4th International Conference
Prominence in Language 2026 (ICPL IV)
Hosted by the Collaborative Research Center 1252 “Prominence in Language”, the 4th International Conference “Prominence in Language” (ICPL IV) will take place from April 23 to 24, 2026 at the Leonardo Royal Hotel Köln - Am Stadtwald (Dürener Str. 287, 50935 Cologne).
Public transportation to the conference venue:
- to stop "Kitschburger Str." (300 m): Bus line 136
- to stop "Dürener Str./Gürtel" (500 m): Tram lines 7/13, Bus line 136
- to stop "Gleueler Str./Gürtel" (800 m): Tram line 13, Bus line 146
- to stop "Aachener Str./Gürtel" (1,5 km): Tram lines 1/7/13
Tickets can be purchased at ticket machines on the trams and buses, or online via KVB, VRS, and Deutsche Bahn.
PROGRAM
22 APRIL - Wednesday
KICK-OFF MEETING | 18:30 - 23:00
"Herbrand's" Ehrenfeld
Herbrandstr. 21, 50825 Cologne
The restaurant offers modern German-European bistro-style cuisine.
Food and drinks must be paid for on site.
Public transportation to “Herbrand's”:
- to stop "Venloer Str./Gürtel" (700 m): Tram lines 3/4/13, Bus lines 141/142/143
- to stop "Bahnhof Ehrenfeld" (700 m): S-Bahn lines 12/19
23 APRIL - Thursday
REGISTRATION & WELCOME | 08:00 – 09:30
| 08:00 – 09:00 | REGISTRATION Leonardo Royal Hotel Köln – Am Stadtwald Dürener Str. 287, 50935 Cologne |
| 09:10 – 09:30 | WELCOME Birgit Hellwig Vice Dean for International Affairs, University of Cologne Petra Schumacher Spokesperson of the CRC 1252, University of Cologne |
SESSION 1 | 09:30 – 11:00
| Chair: JANNE LORENZEN | |
| 09:30 – 10:30 | Invited Speaker: Katharina Zahner-Ritter Trier University Learning what sounds prominent – Listener adaptation to prosodic cues |
| 10:30 – 11:00 | COFFEE BREAK |
SESSION 2 | 11:00 – 12:30
| Chair: KLYMENTII MYSLYVYI | |
| 11:00 – 11:30 | Hans Rutger Bosker Radboud University Nijmegen Prominence-lending hand movements can guide word segmentation downstream |
| 11:30 – 12:00 | Lena Pagel, Simon Roessig, Doris Mücke University of Cologne Multidimensional and multimodal cues to prosodic prominence: Can we compare monologic and dialogic scenarios? |
| 12:00 – 12:30 | Fabian R. Eckert1, Aviad Albert1, Jeremy Steffman2, T. Mark Ellison1, Petra B. Schumacher1, Martine Grice1 University of Cologne1, University of Edinburgh2 The quality of prosodic quantity: Sonority is driving length illusions in perception |
LUNCH BREAK | 12:30 – 14:00
Below you will find a selection of restaurants, bakeries and cafés near the conference venue (Leonardo Royal Hotel Köln – Am Stadtwald, Dürener Str. 287, 50935 Cologne). There are various options on Dürener Str. (toward Universitätsstr.) or on Lindenthalgürtel (toward Gleueler Str.). Locations are listed by type and walking distance from the venue.
