Blog CRC1646

Conference Review: Dilara Balaban (C01), Amelie Ewald (C01) and Valentina Alimenti (C05) at the 22nd Conference “Psycholinguistics in Flanders” in Pavia

Blog CRC1646 — Thu, 2 Jul 2026 00:36:10 +0200

Psycholinguistics in Flanders (PiF) was first organized in 2002 at Ghent University as a workshop for young researchers with a keen interest in psychology of language. The 22^nd edition took place this year at University of Pavia, on 12-13 May with the participation of projects C01 and C05. The conference brought together researchers from a broad range of areas and approaches within language and cognition, primarily targeting early career researchers, fostering a collaborative environment for scientific exchange.

Over the course of two days, the participants had the chance to attend presentations on various topics including bilingualism and language control, metaphor processing, and statistical learning. The diversity of research questions, methods, and theoretical perspectives provided insights and stimulated engaging discussions on current developments in the field, with the valuable contributions of two keynote speakers Louisa Bogaerts (Ghent University) on “Statistical learning and language ability. Insights from individual differences” and Valentina Bambini (University of Pavia) on “Metaphor comprehension as a model case of inferential and multimodal brain dynamics”.

Project C01 presented two dissertation projects in the form of a poster. Amelie Ewald’s contribution was titled “Punsters vs. non-punsters: Individual differences in wordplay affinity in German” where she presented her ongoing work on investigating individual differences in wordplay affinity in German and its role for linguistic creativity. Dilara Balaban presented her poster titled “When Less Becomes More: The Effect of Lack of Inhibition on Linguistic Creativity” on the role that inhibition plays in the production of creative word formations. Valentina Alimenti, from project C05, presented her poster "The Affective Architecture of Semantic Memory: Evidence from the Verbal Fluency Task", examining the organization of semantic memory and the interplay between emotion and language, by analyzing and comparing semantic spaces of concepts derived from affective and non-affective verbal fluency tasks, contributing to the broader research on creativity and communication through the investigation of semantic memory dynamics and their relation to creative cognition.

Overall, participation in Psycholinguistics in Flanders provided C01 and C05 with an excellent opportunity for scientific exchange and engagement with current research in psycholinguistics. The conference offered valuable feedback on ongoing projects, introduced new methodological and theoretical perspectives, and facilitated discussions with researchers working on related topics. The insights gained from these interactions will contribute to future research within the CRC and to a deeper understanding of the cognitive and linguistic mechanisms underlying linguistic creativity.

See here for the book of abstracts

©Dilara Balaban

from left to right: Valentina Alimenti (C05), Amelie Ewald & Dilara Balaban (C01)

©Amelie Ewald

Conference Hall

©Amelie Ewald

Valentina Alimenti (C05) at her Poster

Behind the Science #1 mit Eleonore Laubenstein (A04)

Blog CRC1646 — Thu, 25 Jun 2026 16:23:40 +0200

In der ersten Folge unserer Reihe berichtet die Doktorandin Eleonore Laubenstein davon, warum sie sich für Konflikte in der Grammatik interessiert und was ihre Lösungen im Alltag über sprachliche Kreativität verraten. Besonders faszinieren sie Beispiele, in denen die Grammatik den Sprecher*innen verschiedene Möglichkeiten zulässt, um z. B. folgenden Satz korrekt zu beenden: „Du oder ich fahre/fährst/fahren morgen nach Bielefeld?“

Eleonores Forschungen sind Teil des Projekts A04, in welchem empirische Profile grammatischer Kreativität untersucht werden. Ausgehend von der Beobachtung, dass Sprecher*innen ihre sprachliche Kompetenz dazu nutzen, um eine neue oder modifizierte grammatische Einheit zu schaffen, kann dies unterschiedliche Funktionen einnehmen, wie z. B. eine grammatische Lücke füllen, einen grammatischen Konflikt lösen, den Anwendungsbereich einer bereits konventionalisierten Konstruktion erweitern oder einem bestimmten kommunikativen Zweck dienen. Anhand von Maßen wie Frequenz, Akzeptabilität, Lesezeiten usw. untersucht das Projektteam, ob diese vier Klassen grammatischer Kreativität eigene empirische Profile aufweisen, die sie sowohl voneinander als auch als Gruppe von als ungrammatisch empfundenen Konstruktionen unterscheiden. Auf diese Weise werden Eigenschaften und das Ausmaß der kreativen Möglichkeiten im Bereich der Morphosyntax bestimmt.

