Kurt Erbach

I am a researcher and lecturer working on nominal semantics, focusing on changes in partitivity in historical and present day varieties of English. This focus is my habilitation project, which I am carrying out under Remus Gergel, in English Linguistics at Saarland University. I am also the manager of the University of Frankfurt Semantics Laboratory under Cornelia Ebert where I work on the semantics of gesture.

My long term goal is modeling semantic complexity and its role in diachronic changes. My short term goals include refining models partitivity that capture complexity across varities of English, both historical and in the present day. I also have ongoing projects looking at the count-mass distinction in other languages.

I am also committed to anti-discrimination language research, and am continuing research that began in the project “Rasse” - Zur Aushandlung eine belasteten deutschen Ausdrucks, which investigated anti-racist language use and language policy in Germany and the US.

News

Sept 26, 2024. Presented “Experimental findings for a cross-modal account of dynamic binding in gesture-speech interaction” at XPRAG.it 2024, in Venice, Italy.

Sept 17, 2024. Presented “From number classifying to number marking: Change in English countability” at Sinn und Bedeutung 29, in Noto, Itlay..

Sept 6, 2024. Presented “Relative complexity in countability systems; A look at countability in Central Kurdish” at Lectures on Iranian Linguistics in Arizona (online).

Sept 5, 2024. Abstract “Of of from from; Rethinking the partitive cycle” accepted for a poster presetation at LSA 2025, in Philadelphia, PA, USA.

Primary Projects

Partitivity in English.

• Direct pseudo-partitives in American English, with Remus Gergel (Forthcoming).
• Partitives in the Grammatical History Germanic Languages (R&R).
• Testing dialects with simulations: The status of pseudo-partitives in US English, with Remus Gergel (Submitted).

Dynamic binding in gesture–speech interaction.

• Experimental findings of dynamic binding 
in gesture-speech interaction, with Cornelia Ebert and Magnus Poppe. (OSF repository)

Secondary and Previous Projects

Countability in English.

• Diachronic analyses.
  • The development of the collectivization construction in English (R&R).
  • Towards a history of the English countability system (Slides from the 2022 Workshop on Part-whole structures in natural language).
• Countability in present Day Englishes.
  • Non-canonical countability shifts (R&R).
  • Countability shifts in the normative dimension, with Leda Berio (Paper).
  • Counting and categorizing: The relationship between the mass/count distinction and thought, with Leda Berio, (Slides).
  • Varieties of mass/count interpretation of hybrid nouns, with Yasu Sudo (Abstract).

Countability across Languages.

• Romanian
  • Syntactic versus semantic countability categories, with Alyssa Löffler (Paper in prep).
• Sorani Kurdish
  • The count-mass distinction in Central Kurdish (Paper).
  • Variation in Countability Properties and Noun Classes; Countability in Central Kurdish, with Delan Kheder (Paper).
• Greek
  • The acquisition of object mass nouns (In prep).
  • Object mass nouns in Greek, with Vasileia Skrimpa (Abstract).
  • A measure based analysis of plural nouns in Greek (Paper).
• Hungarian
  • Bare nouns and the Hungarian mass/count distinction, with Peter R. Sutton, and Hana Filip (Paper).
  • Object mass nouns and subkind countability, with Aviv Schoenfeld (Paper, Repository).
• Japanese
  • Object Mass Nouns as Arbiter for the Mass/Count Category, with Peter R. Sutton, Hana Filip, and Katrin Byrdeck (Paper).
  • Object Mass Nouns in Japanese, with Peter R. Sutton, Hana Filip, and Katrin Byrdeck (Paper).
• Predicting object mass nouns across languges (Paper).

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

• How do Germans and US-Americans Conceive of Race? Using Corpus Analysis and Semantic Feature Production Tasks to Compare the Structure of Race Conceptions, with Daniel James, Leda Berio, Benedict Kenyah-Damptey, (Paper under review) (Repository).
• A comparative corpus study of “race” and “Rasse”, with Benedict Kenyah-Damptey, Leda Berio, Daniel James, Esther Seyffarth (Paper).

Plural predication.

• Fighting for a share of the covers: Accounting for inaccessible readings of plural predicates (Paper).
• Readings of Plurals and Common Ground, with Leda Berio (Paper).

