Hans C. Boas
Associated Faculty in Other Departments — Ph.D., Linguistics, University of North Carolina at Chapel Hill
Professor; Raymond Dickson, Alton C. Allen and Dillon Anderson Centennial Professor; Director, Linguistics Research Center; Director, Texas German Dialect Project

Contact
- E-mail: hcb@austin.utexas.edu
- Phone: 512 232 6358
- Office: BUR 328
- Campus Mail Code: C3300
Interests
Syntax, Lexical Semantics, Computational Lexicography, Language Contact & Variation, Contrastive Linguistics, Corpus Linguistics, Pragmatics, Morphology, Endangered Languages, Phonology
Biography
I am a professor for Linguistics in the Department of Germanic Studies and the Department of Linguistics at the University of Texas at Austin. Before coming to Austin, I was a postdoctoral researcher with the FrameNet project at the International Computer Science Institute and a research fellow in the Department of Linguistics at the University of California at Berkeley, funded by the Deutscher Akademischer Austauschdienst ('German Academic Exchange Service'). Prior to that, I studied law and linguistics at the Georg-August- Universität Göttingen, Germany. I received both my M.A. (thesis: The Passive in German) and my Ph.D. (dissertation: Resultative Constructions in English and German) in the Linguistics Department at the University of North Carolina at Chapel Hill.
My main research revolves around the relationship between syntax, semantics, pragmatics, and the structure of the lexicon, which I approach from a contrastive perspective (English/German). The theoretical frameworks I work with are primarily Construction Grammar and Frame Semantics with a strong bias towards corpus-based research methods. This research has resulted in a number of books: A constructional approach to resultatives (2003, CSLI Publications), Construction Grammar - Back to the roots (2005, John Benjamins, co-edited with Mirjam Fried), Contrastive Studies and Valency (2006, Peter Lang, co-edited with Petra Steiner and Stefan Schierholz), and Contrastive Studies in Construction Grammar (2010, John Benjamins, edited). I am currently collaborating with Ivan Sag (Stanford University) on an edited volume on Sign-based Construction Grammar, to be published in 2011.
My secondary research focus is concerned with implementing FrameNet principles in the design of corpus-based lexical databases for languages other than English. This research interest grew out of my postdoctoral fellowship with FrameNet at the International Computer Science Institute in Berkeley (funded by the DAAD (German Academic Exchange Service)). My edited book Multinlingual FrameNets: From Theory to Application was published by Mouton de Gruyter in 2009. At UT Austin I am currently working on creating a FrameNet for German. Based on Frame Semantics and supported by corpus evidence, German FrameNet documents the full range of semantic and syntactic valences of each word in each of its senses. The resulting database consists of lexical entries that contain information about the semantic frame to which a lexical unit (a word in one of its senses) belongs, in combination with semantic and syntactic valence descriptions, and a collection of annotated corpus attestations. The data produced by German FrameNet will be useful for research in Natural Language Processing as well as Foreign Language Education.
My third research area consists of language variation, multilingualism, language contact, and language death. In September 2001, I founded the Texas German Dialect Project (TGDP) in order to record, archive, and analyze the remnants of Texas German. This endangered dialect will become extinct within the next 25-30 years. To date, I have interviewed more than 350 speakers of Texas German. The recordings, together with their transcriptions and translations, are stored in the web-based multi-media Texas German Dialect Archive after being processed by a web-based set of tools I developed between 2002-2005. My research on Texas German has been honored with a one-year fellowship from the National Endowment for the Humanities as well as the Hugo-Moser Prize for Germanic Linguistics from the Institut für Deutsche Sprache ("Institute for the German Language") in Mannheim (Germany). My latest book The Life and Death of Texas German was published with Duke University Press in 2009. This book won the 2011 Leonard Bloomfied Book Award from the Linguistic Society of America for the most outstanding contribution to the development of our understanding of language and linguistics.