Zu unserer Videoserie: In Behind the Science geben verschiedene Mitglieder des SFB Einblicke darüber, warum sie sich für sprachliche Kreativität interessieren und welche Fragen sie dabei bewegen. Es kommen nicht nur Projektleiter*innen, sondern auch Doktorand*innen und wissenschaftlichen Hilfskräfte zu Wort.

Zur Episode 1# mit Eleonore Laubenstein: hier

Coverbild: ©Sascha Hermannski, SFB 1646

A Short Report of Research Stay at the CRC 1646 by Federico Lo Iacono (University of Turin and University of Genoa)

Blog CRC1646 — Wed, 24 Jun 2026 19:01:03 +0200

I have recently completed a three-month research stay at Bielefeld University, from 1 March to 31 May 2026, as part of the SFB 1646 project A03, “The creative listener: Interpretation at the interface of prosody, syntax and information structure”. I am currently pursuing my PhD at the University of Turin and the University of Genoa, at the Laboratorio di Fonetica Sperimentale “Arturo Genre”, where my research focuses on the prosodic and phonetic analysis of Italian poetic speech. More specifically, my doctoral project is connected to Voices of Italian Poets, a research archive and methodological framework devoted to the study of poetry read aloud by Italian poets.

The aims of my research aligned very well with the broader goals of the CRC and, in particular, with those of project A03, which investigates how listeners creatively interpret utterances in which prosody and/or information structure do not fully match a given context. This provided an ideal environment for extending my work on poetic speech, where mismatches between prosody, syntax, metre, and textual structure are often central to how meaning is produced and perceived.

Together with Professor Petra Wagner, I developed my research stay along two main directions. The first concerned the design of a perception experiment on mismatches between verse boundaries, syntax, and metre in Italian poetry. The experiment investigates how Italian native speakers perceive and recover poetic line boundaries when these occur in contexts of asymmetry between traditional metrical structure and syntactic organization. The study is currently being circulated, and the first results already appear solid and promising.

During my stay, I also had the opportunity to discuss my work with Professor Claudia Hillebrandt and Professor Berenike Herrmann. These exchanges helped me broaden the scope of my research by connecting phonetic and prosodic analysis with computational literary studies and digital humanities. Our discussions highlighted the importance of integrating quantitative approaches to timing, intonation, pauses, and rhythm with a continued attention to textual meaning, poetic form, and literary interpretation.

My integration into the phonetics group at CITEC was also extremely valuable. Sharing an office with Dr Fritz Seebauer was particularly stimulating, especially because of our discussions on statistics, Bayesian modelling, and data analysis. I also had the opportunity to discuss pausing strategies, rhythm, and quantitative analysis of speech data with Dr Simon Betz. During one of the group meetings, I presented my doctoral research and received important feedback on my work on intonation, rhythm, and voice quality in poetic speech.

More generally, the three months in Bielefeld were full of academic exchanges, discussions, and learning opportunities. Being part of the A03 project and of the phonetics group allowed me to work in a highly collaborative and interdisciplinary environment. Although my research focuses on Italian poetic speech, the questions addressed by the CRC — creativity, interpretation, prosody, syntax, information structure, and cross-linguistic variation — offered a broader theoretical framework in which my own work could be productively situated.

The stay was also very positive from a personal point of view. I appreciated the work-life balance, the welcoming atmosphere of the group, and the opportunity to experience life in Bielefeld and travel through northern Germany. The phonetics group was extremely welcoming from the very beginning, and I felt included, supported, and encouraged throughout my stay.

I would like to express my sincere gratitude to Prof. Petra Wagner, to the members of project A03, to the phonetics group at CITEC, and to the wider CRC community for their support, feedback, and hospitality. I am confident that the collaborations initiated during this fellowship will continue in the future, and I sincerely hope to return to Bielefeld soon to keep working together.

Petra Wagner & Frederico Lo Iacono in front of the X-Building of Bielefeld University © Frederico Lo Iacono

Sprachblog #4: Emilie Sitter (A05) über menschliche und künstliche Kreativität

Blog CRC1646 — Thu, 18 Jun 2026 00:17:49 +0200

Wer schon mal mit ChatGPT versucht hat, zu dichten, wird sich vielleicht fragen, ob menschliche noch von künstlicher Kreativität zu unterscheiden ist. Und wenn das so wäre: Woran ließe es sich festmachen? Diesem Thema widmet sich die Doktorandin Emilie Sitter in ihrem Beitrag zum Sprachblog auf unserer Sprachschmiede.

