Manfred Krifka

Prof. Dr. Manfred Krifka is a Professor at the Humboldt-Universität zu Berlin's Institut für Deutsche Sprache und Linguistik and former Director of the Leibniz-Zentrum Allgemeine Sprachwissenschaft (ZAS). His research focuses on formal semantics, pragmatics, speech act theory, and experimental linguistics, with a particular interest in Oceanic languages like Daakie. Krifka leads major projects such as the DFG-funded A02 project on creole languages and the ERC-supported SPAGAD project on speech acts. He also contributes to the Collaborative Research Center (CRC 1412) on register variation, exploring how language users adapt to situational-functional contexts.

Projects:

• A02: Speaker's choices in a creole context: Bislama and Morisien
• ERC Project SPAGAD
• DFG Project PSIMS (Iconic Meaning in Spoken Communication)
• BMBF Project QUEST (Quality Standards for Audiovisual Language Data)

Research Interests: Krifka investigates linguistic meaning and usage through formal and experimental methods, emphasizing speech acts, modality, anaphora, and cross-linguistic variation. His work bridges theoretical linguistics with empirical studies, including experimental syntax and corpus analysis.

Key Contributions: He has pioneered commitment space semantics, developed frameworks for performative and assertive updates, and explored anaphoric potential in languages like Persian and German. His recent work addresses register variation, the bouba/kiki effect, and the semantics of Daakie.