37.451, All: Obituary for Elisabeth Leiss (1957 – 2026)

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LINGUIST List: Vol-37-451. Mon Feb 02 2026. ISSN: 1069 - 4875.

Subject: 37.451, All: Obituary for Elisabeth Leiss (1957 – 2026)

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Date: 01-Feb-2026
From: Martina Werner & Sonja Zeman [Sonja.Zeman at uni-a.de]
Subject: Obituary for Elisabeth Leiss (1957 – 2026)


Elisabeth Leiss passed away unexpectedly on 7 January 2026 at the age
of 68. We are deeply saddened to have lost an outstanding and profound
scholar, colleague and friend, who dedicated her life to linguistics.
Elisabeth Leiss studied German and Romance languages and literature as
well as philosophy at the Universities of Regensburg and
Erlangen-Nürnberg. In 1995, she was appointed Professor of German
Linguistics at the University of Bamberg. From 2002 to 2023, she was
Professor of German Linguistics at the Ludwig Maximilian University of
Munich.
She was a comprehensive linguist. Her research covered a variety of
fields, including among others language theory, philosophy of language
and mind, language history and language change, grammar theory,
semantics and semiotics, comparative linguistics, orthography, and
patholinguistics. However, these keywords are incapable of capturing
the depth and innovation of her thinking nor the philosophical
dimension of her work.
She was a pioneering thinker who challenged the conventions of
traditional grammar. To her, linguistics was the search for the
general principles and intrinsic properties of language, which could
be discovered through cross-linguistic and diachronic comparisons as
well as psycholinguistic and patholinguistic studies. Her two
monographs – “Die Verbalkategorien des Deutschen” (1992) and “Artikel
und Aspekt” (2000) – are fundamental works, reflecting her lifelong
quest to illuminate the deep architecture of language and the
parallels of nominal and verbal categories. Many of her observations
and theoretical proposals, initially unconventional, were later
confirmed, highlighting her remarkable foresight and innovative
capacity (see also Abraham 2017).
Her focus of interest was none other than the relationship between
language, cognition, and the world. Based on her study of the
philosophical roots of medieval grammar, she defended an
“Un-Cartesian” approach of Universal Grammar, assuming that language
does not function as a coding system independent of thoughts, but
shapes human perception and mental processing. According to this
approach, language is responsible for all higher forms of human
cognition and thus “the very reason of human rationality” (Leiss 2013:
57).
In the latter part of her career, modality became one of her main
areas of research, as evidenced by the numerous edited volumes she
published together with Werner Abraham. According to her theory,
(epistemic) modality was the most complex grammatical category, based
on the elementary building blocks of the categories of aspect, tense,
and mood.
She organized numerous workshops, held international collaborations –
particularly with Germanists from Japan – and supervised doctoral
students from across the world. Her master seminars were
intellectually inspiring, reflecting her holistic, universalist
approach, and her ability to see linguistic patterns that others
overlooked.
Elisabeth Leiss was profoundly selfless and humble. Although she truly
deserved recognition, she never felt comfortable being the centre of
attention. All the dedication she put into research, teaching, and
administration was immense, but she would never have thought it was
worth mentioning. She would have been sceptical about the number of
words about her in this obituary, but she would have appreciated the
affection behind it and the parts about universal grammar.
Her limitless passion for linguistics continues to inspire students
and scholars alike. We miss her deeply and will always remember her
with affection and enduring admiration.
Abraham, Werner. 2017. Definiteness effects across categories in
German. In Sonja Zeman, Martina Werner & Benjamin Meisnitzer (eds.),
Im Spiegel der Grammatik. Beiträge zur Theorie sprachlicher
Kategorisierung. Tübingen: Stauffenburg.
Leiss, Elisabeth. 2013. Un-Cartesian Linguistics – how language
creates the human mind. Plenary talk at the 46th annual meeting of the
Societas Linguistics Europaea. Split, 19th September 2013.

Linguistic Field(s): General Linguistics




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