Warum wir Kunstwerke in der Regel als weniger kreativ beurteilen, wenn sie von einer KI erschaffen wurden, hat, so Emilie, damit zu tun, dass wir ihnen weniger Authentizität zuschreiben. Das Beispiel, das Emilie in ihrem Post analysiert („Es war ein stilles Land, hingetupft zwischen sanften Hügeln und träumerischen Flüssen…“), wurde vom Publikum im Rahmen der letzten Geniale bei den Wissenshappen „Autor: ChatGPT?“ in der Wissenswerkstadt bereits sehr angeregt diskutiert.

Emilie zeigt in ihrem Beitrag dabei auch, wie im Projekt A05 sprachliche Kreativität in literarischen und nichtliterarischen Werken vergleichend untersucht wird.

Hier geht es zu Emilies Post im Sprachblog.

Hier geht es zur Forschung des Projekts A05.

Emilie Sitter (A05) Foto: Sascha Hermannski © SFB 1646

Ausschnitt aus dem Graphic Recording von Moderatix der Station von Emilie Sitter und Berenike Herrmann zu „KI & Literatur“ der "Wissenshappen" während der Geniale in der Wissenswerkstadt Bielefeld am 8. November 2025

Projekt A05: Textualisierte Metriken sprachlicher Kreativität

v.l.n.r.: Sina Zarrieß, Omar Momen, Emilie Sitter & Berenike Hermann

Foto: Sascha Hermannski © SFB 1646

René Nicolas (B03) gab im Campus Radio Hertz 87,5 ein Interview über sein Promotionsprojekt

Blog CRC1646 — Mon, 1 Jun 2026 16:01:23 +0200

Das Bielefelder Campusradio hat in seiner Reihe „Im Gespräch“ den Doktoranden René Nicolas zu seiner Forschung im SFB befragt. Das Interview wurde am 30. Januar 2026 gesendet und ist zum Nachhören verfügbar.

In seiner Dissertation befasst sich René mit politischen Interviews und ihrem Funktionieren aus linguistischer Perspektive. Anhand von 7- bis 15minütigen Interviews aus dem Deutschlandfunk untersucht er, welche Arten es zu fragen gibt, wie Fragen gestellt werden und welche Strategien von Politiker*innen genutzt werden, um darauf zu antworten. Dafür führt er anhand von Transkripten der Interviews eine korpuslinguistische Analyse durch.

Renés Dissertation entsteht im Rahmen des Teilprojekts B03, dessen Team sich mit Indirektheit im Diskurs befasst. Im Fokus stehen indirekte Sprechakte mit Interrogativa und indirekte Erwiderungen auf Fragen (z.B. in Interviews). Mittels Sprachvergleichen (u.a. Deutsch, Englisch und Japanisch) und verschiedenen empirischen Quellen (Grammatiken, Experimente, Korpusstudien) wird erforscht, wie syntaktische Faktoren (Satztypen) und Diskursstruktur (Questions-under-Discussion) Indirektheit beeinflussen, welche Mechanismen konventionelle Bedeutung anreichern und welche Kontexte solche kreativen Interpretationen begünstigen oder hemmen.

Zum Interview geht es hier.

René Nicolas (B03)

Foto: Sascha Hermannski © SFB 1646

Projekt B03, Fotos: Sascha Hermannski, © SFB 1646

Hintere Reihe, von links nach rechts: Raoul Schubert & René Nicolas

Vordere Reihe, von links nach rechts: Arndt Riester, Jutta Hartmann, Tanja Ackermann & Julia Demina

A short report of research stay at the University of Edinburgh by Szilvia Daczó (A01)

Blog CRC1646 — Mon, 27 Apr 2026 14:19:11 +0200

Szilvia Daczó, a PhD student from project A01, is now in the thick of her one-year research stay at the University of Edinburgh. Incidentally, she is being supervised by one of A01’s very own Co-PI, András Bárány, who is a lecturer at the University in Edinburgh. Here, Szilvia gets to traverse between especially the Linguistics & English Language and Psychology departments in the School of Philosophy, Psychology and Language Sciences. As a visiting member of the School, Szilvia can sit in on lectures, attend and present at research group meetings, and be a part of the student body in general. For instance, she learned about Bayesian rather than inferential statistics for the first time and regularly hears about research pertaining to language structure (morphology, syntax) and meaning (semantics, pragmatics). There is even the Centre for Language Evolution, which is unique to this university. Their talk series often includes A01-related notions such as verb generalisation and conditioned variation.