Courses
LIN 393 • Frame Semantics
39855 • Spring 2020
Meets TTH 11:00AM-12:30PM BUR 232
(also listed as GER 393K)
GER 347L • Lang/Socty Ger-Spkng Countries
37570 • Spring 2018
Meets MW 11:30AM-1:00PM CMA 5.190
CDGCWr
LIN 383 • Lang Contact/Lang Death In Tex
40920 • Fall 2017
Meets TTH 2:00PM-3:30PM BUR 232
(also listed as GER 393K)
LIN 393 • Frame Semantics
40290 • Spring 2016
Meets MW 11:00AM-12:30PM BUR 232
(also listed as GER 393K)
GER 347L • Lang/Socty Ger-Spkng Countries
37110 • Fall 2015
Meets TTH 2:00PM-3:30PM BUR 337
CDGCWr
GER 381 • Intro To Synchron Ling: Ger
37330 • Spring 2015
Meets MW 1:00PM-2:30PM BUR 232
LIN 383 • Socioling:lang Contact/Death
41180 • Fall 2014
Meets TTH 11:00AM-12:30PM BUR 232
(also listed as GER 393K)
LIN 393S • Frame Semantics
41607 • Spring 2014
Meets TTH 2:00PM-3:30PM BUR 232
(also listed as GER 393K)
GER 347L • Lang/Socty Ger-Spkng Countries
38490 • Fall 2013
Meets TTH 11:00AM-12:30PM BUR 337
GC
GER 381 • Intro To Synchron Ling: Ger
38140 • Spring 2013
Meets TTH 2:00PM-3:30PM BUR 232
LIN 383 • Lang Contact/Lang Death In Tex
40840 • Fall 2012
Meets TTH 12:30PM-2:00PM BUR 232
(also listed as GER 393K)
EUS 346 • Lang/Socty Ger-Spkng Countries
36307 • Spring 2012
Meets TTH 9:30AM-11:00AM GAR 0.120
GC
(also listed as GER 347L)
LIN 393S • Frame Semantics
40923 • Spring 2012
Meets TTH 12:30PM-2:00PM BUR 232
(also listed as GER 393K)
LIN 373 • Structure Of German Language
41165 • Spring 2011
Meets TTH 2:00PM-3:30PM BUR 234
(also listed as GER 369)
LIN 383 • Intro To Synchron Ling: Ger
41210 • Spring 2011
Meets TTH 3:30PM-5:00PM BUR 234
(also listed as GER 381)
LIN 350 • Lang/Cul/Texas-German Exper-W
41128 • Spring 2010
Meets TTH 11:00AM-12:30PM BUR 337
Wr
C2
(also listed as AMS 370, ANT 324L, GRC 327E)
LIN 393S • Frame Semantics
41290 • Spring 2010
Meets TTH 3:30PM-5:00PM BUR 232
(also listed as GER 393K)
ANT 324L • Lang/Cul/Texas-German Exper-W
30455 • Fall 2009
Meets TTH 3:30PM-5:00PM BUR 337
GC
C2
LIN 383 • Lang Contact/Lang Death In Tex
41575 • Fall 2009
Meets TTH 2:00PM-3:30PM BUR 234
(also listed as GER 393K)
GER 381 • Intro To Synchron Ling: Ger
37540 • Spring 2009
Meets TTH 11:00AM-12:30PM BUR 232
LIN 392 • Contrastive Lexical Semantics
41726 • Spring 2008
Meets TTH 11:00AM-12:30PM EPS 4.102A
(also listed as GER 393K)
GER 393K • German Syntax
39290 • Fall 2007
Meets TTH 11:00AM-12:30PM EPS 4.102A
LIN 373 • Texas German Dialect
41065 • Spring 2007
Meets MWF 11:00AM-12:00PM EPS 4.104
(also listed as GER 369)
LIN 383 • Synchronic Linguistics
41102 • Spring 2007
Meets MW 12:30PM-2:00PM WMB 4.118
(also listed as GER 393K)
GER 328 • Advanced German Grammar
35465 • Spring 2005
Meets TTH 11:00AM-12:30PM RAS 310
LIN 383 • Intro To Synchron Ling: Ger
38785 • Spring 2005
Meets TTH 5:00PM-6:30PM EPS 4.102A
(also listed as GER 381)
GER 393K • German Morphology
36635 • Fall 2004
Meets TTH 2:00PM-3:30PM EPS 4.102A
LIN 373 • Germanic Linguistics
39770 • Fall 2004
