Natalja Peiseler (geb. Beckmann)

SFB 991 / CRC 991

Subject

Room: 23.32.02..67
Phone: 0211781-03188
Email: Natalja.Peiseler@hhu.de, Natalja.Beckmann@phil.uni-duesseldorf.de

SToRE Membership

SToRE member since 21.01.2016

1. advisor: Peter Indefrey
2. advisor: Ruben van de Vijver
3. advisor: Natalia Bekemeier

PhD Project

The dissertation project investigates conceptual shifts in the count/mass domain of German nouns. Typically, nouns are divided in at least two distinct classes: Count nouns and mass noun, which not only experience different syntactic behavior, but are also thought to reflect the conceptual difference between individual (countable) objects and non-dividable (not countable) substances. However, many languages allow for shifts across countability classes by employing a conceptual re-analysis of e.g. a substance towards an object. Most intuitive examples include utterances in restaurant contexts, such as “We’ll have two beers.” where the noun beer refers to individual portions, rather than to the substance.

By employing Frame Theory and collaborating with project C09 from the CRC 991, theoretically valid semantic approaches on countability will be refined and examined experimentally. Additionally to already completed corpus and sentence production studies, 3 experiments are planned which aim to gain new insights on the reaction of the language-comprehending brain to conceptual shifts by employing behavioral and electrophysiological measurements.

Publications

Heim, S., Peiseler, N., & Bekemeier, N. (2020). ” Few” or” Many”? An Adaptation Level Theory account for flexibility in quantifier processing. Frontiers in Psychology, 11, 382. [link]

2018. Beckmann, N. S., Indefrey, P. & Petersen, W. (submitted). Words count, but thoughts shift: A frame-based account to conceptual shifts in noun countability.

Conference presentations

2018. Beckmann, N. S. (2018) How to count stuff: Conceptual Shifts in German Noun Countability. Conference Psycholinguistics in Flanders (PIF 2018), Ghent, Belgium: June 4-5. [abstract]

2018. Beckmann, N. S. (2018) What actually counts: An empirical investigation of shits in noun countability. (Invited talk) Colloquium Linguistische Werkstatt (Linguistic Workshop), University of Bamberg, Germany: May 30.

2017. Beckmann, N. S. & Petersen, W. (2017). Counting thought – Exploring the cognitive reality of syntactic countability. 6th Conference on Meaning and Knowledge Representation, St. Petersburg, Russia: July, 4-6 2017

Last updated

09.01.2019