Fachbereich Linguistik Universität Salzburg

More linguistics under the Cretan sun! 🏝️

Here’s another snapshot from the 7th Crete Summer School of Linguistics, which has just come to an end. Our doctoral student, Anita Riedl, presented her poster, “Tiny bearers of positivity: Slovenian clitic polarity answers,” showing how polar questions can receive emphatic positive answers using clitic pronouns.

From Anita:
The greatest positivity, however, came not from clitics or the Cretan sun, but from the amazing team of teachers, the organizers, and the wonderful community of young researchers at the school. It was a pleasure to meet you all! ☀️

Magdalena Lohninger (PostDoc), Filipe Kobayashi (PostDoc), Janina Braun (BSc student), and Sayuri Arafune (PhD student) are currently attending the OVA Summer School in Debrecen, Hungary. Magdalena is a co-founder and co-organizer of the school and is also teaching a course on “Scientific Problem Solving for Linguists” together with Timea Szarvas (University of Potsdam). Filipe is teaching a semantics course on “Comparative Constructions.” Janina and Sayuri are attending the school as students, while Sayuri is also offering a Japanese language class as part of the extracurricular program.

Julia Krebs and Julia Martetschläger took part in the Formal and Experimental Advances in Sign Language Theory conference (FEAST 2026), held from July 6–8, 2026 in Amsterdam.

Together with Ronnie Wilbur, they presented a talk titled:
"Spatiotemporal trajectories in sign language motor learning: Displacement-velocity dissociation in novice signers"

The full list of contributors: Julia Krebs, Eric Harbour, Evie A. Malaia, Ronnie B. Wilbur, Julia Martetschläger, Hermann Schwameder, and Dietmar Roehm.

FEAST 2026 Formal and Experimental Advances in Sign Language Theory (FEAST 2026) took place at the University of Amsterdam, on July 6th–8th, 2026. We thank all attendees for their presence! The official conference languages were International Sign (IS), Dutch Sign Language (NGT) and English.

One of our PhD candidates, Franziska Keller, presented a poster entitled "Fake resumptive pronouns in Jordanian Arabic" at Creteling, 23rd of July 2026. The poster explores resumptive pronouns that can be fake indexical at the same time. Creteling was overall an excellent experience with many inspiring encounters and discussions. Many thanks to the teachers and organizing team!

Magdalena Lohninger recently taught the course "Scientific Method and Theory in Linguistics" at the V-NYI Summer School (The Virtual New York Global Institute of Cultural, Cognitive and Linguistic Studies).

The course was inspired by an MSc seminar she developed and taught at the University of Salzburg last year. Following its positive reception, she decided to bring it to a broader international audience.

It addressed the following topics:
Is linguistics the hardest of the soft sciences or the softest of the hard sciences? Positioned between the humanities and the natural sciences, linguistics raises important questions about what counts as scientific inquiry in the study of language. This course explores key philosophies of science through the work of Popper, Kuhn, and Lakatos, and considers how their ideas apply to linguistic research. It will be discuss to what extent linguistic methodology can be compared to that of the “hard” sciences, focusing on questions such as the nature of linguistic data, whether and how our claims are falsifiable, and what constitutes empirical evidence in the field. The discussion will also address the basic steps of scientific inquiry—induction, deduction, hypothesis formation, and testing—and how these processes manifest in linguistic research practices.

Two conferences, two poster presentations, one successful trip to Panama City! 🇵🇦🌴

Our doctoral student Eva Reisenberger (Psycho-Neurolinguistics) attended both the XXV International Congress of Infant Studies (ICIS) 2026 and the Fetal and Infant Neuroimaging Group (FIT'NG) Meeting 2026. She presented a poster at each conference, with one of her presentations also selected for a flash talk. We were pleased to have our research featured at these leading international events. 🧠👶🧬

Summer means conference season. 🌞 One of our PhD candidates in Psycho-Neurolinguistics, Eva Reisenberger, attended the SAMBA 2026 (Salzburg Mind Brain Annual Meeting; see: https://samba.ccns.sbg.ac.at/samba-x-meg/). 📚🧠

She had the opportunity to present EEG data from her dissertation in a poster session and was awarded the 1st place SAMBA Besa Poster Prize. 🏆

Congratulations to Eva and all co-authors: M. S. Ameen, M. Schabus, C. Florea, M. Angerer, M. Reimann-Ayiköz, J. Preiß, D. Roehm, D. P. J. Heib, C. Fazelnia! 🎉

And many thanks to the organizers for putting together a great event! 👏

📸 Logo: CCNS, University of Salzburg
📸 Freisaal: Kay Müller

Beim Science Slam ist das wie im Fußball: Erst die Vorbereitung, dann der Auftritt. Das Publikum sorgt für Stimmung, der Rest vom Kader und die Coaches supporten. Am Ende gibt’s ein Ergebnis - und für die Linguistik war's letzte Woche ein Heimsieg! Doktorandin Eva Reisenberger hat mit ihrem Slam Anpfiff Sprache: Der Weg zum ersten Wort das Publikum überzeugt und ist zur Siegerin gekürt worden.🗣️🧠🧬🇦🇹 Ein großartiger Abend – nicht nur aus linguistischer Sicht. 🏆

Ein großes Dankeschön an die Universität Salzburg und an Wissenschaftskommunikator Bernhard Weingartner, der die Slammer*innen professionell vorbereitet und den Abend großartig moderiert hat. Bravo und herzlichen Glückwunsch auch an die anderen Slammer*innen: Mathematiker Tobias Hochreiter, Expertin für Versicherungsrecht Lisa Katharina Promok, Forensiker Stefan Pittner, praktischer Theologe Sebastian Riedel und Sozialpsychologin Vicky König.

Fotos: Kay Müller

https://www.plus.ac.at/news/wissenschaft-in-sieben-minuten-erklaert-science-salm-an-der-uni-salzburg/?is_paged=1

Last weekend, we hosted the Salzburg Comparative Syntax Workshop (SalCoS) and it was a huge success! The workshop was organized by Magdalena Lohninger, Franziska Keller, Anita Riedl and Caroline Gardner, invited speakers and discussants were Mark Baker, Doreen Georgi, Laura Kalin, Jonathan Bobaljik, Jutta Hartmann and Filipe Hisao Kobayashi.

The program as well as slides and handouts can be found on the workshop website: https://sites.google.com/view/salzburg-comparative-syntax/about

A very big thank you to everyone who attended, presented and shared ideas! It was a blast!