The Gesellschaft für Semantik is a loose association for the improvement and intensification of scientific exchange in the area of semantics. It was founded in October 1994 during the Workshop on Recent Developments in the Theory of Natural Language Semantics at Blaubeuren, by the German semanticists Sebastian Löbner, Arnim von Stechow and Thomas Ede Zimmermann, who formulated the following "manifesto":
Since the seventies, there are a lot of activities in the German semantic scene, but the semanticists are working very much on their own and with little contact to others. The situation is due to the lack of an appropriate structure of the discipline of linguistics at German universities: in most cases it is part of language and literature departments such as Germanistik or Anglistik, only a few universities have a linguistics department of their own. Within linguistics, semantics is extremely underrepresented. The Gesellschaft für Semantik will try to improve the situation, by:
organizing annual conferences and occasional workshops
building up a mailing list
discussing semantic problems
building up an ftp site for semantic publications
intensifying contacts with semanticists abroad and with neighboring disciplines
The Gesellschaft für Semantik has been organizing annual conferences under the header Sinn & Bedeutung since 1996. Sebastian Löbner has maintained a mailing list Semantik, which was transferred to its current home in 2013. An ftp site for semantic publications was installed in 1995, but it is superceded by the semanticsarchive. The Gesellschaft fuer Semantik is not an officially registered association. We don't have an official chair committee. The three persons who founded the association, Löbner, von Stechow and Zimmermann, still feel responsible and take care of the organizational part.
This website is (minimally) maintained by Emar Maier, please send updates/requests/questions to e.maier@rug.nl.