Map of Supermarkets
Map of Bakeries & Cafés
Map of Restaurants
List of restaurants near the conference venue (PDF)
Type of Restaurant | Direction: | Direction: | Opening hours & |
| Leonardo Royal Hotel – Am Stadtwald | |||
| Vitruv | Dürener Str. 287 50935 Köln | 12:00 – 21:30 0 min. | |
| Supermarkets | |||
| REWE (+ baked goods, fresh sushi and bowls) | Dürener Str. 246-248 50931 Köln | 07:00 – 0:00 7 min. / 450 m | |
| EDEKA (+ bakery) | Dürener Str. 199-203 50931 Köln | 08:00 – 22:00 12 min. / 850 m | |
| Netto | Lindenthalgürtel 69 50935 Köln | 07:00 – 21:00 9 min. / 650 m | |
| Bakeries & Cafés | |||
| Bäckerei Kraus | Dürener Str. 252 50935 Köln | Franzstraße 33 50931 Köln | 07:00 – 18:00 5 min. / 350 m --- 6:00 – 18:00 11 min. / 800 m |
| Bäckerei Schmitz & Nittenwilm | Landgrafenstraße 49 50931 Köln | Gleueler Str. 104 50935 Köln | 06:30 – 18:30 8 min. / 600 m --- 6:00 – 18:00 12 min. / 900 m |
| Kamps Bäckerei | Dürener Str. 226 50931 Köln | 07:00 – 18:00 9 min. / 650 m | |
| Brewbees Coffee https://www.brewbeescoffee.de/ | Lindenthalgürtel 31 50935 Köln | 09:00 – 17:00 12 min. / 850 m | |
| Monelli Café | Dürener Str. 224-226 50931 Köln | 09:00 – 19:00 9 min. / 650 m | |
| Café Sans Souci | Dürener Str. 165b 50931 Köln | 09:00 – 17:00 14 min. / 1 km | |
| Épi Boulangerie Patisserie | Dürener Str. 169 50931 Köln | 08:00 – 18:00 14 min. / 1 km | |
| Café Hinz & Kunz https://hinzundkunz.cafe/ | Schallstraße 34 50931 Köln | 09:00 – 17:00 17 min. / 1,2 km | |
| Salad | |||
| Quer durch’s beet https://querdurchsbeet-koeln.de/ | Lindenthalgürtel 105 50935 Köln | 12:00 – 16:00 7 min. / 450 m | |
| Vietnamese | |||
| GAO Restaurant https://gao-restaurant.de/ | Dürener Str. 253 50931 Köln | 11:30 – 23:00 7 min. / 450 m | |
| Japanese | |||
| Zenkichi https://www.restaurant-zen.de/zenkichi/restaurant | Bachemer Str. 236 50935 Köln | 11:30 – 15:30 7 min. / 500 m | |
| Sweet Sushi Lindenthal https://sweetsushi-lindenthal.de/ | Lindenthalgürtel 77 50935 Köln | 11:30 – 23:00 9 min. / 650 m | |
| Brauhaus | Brewery | |||
| Haus Schwan | Dürener Str. 235 50931 Köln | 12:00 – 0:00 9 min. / 650 m | |
| Haus Sion im Schäfer | Dürener Str. 206 50931 Köln | 11:30 – 15:30 11 min. / 750 m | |
| Landmann in Lindenthal | Dürener Str. 143 50931 Köln | 12:00 – 23:00 16 min. / 1,2 km | |
| Italian & Pizza | |||
| Trattoria Tiziano | Lindenthalgürtel 73 50935 Köln | 12:00 – 14:30 9 min. / 650 m | |
| Osteria Toscana | Dürener Str. 218 50931 Köln | 12:00 – 14:15 10 min. / 650 m | |
| Il Golfo di Napoli | Dürener Str. 217 50931 Köln | 12:00 – 22:00 10 min. / 700 m | |
| Culinarius https://www.culinarius-koeln.de/ | Dürener Str. 193-197 50931 Köln | 12:00 – 0:00 13 min. / 900 m | |
| Pizzeria Piccola Lindenthal | Dürener Str. 145 50931 Köln | 11:00 – 23:00 16 min. / 1,1 km | |
| Greek | |||
| Poseidon/Gyros Grill | Lindenthalgürtel 42 50935 Köln | 11:00 – 22:30 13 min. / 900 m | |
| Lebanese | |||
| Imbiss Shukran https://www.falafel-shukran.de/ | Dürener Str. 157 50931 Köln | 11:00 – 23:00 15 min. / 1,1 km | |
| Mexican | |||
| Little Mexico https://littlemexico-gastro.de/ | Dürener Str. 122 50931 Köln | 12:00 – 00:00 17 min. / 1,2 km | |