Meets TTH 11:00AM-12:30PM JES A207A
(also listed as GER 369)
LIN 392 • Contrastive Lexical Semantics
37265 • Spring 2004
Meets TTH 2:00PM-3:30PM EPS 4.102A
(also listed as GER 393K)
ANT 324L • Lang/Cul/Texas-German Exper-W
26157 • Spring 2003
Meets TTH 2:00PM-3:30PM RAS 213
C2
GER 328 • Advanced German Grammar
33740 • Spring 2003
Meets TTH 11:00AM-12:30PM WEL 3.266
LIN 383 • Intro To Synchron Ling: Ger
37250 • Spring 2003
Meets T 5:00PM-8:00PM EPS 4.102A
(also listed as GER 381)
GER 328 • Advanced German Grammar
34360 • Fall 2002
Meets TTH 12:30PM-2:00PM JES A215A
GER 381 • German Phonetics And Phonol
34430 • Fall 2002
Meets T 5:00PM-8:00PM EPS 4.102A
GER 393K • The Acquisition Of German
33820 • Spring 2002
Meets T 5:00PM-8:00PM EPS 4.102A
LIN 373 • Structure Of German Language
36984 • Spring 2002
Meets TTH 11:00AM-12:30PM JES A203A
(also listed as GER 369)
GER 328 • Advanced German Grammar
34855 • Fall 2001
Meets MWF 2:00PM-3:00PM RAS 215
GER 381 • German Syntax
34927 • Fall 2001
Meets MW 5:30PM-7:00PM EPS 4.108
Publications
Pierce, Marc, Boas, Hans C., and Karen Roesch. (2015) “The history of front rounded vowels in New Braunfels German.” In: J.B. Johannessen and J.C. Salmons (eds.), Germanic Heritage Languages in North America. Amsterdam/Philadelphia: John Benjamins. 118–131.
Boas, Hans C. (2014) “Zur Architektur einer konstruktionsbasierten Grammatik des Deutschen.” In:A. Lasch and A. Ziem (eds.), Grammatik als Netzwerk von Konstruktionen. Berlin/New York: De Gruyter. 37–64.
Ziem, Alexander, Boas, Hans C., and Josef Ruppenhofer (2014) “Grammatische Konstruktionen und semantische Frames für die Textanalyse.” In: J. Hagemann and S. Staffeldt (eds.), Syntaxtheorien. Analysen im Vergleich. Tübingen: Stauffenburg. 297–333.
Boas, Hans C. and Francisco Gonzálvez-Garcia (2014) “Applying constructional concepts to Romance languages.” In: H.C. Boas and F. Gonzálvez-Garcia (eds.), Romance Perspectiveson Construction Grammar. Amsterdam/Philadelphia: John Benjamins. 1–36.
Boas, Hans C. and Francisco Gonzálvez-Garcia (eds.) (2014) Romance Perspectives on Construction Grammar. Amsterdam/Philadelphia: John Benjamins. pp. x +316.
Boas, Hans C. (2014) “Lexical and phrasal approaches to argument structure: Two sides of the same coin.” Theoretical Linguistics 40(1-2), 89–112.
Boas, Hans C., Marc Pierce, and Collin Brown. (2014) “On the variability of Texas German wo as a complementizer.” STUF – Language Typology and Universals 67(4), 589–611.
Boas, Hans C. and Ryan Dux (2013) “Semantic frames for foreign language education: Towards a German frame-based dictionary.” Veridas On-line. Special Issue on Frame Semantics and its Technological Applications. 82–100. http://www.ufjf.br/revistaveredas/edicoes-2013.
Boas, Hans C. (2013) “Cognitive Construction Grammar.” In: T. Hoffmann and G. Trousdale (eds.),The Oxford Handbook of Construction Grammar. Oxford: Oxford University Press. 233-254.
