Universität Potsdam

(LiP No. 1, July 1994)

0. With this first issue of Linguistics in Potsdam, linguistics in Potsdam is trying to enter a new chapter of its still brief history: the transition from a starting phase more or less completely dedicated to administrative activities to a period in which we hope we can - at least partially - return to our scientific work. The major goal of LiP is, of course, to create a forum for the quick presentation of our results (what else could it be?), but before more is said about LiP's overall policy, a few words on the university and the department(s) may be of interest to the reader.

1. Science had played virtually no role in Potsdam before 1948, among the notable exceptions being the fact that one of the crucial experiments verifying Einstein's theory of relativity was carried out on Potsdam soil. As rumor has it, the first foundation of a university in Potsdam was not the result of a carefully designed plan, but of a - deliberate - mistranslation of an order by the Soviet Military Administration in Germany (SMAD): the SMAD wanted Potsdam to be the site of a college for the training of high school teachers, what Potsdam got, however, was the "State University of Brandenburg". The SMAD's original intention won over in the early fifties, but the fact that the institution managed to keep the basic prerogatives of universities was a crucial precondition for the comparatively smooth process of re-establishing the university in 1990.

While other departments of the university could build on the structures they took over from their predecessors, the department of linguistics ("general linguistics") had to begin totally from scratch. It owes its existence to the positive answer Gisa Rauh from Wuppertal gave to the request that she become a member of the first senate of the university. Together with a committee consisting of her, Sascha Felix (Passau), Hubert Haider (Stuttgart), Karl-Erich Heidolph (Berlin), Anita Steube (Leipzig) and Peter Suchsland (Jena), she designed the structure of the institute, and it was her passion and energy which made it possible that what will be Germany's biggest department of linguistics was officially approved of by the Brandenburg minister of science in August 1993, and that we can now see the gradual realization of the ambitious plans: the chair for grammatical theory was installed in February 1993 with the appointment of Gisbert Fanselow; he was later joined by Peter Staudacher (computational linguistics), Jürgen Weissenborn (language acquistion) and Ria de Bleser (neurolinguistics). The chairs for comparative grammar and language processing are currently in different stages of the installation procedure, and we are optimistic that the other chairs will come soon. Much about the background and the structure of the department can be found in Gisa Rauh's contribution to the present volume, which is the English version of a talk she gave in Potsdam last October. One should not forget in this context, however, the invaluable contribution other colleagues have made in the context of building up the structures of the department, either by the many days they spent in Potsdam as members of search committees or by helping to set up the curriculae. In addition to the colleagues mentioned above, this particularly applies to Helen Leuninger from Frankfurt, and to Klaus Brockhaus, Angela Friederici, and Jürgen Kunze from Berlin.

Linguistics in Potsdam is, however, by no means solely made up of the department of linguistics (general linguistics). The discipline is also strongly represented in the departments of English, German, Romance and Slavic language and literature, and linguists are part of a more encompassing network - the centre for cognitive studies, in which psychologists, mathematicians and information scientists contribute to the study of language (and other aspects of cognition, of course) from their points of view.

2. The last paragraph already partially indicates what the editorial policy of LiP will be. It is intended to be a forum for discussion for anyone in Potsdam who contributes to the study of language, irrespective of which department or discipline he or she might come from. To give LiP a profile, however, the editors will confine themselves to publishing work related to linguistics as part of cognitive science in a broader sense, i.e., grammar, psycho- and neurolinguistics, parsing, and related issues.

We definitely do not intend to include contributions only from colleagues working in Potsdam, though. Rather, we will invite articles from colleagues we cooperate with, and any paper that more or less directly relates to our work is welcome, however far from Potsdam the author might be and however critical of our own approaches the contribution is.

To guarantee that reading LiP is worthwhile, contributions will in the future be subject to a mild form of refereeing: papers will be reviewed by one colleague before publication. We confine the process to a single review in order to minimize publication delay - after all, LiP is a series of working papers. In addition to articles, reviews of books will appear from time to time.

Manfred Bierwisch (Max-Planck-Gesellschaft, Berlin); Ria De Bleser (Universität Potsdam); Frank Burchert (Universität Potsdam); Damir Cavar (Universität Potsdam); Gisbert Fanselow (Universität Potsdam); Ina Hockl (Universität Potsdam); Reinhold Kliegl (Universität Potsdam); Peter Kosta (Universität Potsdam); Marcus Kracht (Freie Universität, Berlin); Peter Staudacher (Universität Potsdam); Jürgen Weissenborn (Universität Potsdam); Chris Wilder (Max-Planck-Gesellschaft, Berlin)