Sprache und Kontext

Recently, the Max Planck Society founded a new Project group for Psycholinguistics. This article reviews some of the kernel issues of the group's research program. The central concern is with the context dependency of the speaker's linguistic behavior. The process of linguistically formulating depends not only on what the speaker wants to express, but also on what has been said previously (linguistic context), and on the physical and social situation (nonlinguistic context). Special attention is paid to two context-dependent phenomena.     

Synthetische Schmucksteine

The first industrially feasible process for the synthesis of rubies was developed by Verneuil around the turn of the century. Progress in crystal-growing technique led in time to a number of other processes, some of which can be applied to the production of gem stones, making it possible to synthesize the most important gem stones. Even crystals that do not occur in nature, but were originally of interest in other connections, have acquired importance for jewelry in recent years.     

Early diagenetic alterations of biogenetic organic compounds

Plant matter from a beech forest, leaves, and soil were extracted and analyzed by GC-MS technique. The amount of the extract varies with the CPI value. Characteristic compounds like phytadienes, plant alcohols, polycyclic aromatics, sterols, and triterpenes are observed in different samples at various concentrations. It seems there is a rapid change in the composition of extracts from recent plant material during early diagenesis based on reactions such as hydrolysis, dehydration, oxidation, and polymerization.