In Szilvia’s impression, linguistics is quite wide-ranging at the department, which is perfect for discussing her work with linguists who bring in different perspectives and who ask questions about the project that have not been asked before. Furthermore, these discussions may not only be formal, since everyone seems open to a lunch-break or post-talk informal conversation. Regarding psycholinguistics, Szilvi is part of a group led by two of the most prolific researchers in the field: Martin Pickering and Holly Branigan.

The number of academic events, professional contacts, and regular as well as other visiting students foster making connections that will hopefully last beyond her physical presence at the University.

The Linguistics & English Language department is conveniently located on the main campus, in the newer Dugald Stewart Building which overlooks the quintessential older buildings of the University. Furthermore, higher floors provide a wonderful view of the city of Edinburgh itself, with the Firth of Forth estuary in the background. A pleasant sight for lunch or for looking into the distance while thinking in the meeting room!

Indeed, a research stay at a ‘buzzing’ School is a great boost for successful and effective career development, especially when the city has many (too many?) coffee shops to keep us going!

The view from the Dugald Stewart Building, with McEwan Hall pictured (Photo: Szilvia Daczó, SFB 1646)

Christmas at the Old College, where the Law faculty and a museum are still functioning today. (Photo: Szilvia Daczó, SFB 1646)

Szilvia Daczó (A01), photo: Sascha Hermannski ©SFB 1646

Project A01, photo: Sascha Hermannski ©SFB 1646

from left to right: Jutta M. Hoffmann, András Bárány, Fabian Zöfelt, Szilvia Daczó

A Short Report of Research Stay at the Linguistics Department in University of Mumbai by Shravani Patil (A03)

Blog CRC1646 — Fri, 24 Apr 2026 17:33:30 +0200

Shravani Patil, a PhD student from project A03, conducted a research visit at the Linguistics Department in University of Mumbai, India from 3rd to 20th November 2025. She had the opportunity to collect data on site at the Language Documentation Lab at the university. Her former colleagues at the University, Dr. Renuka Ozarkar and Dr. Avinash Pandey provided a huge support in setting up the lab and helping to recruit participants. (See also the report by Renuka Ozarkar on her research stay as a visiting scholar at our CRC last year.)

This visit was very important from the perspective of the A03 project as one of the tasks in the project dealt with collecting data in an interactive set up. The experiment was set up in two tasks using PsyToolkit. One of the tasks used audio stimuli to investigate prominence perception in Hindi and Urdu, while the other employed visual stimuli in an interactive scenario in which participants engaged with a confederate and selected images on a screen based on the confederate’s input.

The data collected in this research visit will be further analyzed to answer important questions in the field of information structure and prominence perception. Shravani's visit has proved to be significant in fulfilling the research goals of one of the work packages in project A03. The interactive task in a controlled set up will prove to be a great addition for linguistic creativity research. The A03 project members aim to set up a similar task in Hungarian to have possibilities of a cross linguistic analysis.

Rajabai Tower on the main campus of the Universitiy of Mumbai

photo: A. Savin © commons.wikimedia.org

Shravani Patil (A03) photo: Sascha Hermannski © SFB 1646

Project A03:

front row from left to right: Shravani Patil, Jutta Hartmann & Ákos Búza

back row from left to right: Farhat Jarbeen & Petra Wagner

photo: Sascha Hermannski © SFB

Die „Sprachschmiede“. Das Citizen Science Sprachlabor des SFB 1646 ist online

Blog CRC1646 — Wed, 8 Apr 2026 11:24:00 +0200

Die "Sprachschmiede" ist eine neue Web-Plattform zu linguistischen Phänomenen rund um sprachliche Kreativität in der Kommunikation. Sie wurde von Florian Kankowski, Doktorand im Projekt Ö, mitentwickelt. Die Projektleitung hat Prof. Dr. Oliver Bott. Sie soll es interessierten Bürger*innen ermöglichen, sich auf Augenhöhe an der Forschung im SFB zu beteiligen. Dabei ergänzt sie Projekte der partizipativen Sprachforschung, die der Praxis des Linguistic Landscaping folgen, indem Citizen Science Ansätze nun auch in der linguistischen Grundlagenforschung zum Einsatz kommen.