Publications

• Erbach, Kurt. Forthcoming. The count–mass distinction in Central Kurdish. In Songül Gündoğdu, Ergin Öpengin, Agnes Grond, and Masoud Mohammadirad (eds.), Proceedings of the International Conference on Kurdish Linguistics 5. University of Graz. [Pre-final draft]
• Erbach, Kurt and Remus Gergel. Forthcoming. Direct pseudo-partitives in US English. Linguistics Vanguard
• Erbach, Kurt and Delan Kheder. 2024. Variation in Countability Properties and Noun Classes. International Journal of Kurdish Studies 10(1). 118-143. DOI: https://doi.org/10.21600/ijoks.1356084
• Erbach, Kurt, Benedict Kenyah-Damptey, Leda Berio, Daniel James, Esther Seyffarth. 2023. A comparative corpus study of “race” and “Rasse”. Applied Corpus Linguistics 3(2023). 1-10. DOI: https://doi.org/10.1016/j.acorp.2023.100044
• Erbach, Kurt and Aviv Schoenfeld. 2022. Object mass nouns and subkind countability. Glossa: a journal of general linguistics (7)1. 1-31. DOI: https://doi.org/10.16995/glossa.5788
• Erbach, Kurt and Leda Berio. 2022. Countability shifts in the normative dimension. in Gutzmann, Daniel & Sophie Repp, Eds. Proceedings of Sinn und Beduetung 26. Universität zu Köln.
• Erbach, Kurt. 2021. Object Mass Nouns: A Frame Based Analysis. Heinrich-Heine-University, Duesseldorf. PhD Dissertation.
• Erbach, Kurt, Peter R. Sutton, Hana Filip, and Katrin Byrdeck. 2021. Object Mass Nouns as Arbiter for the Mass/Count Category. In Tibor Kiss, Halima Husic, and Francis J. Pelletier (eds.), The Semantics of the Count-Mass Distinction. 167-192. Cambridge University Press. DOI: https://doi.org/10.1017/9781108937979.008
• Erbach, Kurt. 2020. Predicting object mass nouns across languges. Proceedings of the Linguistic Society of America 5(1). 228-241. https://doi.org/10.3765/plsa.v5i1.4698.
• Erbach, Kurt. 2019. A measure based analysis of plural nouns in Greek. In Espinal, M.T., E. Castroviejo, M. Leonetti, L. McNally, and C. Real-Puigdollers (eds). Proceedings of Sinn und Bedeutung 23, vol 1. 413-431. Universitat Autònoma de Barcelona, Bellaterra (Cerdanyola del Vallès).
• Erbach, Kurt and Leda Berio. 2019. Readings of Plurals and Common Ground. In E. Pacuit and J. Sikos (eds). At the Intersection of Language, Logic, and Information, Special Volume of Lecture notes in Computer Science 11667. 21-41. Springer. DOI: https://doi.org/10.1007/978-3-662-59620-3_2 (Pre-final draft)
• Erbach, Kurt, Peter R. Sutton, and Hana Filip. 2019. Bare nouns and the Hungarian mass/count distinction. In: A. Silva, S. Staton, P. Sutton, C. Umbach (eds.), Language, Logic, and Computation. TbiLLC 2017. Lecture Notes in Computer Science 11456. 86-107. Springer, Berlin, Heidelberg. DOI: https://doi.org/10.1007/978-3-662-59565-7_5 (Pre-final draft)
• Erbach, Kurt. 2018. Fighting for a share of the covers: Accounting for inaccessible readings of plural predicates. In: Sikos, J. (ed). Proceedings of the ESSLLI 2018 Student Session. 197-208.
• Erbach, Kurt, Peter R. Sutton, Hana Filip, and Katrin Byrdeck. 2017. Object Mass Nouns in Japanese. In: Cremers, A., T. van Gessel, and F. Roelofsen (eds). Proceedings of the 21st Amsterdam Colloquium. 235-244.
• Erbach, Kurt. 2014. Coordinate Systems in Gã. The University of Montana. MA Thesis.

Teaching

• Erbach, K. 2024. Topics in English semantics and pragmatics. Saarland University.
• Erbach, K. 2023. Varieties of English. Saarland University.
• 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. Universty of Bonn.
• Erbach, K. 2019. The Mass/Count Distinction, Applied Investigations. University of Bonn.
• Erbach, K. 2017. Plurality. Heinrich-Heine-University, Dusseldorf.

Previous appointments

• Post-doc, under Yasu Sudo and Clemens Mayr in the IDEAlISM project.
• Post-doc, under Jacopo Romoli in Semantics at Heinrich-Heine-University, Düsseldorf.
• Post-doc, under Carolin Biewer in English Linguistics at Julius-Maximilians-Universität of Würzburg.
• Lecturer, under Klaus P. Schneider, in English Linguistics at Rheinische Friedrich-Wilhelms-Universität Bonn.
• PhD Researcher, under Hana Filip, in Semantics at Heinrich-Heine-University, Düsseldorf.