Urs Egli

Urs Egli (born July 6, 1941 in Niederbipp ; † July 1, 2018 in Kreuzlingen ) was a Swiss linguist .

Life

Urs Egli studied general and comparative linguistics and classical philology at the Universities of Bern, Freiburg and Cologne from 1960 to 1967 . His personal focus was on Indo-European Studies and later on General Linguistics with a focus on transformational grammar . After completing his dissertation, he shifted his focus of interest from syntax to semantics (especially word semantics ). In 1967 he made the Bern diploma for high school teaching (Greek and Latin). In the same year he received his doctorate in Greek, Linguistics and Latin with a thesis entitled "On Stoic Dialectics" supervised by Willy Theiler . In 1973 he completed his habilitation at the University of Bern .

In 1975 Egli became an Academic Councilor at the University of Konstanz , where he was Professor of General Linguistics from 1978 to 2006. He was retired in July 2006.

Focus of work

• Questions of semantics , especially model-theoretical semantics, word semantics and the syntax associated with semantics
• Activity in the field of cognitive science and computational linguistics
• Stoic language theory and the study of the relationship between logic , linguistics and the semantics of the anaphora

Research projects

• 1975–1985: Head of two research projects within the Collaborative Research Center 99 "Formal Linguistics" funded by the German Research Foundation
• 1989–1996: Project management on the phenomenon of (in) definiteness within the research group "Theory of the Lexicon"
• 1997–2002: Supervision and management of the project A1 "Diachronic Semantics" of the Special Research Area 471 "Variation and Change in the Lexicon"

Publications (selection)

• On the Stoic Dialectic . Inaugural dissertation Bern 1967.
• Approaches to integrating semantics into grammar . Scriptor, Kronberg im Taunus 1974, ISBN 3-589-00087-2 (= habilitation thesis).
• Problems of semantics . Universitätsverlag, Konstanz 1980, ISBN 3-87940-169-1 .
• Language and awareness of history . In: Enno Rudolph, Eckehart Stöve (Hrsg.): Historical consciousness and rationality . Klett-Cotta, Stuttgart 1982, pp. 293-312.
• Linguistics in Hellenistic times . In: Brigitte Asbach-Schnitker, Johannes Roggenhofer (Ed.): Newer research on word formation and historiography of linguistics . Narr, Tübingen 1987.
• Anaphora. History and systematics . In: Arnim von Stechow, Marie-Therese Schepping (Hrsg.): Advances in semantics . VCH (Acta Humaniora), Weinheim 1988, pp. 53-77.
• Presupposition (Stoa and Middle Ages) . In: Historical Dictionary of Philosophy , Volume 6. Schwabe, Basel 1989.
• With Klaus von Heusinger: The Epsilon Operator and E-Type Pronouns . In: Urs Egli et al. (Ed.): Lexical Knowledge in the Organization of Language . Benjamin, Amsterdam 1995, pp. 121-141.
• Definition, binding and selection functions. In: Fritz Hamm, Arnim von Stechow (Ed.): Proceeding of the Conference "Recent Developments in the Theory of Natural Language". Blaubeuren, 10. – 15. October 1994.
• Anaphora from Athens to Amsterdam . In: Klaus von Heusinger, Urs Egli (Ed.): Reference and Anaphoric Relations . Kluwer, Amsterdam 2000, pp. 17-29.
• Ferdinand de Saussure . A reluctant classic . In: Aleida Assmann, Michael C. Frank (eds.): Forgotten texts . University Press Konstanz, Konstanz 2004.
• With Renata Egli-Gerber: Back to the logos. The logos as a fundamental principle from ancient philosophy to today's discussion of reason . Kovac, Hamburg 2012, ISBN 978-3-8300-6468-8 .

Individual evidence

1. ↑ Obituary notice Urs Egli , Südkurier , July 7, 2018