Das Besondere an der „Sprachschmiede“ ist ihr inhärent partizipatorischer Ansatz. Die Citizen Scientists können ihren Interessen nachgehen und an verschiedenen Stellen des wissenschaftlichen Prozesses mitwirken: von der Datenakquise durch Teilnahme an spielerisch gestalteten Experimenten über komplexere Analyseaufgaben bis hin zur Formulierung eigener Hypothesen, die sie gemeinsam mit den Forschenden in Forenbeiträgen diskutieren können. Im „Sprachblog“, dem hauseigenen Blog der Plattform, werden Ergebnisse aus Forschungsprojekten diskutiert und für die Öffentlichkeit zugänglich gemacht.

Die Sprachschmiede macht sich zunutze, dass uns das Thema Sprache ständig umtreibt. Unabhängig davon, ob wir uns bewusst damit beschäftigen oder nicht, haben wir einen intuitiven Zugang dazu. Mit Hilfe der Plattform erfahren die Forschenden von implizitem sprachlichen Wissen, das sich auf diese Weise viel umfassender erforschen lässt als in einer klassischen Laborsituation, auf die psycholinguistische Studien üblicherweise ihre Daten stützen. Außerdem bietet sie viele Möglichkeiten, um für sprachliche Phänomene im Alltag zu sensibilisieren und Einblicke in wissenschaftliche Fragen und Methoden zu geben. Dabei wird das Mittel der Gamifizierung für die Gestaltung von Experimenten genutzt, ein Ansatz, der in der Wissenskommunikation zunehmend Anwendung findet. So können sich die Teilnehmenden auf der Plattform für verschiedene Spiele entscheiden.

Aktuell laufen zwei Citizen-Science-Projekte auf der Sprachschmiede: In „Mensch vs. Maschine“ begeben sich die Citizen Scientists auf eine Forschungsreise zum Thema KI-generierter Sprache. Dabei lernen sie in mehreren Quizzen, diese von menschlicher Sprache zu unterscheiden. Im digitalen Escape-Room „Verschollen im Nichts“ befassen sie sich dagegen mit sprachlicher Negationsverarbeitung. Hier werden aus Sprachexperimenten Sprachspiele und Rätsel, ohne ihren wissenschaftlichen Mehrwert einzubüßen.

Die Plattform wird laufend weiterentwickelt und mit neuen „Forschungsreisen“ rund um sprachliche Kreativität ergänzt.

Siehe hier auch die Pressemitteilung der Universität Bielefeld vom 8. April 2026.

Launch der "Sprachschmiede" im SFB Kolloquium, Foto: Sascha Hermannski © SFB 1646

Screenshot einer Aufgabe in der "Sprachschmiede"

oben links: Florian Kankowski, oben rechts: Oliver Bott.

unten: Team des Projekts ö

Fotos: Sascha Hermannski © SFB 1646

A Short Report of Research Stay at KU Leuven by Désirée Kleineberg (A06)

Blog CRC1646 — Fri, 6 Mar 2026 07:41:48 +0100

From 12^th of November to 9^th of December 2025, the postdoctoral fellow Désirée Kleineberg from project A06 profited from the outgoing scholarships of CRC 1646 and seized the opportunity for a research stay at the KU Leuven (Belgium). She was hosted by the research group of Functional and Cognitive Linguistics (FunC). This research group investigates grammar from a cross-linguistic perspective, focusing on form-function relations, the general architecture of grammatical systems and diachronic evolution of grammatical constructions. With this research focus, the FunC group was a perfect match for Désirée’s research on the evolution of verbal periphrases in the Romance languages. In her current studies, she concentrates on the evolution of competition between various constructions which have the same function, and possible outcomes of those processes – in short: the question why some linguistic innovations are successful and others not.

During her stay, she had the opportunity to discuss her studies, the theoretical modelling and methodological questions with colleagues like Hendrik De Smet, Bert Cornillie, Anna Kisiel, or María Sol Sansiñena. The fact that we were able to welcome Hendrik De Smet to the Bielefeld colloquium just one week after Désriée's stay to give a lecture on "In language change, analogy is like gravity: omnipresent, weak and poorly understand" is proof that the connections between the CRC 1646 and our colleagues at the KU Leuven are manifold and exist in both directions. On the 18^th of December she presented the CRC and her work in the FunC-Colloquium (“On “failed” changes – The (rise and) decline of Fr. ”) and on the 3rd of December in a student’s course on language variation and change in French (“Évolution de la périphrase - Analyse des facteurs contextuels de son déclin du 15e au 18e siècle)”.

