Kurt Erbach

I am currently on the job market applying for grants and academic positions that will allow me to continue to research and teach about natural language semantics. I currently work as a Postdoc under both Cornelia Ebert in the Institute of Linguistics at the University of Frankfurt, and under Jacopo Romoli in the Semantics program at the University of Duesseldorf as part of the IDEAlISM project.

My previous appointments have been

My long term goal is refining notions of semantic complexity to better understand how language changes. My short term goals include refining models noun phrases that capture the complexity of the count-mass distinction across varities of English, both historical and in the present day. I also have ongoing projects looking at the count-mass distinction in Greek, Hungarian, Sorani Kurdish, and Romanian.

I am also committed to anti-discrimination language research, and am currently participating in the project A comparitive corpus study of “race” and “Rasse”, which aims to investigate anti-racist language use and language policy.

My research projects are listed below, as are my publications and courses. You can find additional content on my Mastodon page.

Projects

The evolution of the English countability system: From Old to Present Day Englishes.

  • Diachronic analyses.
    • Semantic change in the history of the English countability system, Slides.
    • The development of the collectivization construction in English. Abstract. Repository.
  • Countability in present Day Englishes.

Countability across Languages.

Complexity at the syntax-semantics interface of English NPs.

  • Direct pseudo-partitives in American English, with Remus Gergel. (In prep).

The concept of race in (US-American) English and (German) German.

Plural predication.

Publications

Teaching

  • Erbach, K. 2022. Contrasting Grammars Across Languages. Saarland University.
  • Erbach, K. 2022. Language and Power. University of Wuerzburg.
  • Erbach, K. and H. Filip. 2022. Genericity. Heinrich-Heine-University, Duesseldorf.
  • Erbach, K. and P. Maiwald. 2022. Research Methods in Linguistics. University of Wuerzburg.
  • Erbach, K. 2021. Applied Linguistics. Universty of Bonn.
  • Erbach, K. 2021. English Linguistics. University of Bonn.
  • Erbach, K. 2021. Introduction to Semantics. University of Bonn.
  • Erbach, K. 2021. Language in Culture and Cognition: Cross-cultural investigations.
  • Erbach, K. 2021. Varieties of English. University of Bonn.
  • Erbach, K. 2020. The acquisition of the mass/count distinction. Universty of Bonn.
  • Erbach, K. 2020. Corpus Linguistics. Universty of Bonn.
  • Erbach, K. 2020. Discourse and Power. Universty of Bonn.
  • Erbach, K. 2020. The History of the English Langauge. Universty of Bonn.
  • Erbach, K. 2020. Introduction to Semantics. Universty of Bonn.
  • Erbach, K. 2020. Language in Culture and Cognition: Speech Acts, Politeness, Discourse. Universty of Bonn.
  • Erbach, K. 2020. Methods in Applied Linguistics. Universty of Bonn.
  • Erbach, K. 2019. English Linguistics](https://kerbach2.github.io/teaching/syllabus_Eng_Ling_2019_winter.pdf). Universty of Bonn.
  • Erbach, K. 2019. The Mass/Count Distinction, Applied Investigations. University of Bonn.
  • Erbach, K. 2017. Plurality. Heinrich-Heine-University, Dusseldorf.