kontextabhängige

Kontextabhängige is a German term meaning "dependent on context." In linguistics and related fields, it describes phenomena whose interpretation, reference, or function varies with contextual factors such as who is speaking, when and where something occurs, discourse history, or background knowledge. The corresponding noun form is Kontextabhängigkeit.

In linguistics, context dependence is central to indexicals and deixis: words like ich (I), hier (here), and jetzt (now) rely on the speaker, place, and time for their reference. Pronouns, demonstratives, and certain temporal or locational expressions likewise depend on surrounding context. Many words also have context-dependent senses (polysemy), and utterances can be pragmatically underspecified, requiring information from the discourse to be fully understood.

In formal semantics and the philosophy of language, context is often modeled explicitly. An assignment function or context parameter maps linguistic indices to entities, times, or possible worlds, so that truth conditions are context-sensitive. Contextualist theories argue that the truth value or content of statements can vary with contextual factors such as the speaker, the audience, or the situation.

In technology and cognitive science, kontextabhängige systems—often called context-aware systems—adjust their behavior or outputs based on user context, including location, activity, device state, or historical interactions. This broader use reflects the general principle that many cognitive and computational processes are shaped by situational information beyond the explicit content of communications.