Luckily, there was also time to explore the beautiful historical city of Leuven, make some trips to nearby cities and to eat one or the other Belgian waffle!

After a month which was packed full with fruitful discussions, productive writing and some thorough reflections on theoretical concepts like competition, differentiation and success of linguistic creativity, Désirée came back full of inspiration and motivation to continue her work in project A06.

Central University Library, Foto: Désirée Kleineberg © SFB 1646

River Dijle at Groot Begijnhof, Foto: Désirée Kleineberg © SFB 1646

Désirée Kleineberg, Foto: Sascha Hermannski © SFB 1646

Project A06, Foto: Sascha Hermannski © SFB 1646

Hintere Reihe, v.l.n.r.: Barbara Job, Tanja Ackermann, Said Sahel

Vordere Reihe, v.l.n.r.: Rebekka von Legat, Désirée Kleineberg

Review: Ákos Buza (A03) on his Research Stay at the Phonetics Research Group in Budapest

Blog CRC1646 — Sun, 28 Sep 2025 18:11:01 +0200

From 15^th to 17^th of July, Ákos Buza, PhD student at Project A03, had the opportunity to visit the Phonetics Research Group at the Institute for General and Hungarian Linguistics of the Hungarian Research Centre for Linguistics (NYTK) in Budapest. During his time there, he recorded two speakers whose voices will serve as stimuli for his research, to help with the investigation into mismatches at the intersection of syntax, information structure, and prosody. The colleagues at the institute were incredibly helpful in setting up the phonetics studio to ensure Ákos captured high-quality audio.

This visit brought his project a step closer to gathering the data it needs, while also helping him to a better understanding of the prosodic patterns in his target sentences. In addition to this, Ákos was able to contribute to one of Budapest`s ongoing experiments by being recorded himself.

The visit was another step in the ongoing productive collaboration between Dr. Katalin Mády, head of the Research Group of Phonetics in Budapest, and the A03 project.

The Hungarian Research Center of Linguistics in Budapest

Control-room setup at the Hungarian Research Center for Linguistics in Budapest

Is “Zorrk” the evil twin of “Lull”? Collaboration between Project A02 and Professor Christine Mooshammer (Berlin) launched

Blog CRC1646 — Tue, 9 Sep 2025 15:56:22 +0200

We are excited to announce a collaboration between the A02 project of CRC1646 and professor Christine Mooshammer (Institut für deutsche Sprache und Linguistik, Humboldt-Universität zu Berlin). In her research, Christine Mooshammer investigates phonetics and phonology – including sound symbolism and phonaesthetics in constructed languages. She visited us at Bielefeld University last week for a very productive kick-off meeting and inspiring discussions on linguistic creativity and novel phonetic forms for naming fictional characters.

From left to right: Joana Cholin, Sina Zarrieß, Petrą Wagner, Leonie Schade, Christine Mooshammer, Daniel Duran

Conference Review: Project A02 Presented the First German BabyLM Corpus at CoNLL 2025 in Vienna

Blog CRC1646 — Tue, 26 Aug 2025 21:53:34 +0200

A02 researchers Bastian Bunzeck, Daniel Duran and Sina Zarrieß attended the 29^th Conference on Computational Natural Language Learning (CoNLL 2025) in Vienna from July 31 to August 1 and presented the world’s first German BabyLM corpus. CoNLL is one of the premier venues for work on theoretically grounded and cognitively motivated approaches to computational language learning (with an acceptance rate below 20%!).

As such, it fits directly with one of the main aims of A02 — creating computational models of creative pronunciation variation. To do so, however, first adequate data is needed. In a pioneer effort, Bastian, Daniel and Sina created a dataset of developmentally plausible training data in German. With this data, they investigated which linguistic structures a #BabyLM can learn from a relatively small amount of input data: Words? Syntax? Semantics? As it turns out, simpler child-directed language is conducive to lexical benchmarks, but less so for syntax.

