Prof. Dr. Tobias Ungerer

2026–27 Acting Chair of Modern English Linguistics, LMU München

2024–26 Postdoctoral fellow, Department of Psychology, University of Toronto

2022–24 Postdoctoral fellow, Department of Psychology, Concordia University, Montreal

2022 PhD Linguistics and English Language, University of Edinburgh

Feb–April 2020 Visiting Student Research Collaborator at Princeton University (with Prof. Adele Goldberg)

2012–2019 Studies in Leipzig, Cambridge and Edinburgh (BA English Studies, MSc Linguistics and Erstes Staatsexamen for teaching English/German at secondary schools)

Monographs

Ungerer, T., & Hartmann, S. (2023). Constructionist approaches: Past, present, future. Cambridge University Press. https://doi.org/10.1017/9781009308717

Ungerer, T. (2023). Structural priming in the grammatical network. John Benjamins. https://doi.org/10.1075/cal.35

Journal articles and chapters

Ungerer, T., Rastle, K., & Armstrong, B. C. (in press). Bringing the reading sciences into the classroom: Insights for phonics instruction. Perspectives on Psychological Science.

Ungerer, T., Antal, C., & de Almeida, R. G. (2026). How to sneeze a napkin off the table: Understanding grammatically creative, coerced sentences in real time. Journal of Experimental Psychology: Learning, Memory, and Cognition. https://doi.org/10.1037/xlm0001568

Hartmann, S., & Ungerer, T. (2025). Chaos theory, shmaos theory: Creativity and routine in English shm-reduplication. In S. Arndt-Lappe & N. Filatkina (Eds.), Dynamics at the lexicon-syntax interface: Creativity and routine in word-formation and multi-word expressions (pp. 295–322). https://doi.org/10.1515/9783111321905-011

Ungerer, T., & Hartmann, S. (2024). Contrastive is the new black: A cross-linguistic study of a “snowclone” in English, German, and Spanish. Quaderns de Filologia: Estudis Lingüístics 29, 217–235. https://doi.org/10.7203/QF.29.28712

Neels, J., Ungerer, T., & Hartmann, S. (2024). Doch Quantität vor Qualität? Motivationen und Mechanismen des Wandels in einer konstruktionalen Großfamilie deutscher Quantifizierer und Gradmodifizierer. Germanistische Mitteilungen 50, 13–39. https://doi.org/10.33675/GM/2024/50/5

Ungerer, T. (2024). Vertical and horizontal links in constructional networks: Two sides of the same coin? Constructions and Frames 16(1), 30–63. https://doi.org/10.1075/cf.22011.ung

Hartmann, S., & Ungerer, T. (2024). Attack of the snowclones: A corpus-based analysis of extravagant formulaic patterns. Journal of Linguistics 60(3), 599–634. https://doi.org/10.1017/S0022226723000117

Ungerer, T., & de Almeida, R. G. (2024). Context affects the comprehension of implicit arguments: Evidence from the maze task. In L. K. Samuelson, S. L. Frank, M. Toneva, A. Mackey & E. Hazeltine (Eds.), Proceedings of the 46th Annual Meeting of the Cognitive Science Society (pp. 5566–5572). Cognitive Science Society.

Ungerer, T. (2023). A gradient notion of constructionhood. Constructions 15(1). https://doi.org/10.24338/cons-543

Neels, J., Hartmann, S., & Ungerer, T. (2023). A quantum of salience: Reconsidering the role of extravagance in grammaticalization. In H. De Smet, P. Petré, & B. Szmrecsanyi (Eds.), Context, intent and variation in grammaticalization (pp. 47–78). Berlin & Boston: De Gruyter. https://doi.org/10.1515/9783110753059-003

Ungerer, T. (2022). Extending structural priming to test constructional relations: Some comments and suggestions. Yearbook of the German Cognitive Linguistics Association 10(1), 159–182. https://doi.org/10.1515/gcla-2022-0008

Ungerer, T. (2021). Using structural priming to test links between constructions: English caused-motion and resultative sentences inhibit each other. Cognitive Linguistics 32(3), 389–420. https://doi.org/10.1515/cog-2020-0016