SESSION 3 | 14:00 – 16:00
| Chair: HEIKO SEELIGER | |
| 14:00 – 14:30 | Dominic Schmitz1, Melanie J. Bell2, Ingo Plag1 Heinrich Heine University Düsseldorf1, Anglia Ruskin University2 Semantics and pitch contour predict one another in English compounds |
| 14:30 – 15:00 | Yvonne Portele, Markus Bader Goethe University Frankfurt Revisiting Rule 1 of Centering Theory |
| 15:00 – 15:30 | Timo Buchholz1, Jet Hoek2, Klaus von Heusinger3 University of Tübingen1, Radboud University Nijmegen2, University of Cologne3 Propositional accessibility depends on the context of the anaphoric clause |
| 15:30 – 16:00 | COFFEE BREAK |
SESSION 4 – POSTER SESSION 1 | 16:00 – 17:00
[1] Derya Çokal and Klaus von Heusinger
University of Cologne
Conceptual vs. Individual Reference: How Domain Structure Shapes the Accessibility of Conceptual and Referential Entities
[2] Kristin Emmrich and Martina Penke
University of Cologne
Syntactic Priming and Visual Attention Effects on Passive Production in
German-Speaking Children With DLD
[3] Sam Hellmuth1 and Elisa Passoni2
University of York1, Queen Mary University of London2
When ‘not less‘ is still more: emphatic consonantal lengthening in Multicultural London English
[4] Evan Hochstein and Jesse Harris
University of California, Los Angeles (OCLA)
Cognitive animacy perceptions and the animacy hierarchy
[5] Jet Hoek1 and Hans A. Wilke2
Radboud University1, Rijksuniversiteit Groningen2
Individual differences at the Right Frontier
[6] Jian Ma
Humboldt University of Berlin
Voice Constraints, Prominence Shifts, and Event Structure: An Empirical Study on Poten-tial-for-Change Verbs in Mandarin Chinese and German
[7] Klymentii Myslyvyi1, Janne Lorenzen2 and Stefan Baumann1
University of Cologne1, Johannes Gutenberg University Mainz2
Gestural and accentual prominence are cumulative – An exploratory analysis of a German TED Talk
[8] Eirik Tengesdal
Oslo Metropolitan University, University of Oslo
Estimating prosodic prominences in verb–particle constructions from the Nordic Word Order Database with continuous wavelet transform
[9] Margaret Zellers
Stockholm University
Multimodal implementation of prominence in overlapping speech
SESSION 5 | 17:00 – 18:00
| Chair: MAX BONKE | |
| 17:00 – 18:00 | Invited Speaker: Steffen Heidinger University of Graz Focus affinity as prominence? |
CONFERENCE DINNER | 19:00 - 23:00
“Brauerei zur Malzmühle”
Heumarkt 6, 50667 Cologne
The restaurant offers typical Cologne brewery food. The dinner will be served à la carte with a selection of courses including meat and vegetarian and vegan options. Food and drinks must be paid for on site.
If you do not show up despite registering, we have to charge a fee of 25€/person. Registration can be canceled free of charge up to 7 days prior to the dinner (by email to: ICPL-IV-2026(at)uni-koeln.de).
Public transportation to "Brauerei zur Malzmühle":
- to stop "Heumarkt" (130 m): Tram lines 1/5/7/9, Bus lines 106/132/133/260/978
- From the conference venue you can take the tram line 7 from “Dürener Str./Gürtel” or tram line 1 from “Aachener Str./Gürtel” to stop "Heumarkt" (130 m walking distance to Dinner location).