During the poster presentation, Bastian, Daniel and Sina received inspiring feedback, especially as to ways in which such models could be made even more developmentally plausible — e.g. by incorporating raw speech signals instead of text. In sum, the general theme of CoNLL aligned perfectly with the work in A02, and new ideas about phonetic and phonological properties in language models led to interesting discussions with colleagues from Cambridge and Amsterdam.

Conference CoNLL 2025

Abstract of the Poster

Projekt A02

Back row from left to right: Bastian Bunzeck, Joana Cholin, Leonie Schade & Daniel Duran

Front row from left to right: Petra Wagner & Sina Zarrieß

A Short Report of Research Stay at the CRC 1646 by Renuka Ozarkar (University of Mumbai)

Blog CRC1646 — Wed, 20 Aug 2025 23:50:14 +0200

I have been on a short research stay at Bielefeld University during the 4th of May to the 28th of July, 2025 as part of the project A01: Creativity in (Morpho)syntactic Variation: the role of analogy. The project led by Prof. Dr. Jutta Hartmann and Dr. András Bárány, focuses on long-distance dependencies in languages, particularly long-distance movement and agreement. All aspects of morphosyntactic agreement, especially long-distance agreement, is my area of interest. Moreover, some phenomena such as adverbial agreement in Marathi (my native language) has been of my interest for some time. Particularly, the distribution of adverbial agreement shows patterns that are indicative of its spread in Marathi and other related language through analogical extension (perhaps a creative one). As such my interest areas seem to align with the project A01 perfectly. The project A01’s focus is also on experimental syntax, which is an area I wish to initiate into. So, with the aim of acquiring skills of syntactic experimentation to better understand the phenomena of agreement and long-distance dependencies in my language, I applied for a short research stay at Bielefeld University and subsequently joined the project A01 in May, 2025.

My three months long stay at the Bielefeld was certainly rich with interactions and learning experiences. As part of the project A01, I attended all of the group’s meetings as well as the meetings of the Current Research Group of General Linguistics. Through the colloquium lectures of the General Linguistics group as well as of the CRC, I got the opportunity to listen to several researchers in the field from various places. It was insightful overall to get a sense of the current and future directions in the field of language sciences. Interestingly, I was also invited to be part of the meetings of project A03 since one of the languages on the focal agenda of this group is Hindi, which I also work on. Interaction with this group was also equally stimulating.

As part of the project, I worked on two phenomena of agreement in Marathi: agreement in double-NP copular constructions and adverbial agreement. With the help of discussions with Prof. Hartmann, Dr. Bárány, Dr. Anke Himmelreich, Dr. Farhat Jabeen and the researchers Szilvia Dazcó, Fabian Zöfelt and Shravani Patil, I designed an experiment involving acceptability judgement task. During my stay here, I managed to set up an experiment and conduct a small pilot study (or a pre-study) and I am in the process of analysing the results. I am certain that even after I return to my work in India, our interactions and the collaborations with the project A01 will continue.

Overall the three months here were full of academic activities, including the Summer School in Linguistic Creativity and the Comparative Syntax conference. The work-life balance was great too, so that I could also enjoy the fun activities on campus and in the city. What I appreciated the most is the collaborative spirit in the CRC. Although, technically I was part of A01, my interactions stretched beyond this group alone. The General Linguistics group accommodated me easily amongst them and these interactions indicate promising start for continued collaborations in near future, which I am eagerly looking forward to engaging in. I would like to express many thanks to the entire CRC team for support me in every possible way.

Dr Renuka Ozarkar, Assistant Professor at the Department of Linguistics, University of Mumbai (India)

Link to Renuka Ozarkar at Mumbai

Link to the current call for Visiting Fellowships 2026

First RTG SFB 1646 & Friends Symposium in Bielefeld

Blog CRC1646 — Wed, 2 Jul 2025 00:00:00 +0200

English version below

Am 2. April 2025 fand von 8 bis 16 Uhr das erste Friends Symposium der Research Training Group (RTG) des SFB 1646 an der Universität Bielefeld statt. Die Veranstaltung brachte ca. 30 Doktorand*Innen und Postdocs zusammen, um über ihre Forschung zu sprachlicher Kreativität zu diskutieren und sich untereinander zu vernetzen. Teilgenommen haben nicht nur Mitglieder aus der RTG, sondern auch von der Universität Paderborn und dem CITEC Bielefeld.

