University or Organization: University of Konstanz 
Department: Linguistics 
Job Location: Baden-Wuerttemberg, Germany 
Web Address: https://www.ling.uni-konstanz.de/ 
Job Title: Postdoctoral Fellow in P1/P3

Job Rank: Post Doc

Specialty Areas: Semantics; Pragmatics; Experimental Methodology 


Description:

The Department of Linguistics invites applicants for a 2-year Postdoctoral Research Position (salary scale 13 TVL/100%) 

Applicants are invited for a two-year 100% postdoctoral position within the Research Unit (RU) "Questions at the Interfaces" (second phase), funded by the DFG (Deutsche Forschungsgemeinschaft) at the University of Konstanz. The RU is dedicated to investigating question formation and question meaning, with a particular emphasis on non-canonical questions. See https://typo.uni-konstanz.de/questionsInterfaces/. 

The successful candidate is expected to work in two projects: 
- P1 "The Role of German Particles in Questions" and 
- P3 "Alternative Questions and Beyond". 

The position is available as of April 1st, 2021. A later starting date is negotiable. The position can also be split into two 2-year long part-time positions or two shorter full-time positions. 

Project Descriptions: 
P1 "The role of German Particles in Questions" investigates how discourse particles (e.g. denn, schon, bloß) modify the illocutionary act of a question, turning a simple information-seeking question into a non-canonical question (e.g. a rhetorical question). Combining tools from formal semantics/pragmatics and psycho/neurolinguistic research, it strives to identify and derive the syntactic, semantic and pragmatic constraints that govern this modification and to explore the cognitive mechanisms that underlie the processing of discourse particles in questions. The selected candidate will design adb running experimental pragmatic studies, will cooperate in designing psycholinguistic experiments and will be responsible for the theoretical modeling (formal semantics and pragmatics) of the results. 

See: https://typo.uni-konstanz.de/questionsInterfaces/index.php/p1-description/ 

P3 "Alternative Questions and Beyond" investigates the composition, semantic properties and pragmatic distribution of alternative questions by combining formal tools, experimental methods and cross-linguistic research. Central to our project is how the final complex meaning of alternative questions compares to that of polar questions and wh-questions, both in non-canonical root uses (e.g., repeat uses) and in embedded environments (e.g., embedding puzzles with surprise-verbs, realize-verbs and admit-verbs). The selected candidate will be responsible for designing and running experimental studies and for theoretically modeling (semantics and pragmatics) the phenomenon. 

See: https://typo.uni-konstanz.de/questionsInterfaces/index.php/p3-description/ 

Requirements: 
Applicants should have a Ph.D. degree in linguistics with a specialization in formal semantics and/or pragmatics and experience in experimental methodology. 

The deadline of application is February 15, 2021, but the search will continue until the position is filled. 

Applicants should submit the following to the application portal noted below: 
- A short cover letter, 
- A full CV, 
- Two sample publications and 
- The names of two potential referees 

Application Deadline: 15-Feb-2021 

Web Address for Applications: https://stellen.uni-konstanz.de/jobposting/2b925ddef53906e230b94e7503a4cbf96065dd3c0 
Contact Information:
Prof. Maribel Romero 
Email: maribel.romerouni-konstanz.de