24 APRIL - Friday
SESSION 6 | 09:00 – 10:30
| Chair: AVIAD ALBERT | |
| 09:00 – 09:30 | Wenxi Fei, Yu-Yin Hsu Hong Kong Polytechnic University How Fast Do Prosodic Cues Update? Evidence from Short-Term Cue Reweighting in Mandarin Prosodic Focus |
| 09:30 – 10:00 | Jackson Kellogg Boston University The issue of “prominence” in prosodic typology: Phonological strength vs. narrow focus |
| 10:00 – 10:30 | COFFEE BREAK |
SESSION 7 – POSTER SESSION 2 | 10:30 – 11:30
[1] Stephanie Berger
Kiel University
The distribution of prominent syllables on YouTube – A case study
[2] Alina Gregori1, Pilar Prieto2,3 and Frank Kügler1
Goethe University Frankfurt1, ICREA2, University Pompeu Fabra3
Multimodal prominence relations: post-focal de-accentuation and de-gesticulation
in German?
[3] Katja Jasinskaja and Klaus von Heusinger
University of Cologne
Tracking multiple common grounds: Mismatches in activation
[4] Simon Roessig1, Mortaza Taheri-Ardali2, Lena Pagel1 and Doris Mücke1
University of Cologne1, Carleton University2
Using EMA to Explore Prosodic Strengthening in Persian
[5] Christopher Saure
University of Cologne
Perspectival prominence: Unlocking perspective shift in indirect discourse
[6] Tiana V. Simovic and Craig Chambers
University of Toronto
Perspective reasoning as a determinant of entities’ prominence in discourse
[7] Anna Staňková
Charles University Prague
Disambiguating contrastive topic from focus: a case of Czech polar questions
SESSION 8 | 11:30 – 12:30
| Chair: FIONA MAIER | |
| 11:30 – 12:00 | James Griffiths, Güliz Günes University of Tübingen On the prosody and pragmatics of English reference and quiz questions |
| 12:00 – 12:30 | Ebrar Beşinci1, Timo Buchholz1, Robin Edds1, Ilaria Frana2, James Griffiths1, Paula Menéndez Benito1 University of Tübingen1, University of Enna Kore2 Bias in negated (Campania) Italian questions with discourse particles and prosodic prominence |
LUNCH BREAK | 12:30 – 14:00
Below you will find a selection of restaurants, bakeries and cafés near the conference venue (Leonardo Royal Hotel Köln – Am Stadtwald, Dürener Str. 287, 50935 Cologne). There are various options on Dürener Str. (toward Universitätsstr.) or on Lindenthalgürtel (toward Gleueler Str.). Locations are listed by type and walking distance from the venue.