Ungerer, T., & Hartmann, S. (2020). Delineating extravagance: Assessing speakers’ perceptions of imaginative constructional patterns. Belgian Journal of Linguistics 34, 345–356. https://doi.org/10.1075/bjl.00058.ung

Book reviews

Ungerer, T. (2023). Elaine J. Francis, Gradient acceptability and linguistic theory (Oxford Surveys in Syntax & Morphology). Oxford: Oxford University Press, 2022. Pp. xv 270. ISBN 9780192898951. English Language & Linguistics 27(2), 430–436. https://doi.org/10.1017/S1360674323000059

Ungerer, T. (2022). Review of Sommerer & Smirnova (2020): Nodes and Networks in Diachronic Construction Grammar. Journal of Historical Linguistics 12(2), 317–326. https://doi.org/10.1075/jhl.20045.ung

Ungerer, T., Matzinger, T., Pleyer, M., Hartmann, S., & Armstrong, B. C. (2026, April 10–13). The role of social biases in linguistic innovation: An artificial language learning study. EvoLang XIV. Plovdiv, Bulgaria.

Ungerer, T., & Hartmann, S. (2025, September 17–19). Contrastive is the new black: A cross-linguistic study of a “snowclone” in English, German, and Spanish. 11th International Contrastive Linguistics Conference (ICLC). Prague, Czech Republic.

Hartmann, S., & Ungerer, T. (2025, August 26–29). Probing deeper into No Equivalence: A usage-based, radically dynamic perspective. 58th Annual Meeting of the Societas Linguistica Europaea (SLE). Bordeaux, France.

Ungerer, T., Matzinger, T., Pleyer, M., & Hartmann, S. (2025, July 14–18). Extravagance in the lab: How social biases influence the emergence of linguistic innovations. 17th International Cognitive Linguistics Conference (ICLC). Buenos Aires, Argentina.

Ungerer, T., Antal, C., & de Almeida, R. G. (2023, August 7–11). Sneezing the napkin off the table: Mechanisms of valency coercion in eye-tracking. 16th International Cognitive Linguistics Conference Conference (ICLC). Düsseldorf, Germany.

Ungerer, T., & Hartmann, S. (2023, August 7–11). What is a “taxonomic network”? On the relationship between hierarchies and networks. 16th International Cognitive Linguistics Conference Conference (ICLC). Düsseldorf, Germany.

Hartmann, S., & Ungerer, T. (2023, March 7–10). “Chaos theory, shmaos theory”: Creativity and routine in English shm-reduplication. 45th Annual Conference of the German Linguistic Society (DGfS). Cologne, Germany.

Hartmann, S., Neels, J., & Ungerer, T. (2022, August 24–27). A quantum of salience: Reconsidering the role of extravagance in grammaticalization. 55th Annual Meeting of the Societas Linguistica Europaea (SLE). Bucharest, Romania.

Ungerer, T., & Hartmann, S. (2022, April 18–20). Snowclones on the workbench: Using state-of-the-art corpus methods to study formulaic constructions [Invited conference workshop]. 1st Projeto PREDICAR Congress. Rio de Janeiro, Brazil.

Ungerer, T. (2022, March 1–4). Constructional families in the lab: Novel experimental approaches to the study of constructional relations. 9th International Conference of the German Cognitive Linguistics Association (GCLA). Erfurt, Germany.

Ungerer, T. (2021, August 18–20). Vertical and horizontal links in constructional networks – two sides of the same coin? 11th International Conference on Construction Grammar (ICCG). Antwerp, Belgium.

Ungerer, T., & Lorson, A. (2020, August 26–September 1). ‘Du sprichst English? So do I’: How German speakers align in their use of Anglicisms. 53rd Annual Meeting of the Societas Linguistica Europaea (SLE). Virtual conference.

Ungerer, T., & Hartmann, S. (2020, July 27–29). Attack of the snowclones. A corpus-based analysis of extravagant formulaic patterns. UK Cognitive Linguistics Conference 2020 (UKCLC). Birmingham, UK.

Ungerer, T. (2019, August 6–11). Using structural priming to test links between constructions: Priming between caused-motion and resultatives sentences. 15th International Cognitive Linguistics Conference (ICLC). Nishinomiya, Japan.