Boas, Hans C. (2013) “Thomas Hoffmann. 2011. Preposition Placement in English. A Usage-based Approach. Cambridge: Cambridge University Press.” English World Wide 34.1, 114-118. [
Boas, Hans C. (2013) “Wie viel Wissen steckt in Woerterbuechern? Eine frame-semantische Perspektive.” Zeitschrift fuer Angewandte Linguistik 57, 75-97.
Boas, Hans C. (2013) “Frame Semantics and Translation.” In: A.M. Rojo Lópes and I. Ibarretxe Antuñano (eds.), Cognitive Linguistics and Translation. Berlin/New York: Mouton de Gruyter. 125–158.
Boas, H. and I. Sag (eds.) (2012) Sign-based Construction Grammar. Stanford: CSLI Publications.
Sag, Ivan A., Boas, Hans C., and Paul Kay (2012) “Introducing Sign-based Construction Grammar.” In: H.C. Boas and I.A. Sag (eds.), Sign-based Construction Grammar. Stanford: CSLI Publications. 1-30.
Boas, Hans C. (2011) “Zum Abstraktionsgrad von Resultativkonstruktionen.” In: S. Engelberg, K. Proost, and A. Holler (eds.), Sprachliches Wissen zwischen Lexikon und Grammatik. Berlin/New York: Mouton de Gruyter. 37-69.
Boas, Hans C. (2011) “A frame-semantic approach to syntactic alternations with build-verbs”. In: Guerrero Medina, P. (ed.), Morphosyntactic alternations in English. London: Equinox. 207-234.
Boas, Hans C. and Marc Pierce (2011) “Lexical Developments in Texas German”. In: Putnam, M. (ed.), Studies on German Language Islands. Amsterdam/Philadelphia: John Benjamins. 129-150.
Boas, Hans C. (2011) “Constructing parallel lexicon fragments based on English FrameNet entries: Semantic and syntactic issues.” In: H. Hedeland, T. Schmidt, and K. Woerner (eds.), Multilingual Resources and Multilingual Applications. Proceedings of the German Society for Computational Linguistics and Language Technology (GSCL) 2011, Hamburg. University of Hamburg: Center for Language Corpora. 9-18.
Boas, Hans C. (2011) “Coercion and leaking argument structures in Construction Grammar”. Linguistics 49.6, 1271-1303.
Boas, H. (ed.) (2010) Contrastive Studies in Construction Grammar. John Benjamins.
Boas, Hans C. (2010) “Comparing constructions across languages.” In: Boas, H.C. (ed.) Contrastive Studies in Construction Grammar. Amsterdam/Philadelphia: John Benjamins. 1-20.
Boas, Hans, C., Marc Pierce, Karen Roesch, Guido Halder, and Hunter Weilbacher. (2010) “The Texas German Dialect Archive: A Multimedia Resource for Research, Teaching, and Outreach”. Journal of Germanic Linguistics 22.3, 277–296.
Boas, Hans C. (2010) “Linguistically relevant meaning elements of English communication verbs.”Belgian Journal of Linguistics 24, 54-82.
Bertoldi, Anderson, Chishman, Rove, and Hans C. Boas. (2010) “Verbs of judgment in English and Portuguese: What contrastive analysis can say about Frame Semantics.” Calidoscopio 8 (3), 210-225.
Pierce, Marc and Hans C. Boas. (2010) “First Diminutive Formation and [d]-epenthesis in Yiddish.” International Journal for Germanic Linguistics and Semiotic Analysis 15(2), 213-230.
Boas, Hans C. (2010) “On the equivalence and multifunctionality of discourse markers in language contact situations”. In: T. Harden and E. Hentschel (ed.), 40 Jahre Partikelforschung. Tuebingen: Stauffenburg Verlag. 301-315.
Boas, H.C. (2009) Case Loss in Texas German: The Influence of Semantic and Pragmatic Factors. In Bar & S. Chelliah (Eds.), The Role of Semantics and Pragmatics in the Development of Case (pp.347-373). Amsterdam/Philadelphia: Benjamins.