Map of Supermarkets
Map of Bakeries & Cafés
Map of Restaurants
List of restaurants near the conference venue (PDF)
Type of Restaurant | Direction: | Direction: | Opening hours & |
| Leonardo Royal Hotel – Am Stadtwald | |||
| Vitruv | Dürener Str. 287 50935 Köln | 12:00 – 21:30 0 min. | |
| Supermarkets | |||
| REWE (+ baked goods, fresh sushi and bowls) | Dürener Str. 246-248 50931 Köln | 07:00 – 0:00 7 min. / 450 m | |
| EDEKA (+ bakery) | Dürener Str. 199-203 50931 Köln | 08:00 – 22:00 12 min. / 850 m | |
| Netto | Lindenthalgürtel 69 50935 Köln | 07:00 – 21:00 9 min. / 650 m | |
| Bakeries & Cafés | |||
| Bäckerei Kraus | Dürener Str. 252 50935 Köln | Franzstraße 33 50931 Köln | 07:00 – 18:00 5 min. / 350 m --- 6:00 – 18:00 11 min. / 800 m |
| Bäckerei Schmitz & Nittenwilm | Landgrafenstraße 49 50931 Köln | Gleueler Str. 104 50935 Köln | 06:30 – 18:30 8 min. / 600 m --- 6:00 – 18:00 12 min. / 900 m |
| Kamps Bäckerei | Dürener Str. 226 50931 Köln | 07:00 – 18:00 9 min. / 650 m | |
| Brewbees Coffee https://www.brewbeescoffee.de/ | Lindenthalgürtel 31 50935 Köln | 09:00 – 17:00 12 min. / 850 m | |
| Monelli Café | Dürener Str. 224-226 50931 Köln | 09:00 – 19:00 9 min. / 650 m | |
| Café Sans Souci | Dürener Str. 165b 50931 Köln | 09:00 – 17:00 14 min. / 1 km | |
| Épi Boulangerie Patisserie | Dürener Str. 169 50931 Köln | 08:00 – 18:00 14 min. / 1 km | |
| Café Hinz & Kunz https://hinzundkunz.cafe/ | Schallstraße 34 50931 Köln | 09:00 – 17:00 17 min. / 1,2 km | |
| Salad | |||
| Quer durch’s beet https://querdurchsbeet-koeln.de/ | Lindenthalgürtel 105 50935 Köln | 12:00 – 16:00 7 min. / 450 m | |
| Vietnamese | |||
| GAO Restaurant https://gao-restaurant.de/ | Dürener Str. 253 50931 Köln | 11:30 – 23:00 7 min. / 450 m | |
| Japanese | |||
| Zenkichi https://www.restaurant-zen.de/zenkichi/restaurant | Bachemer Str. 236 50935 Köln | 11:30 – 15:30 7 min. / 500 m | |
| Sweet Sushi Lindenthal https://sweetsushi-lindenthal.de/ | Lindenthalgürtel 77 50935 Köln | 11:30 – 23:00 9 min. / 650 m | |
| Brauhaus | Brewery | |||
| Haus Schwan | Dürener Str. 235 50931 Köln | 12:00 – 0:00 9 min. / 650 m | |
| Haus Sion im Schäfer | Dürener Str. 206 50931 Köln | 11:30 – 15:30 11 min. / 750 m | |
| Landmann in Lindenthal | Dürener Str. 143 50931 Köln | 12:00 – 23:00 16 min. / 1,2 km | |
| Italian & Pizza | |||
| Trattoria Tiziano | Lindenthalgürtel 73 50935 Köln | 12:00 – 14:30 9 min. / 650 m | |
| Osteria Toscana | Dürener Str. 218 50931 Köln | 12:00 – 14:15 10 min. / 650 m | |
| Il Golfo di Napoli | Dürener Str. 217 50931 Köln | 12:00 – 22:00 10 min. / 700 m | |
| Culinarius https://www.culinarius-koeln.de/ | Dürener Str. 193-197 50931 Köln | 12:00 – 0:00 13 min. / 900 m | |
| Pizzeria Piccola Lindenthal | Dürener Str. 145 50931 Köln | 11:00 – 23:00 16 min. / 1,1 km | |
| Greek | |||
| Poseidon/Gyros Grill | Lindenthalgürtel 42 50935 Köln | 11:00 – 22:30 13 min. / 900 m | |
| Lebanese | |||
| Imbiss Shukran https://www.falafel-shukran.de/ | Dürener Str. 157 50931 Köln | 11:00 – 23:00 15 min. / 1,1 km | |
| Mexican | |||
| Little Mexico https://littlemexico-gastro.de/ | Dürener Str. 122 50931 Köln | 12:00 – 00:00 17 min. / 1,2 km | |
SESSION 9 | 14:00 – 16:00
| Chair: GINA REINHARD | |
| 14:00 – 14:30 | Roohollah Mofidi1, Klaus von Heusinger2 Ruhr-Universität Bochum1, University of Cologne2 Differential Object Indexing in Nayini: The complex interaction of animacy, referentiality and grammatical function |
| 14:30 – 15:00 | Peter Arkadiev University of Potsdam Prominence hierarchies and indexing of oblique participants |
| 15:00 – 15:30 | Yanis da Cunha University of Graz Gender prominence across text genres: a corpus study on English, French and Spanish |
| 15:30 – 16:00 | COFFEE BREAK |
SESSION 10 | 16:00 – 18:00
| Chair: BIRGIT HELLWIG | |
