SFB 991:  The Structure of Representations in Language, Cognition and Science

• Subject Area: Humanities ; Medicine ; Social and Behavioural Sciences
• Term: from 2011 to 2020
• Project identifier: Deutsche Forschungsgemeinschaft (DFG) - Project number 192776181

The CRC 991 investigates the structure of representations in language, cognition, and science. It unites re-search in a broad range of areas in linguistics with philosophical projects and with research from neuroscience and from experimental psychology. The starting point is the hypothesis that there is a uniform structure of repre-sentations underlying the neural level, the cognitive level, the level of linguistic concepts and the level of institutionalized conceptions. This uniform structure is frames, where the CRC's notion of frames is inspired by the work of the cognitive psychologist L. W. Barsalou. Starting from this hypothesis, the CRC has so far addressed the following issues: the characteristics of different nominal concepts; the structure of event frames; frame (de)composition in morphologically complex words; frame-based representations of morphophonological paradigms; frame composition and its interface with morphosyntax, information structure and discourse; conceptual operations such as coercive shifts; ambiguity, vagueness, polysemy and idiomatic versus literal readings; corpus-based frame induction; grounding concepts in the sensory-motor system; fundamental issues in philosophy of science; frame based representations of prototypes; Bayesian category learning and frames; frames in the history of philosophy; and representation structures in the social cognition in rats.In the third phase, these topics will continue to play a role. Furthermore, the CRC will extend its research to the following aspects: a) frame-internal structures that distinguish different perspectives and different levels of abstraction, relevant for instance for constraints on modification, for coercion phenomena and for the relation between literal and figurative meaning; b) conceptual classification and ways to define frame types and hierarchical relations between them; c) empirical investigations of neural and cognitive correlates of frame structure and of the nature of cognitive representations reflected by social behavior in rats; d) unsupervised and semi-supervised approaches to corpus based frame induction; e) a unified theory of frame-based discourse processing.

• DFG Programme: Collaborative Research Centres

Completed projects

• A01 - Mathematical modeling of frames (Project Head Petersen, Wiebke )
• A02 - Argument linking and extended locality. A frame-based implementation (Project Heads Kallmeyer, Laura ;  Lichte, Timm )
• A03 - Grounded cognition: Causal indexicals and affordances in frames (Project Head Vosgerau, Gottfried )
• A04 - Accessing conceptual information in language production and comprehension (Project Head Indefrey, Peter )
• A05 - Presuppositions of frame theory in the history of philosophy (Project Heads Hommen, David ;  Kann, Christoph )
• A06 - Logic and ontology of the cognitive representation of theories: Frames, sentences and models in comparison (Project Head Schurz, Gerhard )
• B01 - Verb frames at the syntax-semantics interface (Project Head van Valin, Robert D. )
• B02 - Dimensional verbs (Project Heads Geisler, Hans ;  Löbner, Sebastian )
• B03 - Action concepts in movement disorders (Project Heads Biermann-Ruben, Katja ;  Schnitzler, Alfons )
• B04 - A frame-theoretic investigation of unification and reduction in scientific theories (Project Head Schurz, Gerhard )
• B05 - A frame analysis of German legal terms (Project Head Busse, Dietrich )
• B06 - Frames in psychiatric classification (Project Heads Vosgerau, Gottfried ;  Zielasek, Jürgen )
• B08 - Hierarchical frame induction via probabilistic models (Project Head Kallmeyer, Laura )
• B09 - Modifiers as a probe into the frame structure of events (Project Heads Löbner, Sebastian ;  Petersen, Wiebke )
• C01 - Conceptual shifts: typological evidence (Project Heads Löbner, Sebastian ;  Stassen, Leonardus M.H. )
• C02 - Conceptual shifts: statistical evidence (Project Heads Löbner, Sebastian ;  Petersen, Wiebke )
• C03 - Conceptual shifts: Psycholinguistic evidence (Project Head Indefrey, Peter )
• C04 - Conceptual shifts: their role in historical semantics (Project Head Geisler, Hans )
• C05 - Frames and nominal word formation (Project Head Löbner, Sebastian )
• C08 - The semantics of derivational morphology: A frame-based approach (Project Head Plag, Ingo )
• C09 - A frame-based analysis of countability (Project Head Filip, Hana )
• C10 - A frame-based analysis of adjective-noun combinations (Project Heads Löbner, Sebastian ;  Petersen, Wiebke )
• D01 - Parameterized frame representation and conceptual spaces (Project Head Schurz, Gerhard )
• D02 - Bridging the gap between individual psychology and public meaning with frames (Project Head Vosgerau, Gottfried )
• D03 - Conceptual representation in social cognition: frame-theoretical representation of "social partner" (Project Head Kalenscher, Ph.D., Tobias )
• D04 - The role of information structure in sentence formation and construal: A frame-based approach (Project Heads Latrouite, Anja ;  van Valin, Robert D. )
• D05 - Frames in morphophonology: Paradigms as frames (Project Head van de Vijver, Ruben )
• INF - Service Project for Information Infrastrukture (Project Head Kallmeyer, Laura )
• MGK - Integrated research training group "SToRE" (Project Head Ziem, Alexander )
• Z - Central Tasks (Project Head Kallmeyer, Laura )

• Applicant Institution: Heinrich-Heine-Universität Düsseldorf
• Participating University: Eberhard Karls Universität Tübingen
• Spokespersons: Professorin Dr. Laura Kallmeyer, since 7/2015; Professor Dr. Sebastian Löbner, until 6/2015