. At this workshop we discussed the connection between information structure and the referential interpretation of linguistic expressions, a topic mostly neglected in current linguistics resear…
Reference and representation of pronouns
Specificity and Definiteness in Sentence and Discourse Structure
Specificity and Definiteness in Sentence and Discourse Structure Get access Klaus Von Heusinger Klaus Von Heusinger Search for other works by this author on: Oxford Academic Google Scholar Journal of Semantics, Volume 19, Issue 3, August 2002, Pages 245–274, https://doi.org/10.1093/jos/19.3.245 Published: 01 August 2002
Interface of Lexical Semantics and Conceptual Structure Deverbal and Denominal Nominalizations
Nominalizations can refer to events, instances of events or participants in an event. The particular reference is determined by the lexical semantics of the base and the suffix, and by the conceptual structure of the base. The comparison between deverbal and denominal nominalization in -ata in Italian reveals that the conceptual structure plays a crucial role in determining the reference of a nominalization. Italian nominalizations of -ata are pr…
Words in Time: Diachronic Semantics from Different Points of View
Meanings of words are constantly changing, and the forces driving these changes are varied and diverse. Linguistic analyses are usually concerned with language-internal processes, while investigations of language-external historical developments tend to disregard linguistic considerations. It is evident, however, that an investigation of diachronic semantics will have to consider both sides: a specific theory of meaning including a proper place f…
Underspecification in the semantics of word formation: The case of denominal verbs of removal in Italian
This article analyzes a case of Italian word formation in which the semantics of the derived words appears to contain mutually exclusive ambiguities. Italian productively derives verbs of removal from nouns. These verbs have the general semantic form A removes X from Y. There are two subtypes that differ in whether the nominal base is taken to be the figure or the ground : scremare ‘to skim’ ( crema ‘cream’) is a figure verb, and scarcerare ‘to r…
Discourse Structure and Intonational Phrasing
Zur Bedeutung von Derivationen an der Schnittstelle von lexikalischer Semantik und konzeptueller Struktur
Semantics
Handbücher zur Sprach- und Kommunikationswissenschaft / Handbooks of Linguistics and Communication Science
Semantics: An International Handbook of Natural Language Meaning
Semantic aspects of case variation
Affectedness and Differential Object Marking in Spanish
The case of accusative embedded subjects in Mongolian
Referentialität, Spezifizität und Diskursprominenz im Sprachvergleich am Beispiel von indefiniten Demonstrativpronomen
Deutsch hat neben dem definiten Artikel und dem indefiniten Artikel noch zwei weitere indefinite Artikel, bzw. Gebrauchsweisen von Ausdrücken, die einem Artikelgebrauch sehr nahe kommen: (i) der indefinite Gebrauch des Demonstratives „dies“ und (ii) das aus „so“ und dem indefiniten Artikel verschmolzene „son“. In der vorliegenden Arbeit werden die referenziellen Eigenschaften dieser beiden indefiniten Demonstrativpronomen bezüglich ihrer Referent…
Handbücher zur Sprach- und Kommunikationswissenschaft / Handbooks of Linguistics and Communication Science
Semantics; Linguistic; Theories; Generative and Cognitive Linguistics
Italian V+N compounds, inflectional features and conceptual structure
Effects of Information Status and Uniqueness Status on Referent Management in Discourse Comprehension and Planning
In discourse processing, speakers collaborate toward a shared mental model by establishing and recruiting prominence relations between different discourse referents. In this article we investigate to what extent the possibility to infer a referent’s existence from preceding context (as indicated by the referent’s information status as inferred or brand-new) and a referent’s unique identifiability (as indicated by a referent’s uniqueness status) a…
Questions in Discourse: Volume 2: Pragmatics
Linguistics (27 works) · Philosophy (27 works) · Computer Science (21 works) · Syntax, Semantics, Linguistic Variation (17 works) · Language, Metaphor, and Cognition (15 works) · Psychology (12 works) · Linguistic research and analysis (9 works) · Natural language processing (9 works) · Philosophy (8 works) · Political science (7 works)