| 16:00 – 16:30 | Bénédicte Grandon1, Esther Ruigendijk2 Nantes Université1, University of Oldenburg2 The role of marker prominence in the acquisition and processing of German noun plurals in school-aged children with and without Hearing Loss |
| 16:30 – 17:30 | Invited Speaker: Caroline F. Rowland MPI Nijmegen, Radboud University Nijmegen The role of multimodal interaction in children’s language acquisition |
| 17:30 | CLOSING REMARKS |
INVITED SPEAKERS
Steffen Heidinger (University of Graz)
Caroline Rowland (MPI for Psycholinguistics, Nijmegen)
Katharina Zahner-Ritter (Trier University)
CONTACT
ICPL-IV-2026(at)uni-koeln.de
REGISTRATION
Online registration is closed.
ORGANIZING COMMITTEE
Sophie Repp (A06, C10), Onur Özsoy (C03), Fabian Eckert (A01), Viktoria Henn (C02), Lene Siefert (B06), Michelle Vuong (C03) & Christine Röhr (Z).
CALL FOR PAPERS
Prominence relations establish a ranking between linguistic units, such as prosodic units, arguments of a verb, and discourse referents. Prominence is one of the key notions in language and communication: it accounts, for instance, for prosodic highlighting and for the building of linguistic structure and discourse representations. The CRC 1252 Prominence in Language (University of Cologne) investigates the role of prominence from an interdisciplinary linguistic perspective, involving phonology and phonetics, morpho-syntax, semantics, discourse pragmatics and multimodality both in spoken and in signed languages. It also links up with social cognition and narratology. Current research efforts are devoted to language in typical usage settings, such as written genres comprising larger discourse segments and everyday conversation, i.e. interactive communication. A recently added focus is individual and population-specific variability, which affects speaker perspective and dialogic communication in general.
The International Conference “Prominence in Language” has been running in Cologne since 2015, with the second and third issue having taken place in 2018, and 2022. The Fourth International Conference “Prominence in Language” ICPL IV will take place in April 2026. It aims at advancing the understanding of the notion of prominence in language and at promoting the exchange among researchers working on prominence-related phenomena from various perspectives and disciplines. We invite contributions employing quantitative and qualitative research methods, synchronic and diachronic perspectives, cross-linguistic research, modelling, psycho- and neurolinguistic and cognitively oriented approaches as well as applied ones, both in spoken and in signed languages.
Sign language interpretation will be provided at ICPL IV. Presentations in a sign language are also possible.
A (non-exhaustive) list of topics to be addressed at ICPL IV may include for instance the following:
- the encoding and decoding of prominence
- language-specific and universal prominence scales and structures (e.g., animacy scale, referentiality scale, metrical scale, thematic role hierarchy)
- factors determining the ranking of entities in discourse (e.g., agentivity, topicality, activation)
- the role of prominence in the tense-aspect-modality system
- the relation between the prominence status of entities in discourse and their availability as perspective-takers
- prominence of propositions (e.g., rhetorical relations, argumentative relations)
- prominence and multimodality
- prominence and individual variation
- prominence and clinical populations
- prominence and gender/sex
- psycho- and neurolinguistic underpinnings of prominence relations
- dynamic modelling of prominence
- language comparison and cross-linguistic perspectives
- prominence in language acquisition, bilingualism and multilingualism
- studying prominence using large language models
ACCOMODATION
See here for more information.