Judith Tonhauser is a Professor of English Linguistics and Vice Rector for Early Career Researchers and

Diversity Diversity, diversify, or diverse may refer to: Business *Diversity (business), the inclusion of people of different identities (ethnicity, gender, age) in the workforce *Diversity marketing, marketing communication targeting diverse customers * ...

at the

University of Stuttgart The University of Stuttgart () is a research university located in Stuttgart, Germany. It was founded in 1829 and is organized into 10 faculties. It is one of the oldest technical universities in Germany with programs in civil, mechanical, ind ...

Education and career

Tonhauser received her Ph.D. in

Linguistics Linguistics is the scientific study of language. The areas of linguistic analysis are syntax (rules governing the structure of sentences), semantics (meaning), Morphology (linguistics), morphology (structure of words), phonetics (speech sounds ...

from

Stanford University Leland Stanford Junior University, commonly referred to as Stanford University, is a Private university, private research university in Stanford, California, United States. It was founded in 1885 by railroad magnate Leland Stanford (the eighth ...

in 2006. Her dissertation was titled ''The Temporal Semantics of Noun Phrases: Evidence from Guaraní.'' From 2006 to 2020, she was on the faculty of the Linguistics department at The

Ohio State University The Ohio State University (Ohio State or OSU) is a public university, public Land-grant university, land-grant research university in Columbus, Ohio, United States. A member of the University System of Ohio, it was founded in 1870. It is one ...

. Since 2020 she has been Professor and Chair of English Linguistics and since 2024 a Vice Rector at the University of Stuttgart. Tonhauser's research interests include

Presupposition In linguistics and philosophy, a presupposition is an implicit assumption about the world or background belief relating to an utterance whose truth is taken for granted in discourse. Examples of presuppositions include: * ''Jane no longer writes ...

projection, Prosody and Meaning, Temporal Anaphora and Reference, and

empirical methods Empirical research is research using empirical evidence. It is also a way of gaining knowledge by means of direct and indirect observation or experience. Empiricism values some research more than other kinds. Empirical evidence (the record of o ...

Semantics Semantics is the study of linguistic Meaning (philosophy), meaning. It examines what meaning is, how words get their meaning, and how the meaning of a complex expression depends on its parts. Part of this process involves the distinction betwee ...

and

Pragmatics In linguistics and the philosophy of language, pragmatics is the study of how Context (linguistics), context contributes to meaning. The field of study evaluates how human language is utilized in social interactions, as well as the relationship ...

. She is known for her work in theoretical semantics and pragmatics, specifically on cross-linguistic semantic/pragmatic variation. To this end, she has investigated languages which are under-represented in linguistic theory like the Paraguayan

Guarani language Guarani (Avañe'ẽ), also called Paraguayan Guarani, is a language of South America that belongs to the Tupi–Guarani branch of the Tupian languages, Tupian language family. It is one of the two official languages of Paraguay (along with Spa ...

, a Tupí Guaraní language spoken in

Paraguay Paraguay, officially the Republic of Paraguay, is a landlocked country in South America. It is bordered by Argentina to the Argentina–Paraguay border, south and southwest, Brazil to the Brazil–Paraguay border, east and northeast, and Boli ...

and surrounding countries.

Awards and distinctions

Tonhauser is the recipient of the 2016 Early Career Award from the

Linguistic Society of America The Linguistic Society of America (LSA) is a learned society for the field of linguistics. Founded in New York City in 1924, the LSA works to promote the scientific study of language. The society publishes three scholarly journals: ''Language'', ...

. The award recognizes scholars early in their career who have made outstanding contributions to the field of linguistics. Tonhauser's 2013 paper, "Toward a taxonomy of projective content," coauthored with David Beaver,

Craige Roberts Craige Roberts (born February 20, 1949) is an American linguist, known for her work on pragmatics and formal semantics. Education and career Roberts earned her A.B. at Indiana University in 1979. She received her Ph.D. at the University of Ma ...

, and Mandy Simons, won the 2013 Best Paper in ''Language'' (journal) Award from the

. In 2013, she was awarded an ACLS Frederick Burkhardt Residential Fellowship for Recently Tenured Scholars for her project ''Content and Context in the Study of Meaning Variation''. She is an Associate Editor of ''

Semantics and Pragmatics ''Semantics and Pragmatics'' (abbreviated ''S&P'') is a peer-reviewed diamond open access academic journal covering research pertaining to meaning in natural language. A highly prestigious journal, it is one of the most important venues in formal ...

'', a journal of the

Selected publications

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References

{{DEFAULTSORT:Tonhauser, Judith Living people Linguists from the United States Women linguists Semanticists Ohio State University faculty Stanford University alumni Place of birth missing (living people) Year of birth missing (living people) Academic staff of the University of Stuttgart