Eröffnet wurde das Programm mit der Keynote von Dr. Aleksandra Ćwiek vom Leibniz- Zentrum Allgemeine Sprachwissenschaft Berlin (ZAS), die unter dem Titel „The RISE of a PhD: Navigating Chaos, Crisis, and Success in Academia" stand. In ihrer Präsentation gab sie einen offenen Einblick auf die persönliche Seite ihrer PhD-Zeit, einschließlich guter Tipps, Einsichten und Inspirationen für diese besondere und herausfordernde Lebensphase. Damit setzte sie den Ton für das gesamte Symposium, das auf Austausch, konstruktives Feedback und gegenseitige Unterstützung angelegt war. Für genügend Gelegenheiten zu persönlichen Gesprächen sorgten mehrere längere Kaffeepausen, bei denen es eine große Auswahl selbstgemachter Kuchen zu probieren gab sowie ein Lingo Bingo, in dem die Teilnehmenden Funfacts übereinander austauschten, um sich besser kennenzulernen.

Das Programm bestand darüber hinaus aus einer Reihe von Präsentationen von PhDs und PostDocs, die den fachlichen Austausch zwischen den Teilnehmenden ermöglichten. Das Thema der Präsentationen konnte frei gewählt werden, wobei dem anschließenden Feedback von den Peers besondere Bedeutung beigemessen wurde. Alexandra Filimonova (C04), Bastian Bunzeck (A02), Patricia Linnemann (B04) und Alon Fishman (C02) nutzten die Gelegenheit, um auf diese Weise mit ihren Kolleg*innen in den Austausch zu treten. Ihre Vortragsthemen reichten von den Besonderheiten eines SFB, den Herausforderungen bei der Übersetzung kreativer Ausdrücke, der Verwendung von LLMs zur Kreativitätsforschung über verschiedene Ideen zur kummulativen Promotion bis zu eigenständigen Forschungsprojekten, für deren Vorstellung man ansonsten selten einen Rahmen findet. Die Beiträge lieferten Einblicke in laufende Forschungen im SFB und regten darüber hinaus zu fruchtbarer Diskussion in angenehmer Atmosphäre an.

Am Ende waren sich alle einig, dass es eine zweite Auflage des Symposiums geben soll. Gelegenheit zum weiteren Austausch bietet auch die Sommerschule, die jährlich vom SFB organisiert wird. In der diesjährigen Auflage, die vom 21. – 25. Juli in Bielefeld stattfindet, sind für Kurzentschlossene noch vereinzelt Plätze frei.

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On April 2nd 2025, from 8:00 a.m. to 4:00 p.m., the first “CRC1646 & Friends Symposium“ took place at Bielefeld University. The event brought together more than 30 PhDs & PostDocs to connect with each other and discuss their research on language and creativity. We were very happy to welcome also CRC-external participants, for example from the University of Paderborn or the CITEC Bielefeld.

The symposium started with a keynote from Dr. Aleksandra Ćwiek (ZAS Berlin) that was called “The RISE of a PhD: Navigating Chaos, Crisis, and Success in Academia”. She presented the personal side of her own PhD journey to us, offering lots of valuable insights, tips and inspiration that we can surely use in this special and challanging phase in our lives. With her open talk, she already set the tone for the whole symposium, which aimed at personal exchange, constructive feedback and support. Long coffee breaks offered plenty opportunities to talk to each other, as well as a buffet of tasty self-baked cake and a Lingo Bingo where participants exchanged funfacts about themselves to get to know each other

In addition, the one-day program included a series of presentations by PhDs and PostDocs, enabling also professional exchange of information between the participants. The topic of the presentations could be freely chosen, and particular importance was given to the subsequent feedback from the peers. Alexandra Filimonova (C04), Bastian Bunzeck (A02), Patricia Linnemann (B04) and Alon Fishman (C02) took the opportunity to exchange ideas with their colleagues. Their presentation topics ranged from specifics of the work in the CRC, such as the challenges of translating creative expressions or the use of LLMs for creativity research, to various ideas for a cumulative thesis, or even independent individual research projects, that might not be given space for presentation elsewhere. The contributions thus provided insights into the ongoing work in the CRC and beyond and stimulated a fruitful discussion in a pleasant atmosphere.

In the end, everyone agreed that there should be a second edition of the symposium. Our annual summer schools offer the chance for further exchange. This years school, taking place from 21-25th July in Bielefeld, has some last minute spots open.

Research Training Group des SFB 1646

Summer School der RTG