EP/NI Conference announcement

[Doris Payne]

Conference on External Possession and Related Noun Incorporation

Eugene, Oregon
September 7-10, 1997

Conference Organizers:
  Doris Payne, University of Oregon (dlpayne at oregon.uoregon.edu)
  Immanuel Barshi, University of Colorado (ebarshi at clipr.colorado.edu)
  Gwen Frishkoff, University of Oregon (gwenf at darkwing.uoregon.edu)

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CONFERENCE DESCRIPTION: DEFINITION AND SIGNIFICANCE OF EP CONSTRUCTIONS

"External possession" (EP) refers to any construction in which a semantic
possessor-possessed relation is expressed by coding the possessor as a
core grammatical relation of the verb, and in a constituent separate from
that which contains the possessed item, regardless of whether the
possessor is expressed as subject, direct object, indirect object or
dative, and regardless of whether one wishes to argue that syntactic
"raising" or "ascension" is involved.  The possessor could simultaneously
be expressed by a pronoun or pronominal affix internal to the NP
containing the possessed item, as in a Genitive-NP construction.  But in
the EP construction, this NP-internal coding cannot be the ony expression
of the possessor.  Additionally, a lexical predicate, such as 'have',
'own' or 'be located at' cannot be the only expression of the
possessor-possessed relationship.

This conference brings together core issues in sytnax, including verbal
valence, cognitive event construal, voice, and issues in language
processing.  EP constructions are a limiting case in terms of argument
structure, and thus hold some fundamental keys for understanding the
connection between verbal argument structure and syntactic clause
structure.  In particular, these constructions frequently appear to "break
the rules" with respect to how many arguments a verb of a given valence
can have.  Given that most current theories of language processing assume
verb-centered theories of syntax, these constructions are important for
psycholinguistic language processing research.

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SCHEDULE OF EVENTS


Sunday, September 7

     6:00       Registration

     6:30       Welcoming and Opening Remarks

     7:15       Reception


Monday, September 8

      8:15      Registration and Continental breakfast

Session 1: The functional bases for EP constructions

9:00    Maura Velz-Castillo (U. of Wisconsin)
        EP constructions in Spanish and in Guaran
9:40    Bernard Comrie (U. of Southern California) & Maria Polinsky (UC at San Diego)
        Possessor raising in a language that does not have any

     10:20              Break

10:40   Zygmunt Frajzyngier (U. of Colorado)
        External possessor: A system-interactional approach

11:20   Mirjam Fried (U. of Oregon)
         From interest to ownership: A constructional view of External
        Possessors"

12:00   Discussant: Suzanne Kemmer (Rice U.)

     12:30              Lunch

Session 2: EP constructions in languages of Europe

2:00    Martin Haspelmath (U. of Bamberg)
        External possession in a European areal perspective

2:40    Silvia Luraghi (Terza U. di Roma)
        Possessor Raising in Indo-European

     3:20               Break

3:35    Melissa Bowerman & Ursula Brinkmann (Max Planck Inst.)
        The structure and acquisition of external possessor in German, Dutch, and
        English

4:15    Vera Podlesskaya & Ekaterina Rakhilina
        External Possession, reflexivization & body parts in Russian

4:55    Discussant: Bill Croft (U. of Manchester)

     5:25               Break



Session 3: Typological Studies I

5:50    William McGregor (U. of Melbourne)
        NP-External possession constructions in the Nyulnyulan languages

6:30    Hilary Chappell (La Trobe U.)
        External possession constructions in Sinitic languages: Double
        unaccusative in Taiwanese Southern Min, Cantonese Yue, and Mandarin

7:10    Wataru Nakamura (U. of Electro-Communication, Tokyo)
        On the argument structure of inalienable possession constructions

7:50    Discussant: Marianne Mithun (UC at Santa Barbara)


Tuesday, September 9

     8:15       Registration and Continental breakfast

Session 4: Psycholinguistic/Experimental panel

9:00    Keiko Uehara (CUNY at Buffalo)
        External possessors in Japanese from a psycholinguistic viewpoint: Some
        sentence completion data

9:15    Immanuel Barshi (U. of Colorado) & Doris Payne (U. of Oregon)
        Experimental design in processing of argument structures: Maasai external
        possession

9:30    Panel Discussion

                Discussants:    Melissa Bowerman (Max Planck Inst.)
                                Murray Singer (U. of Manitoba)
                                Russell Tomlin (U. of Oregon)

    10:00               Break

Session 5: Typological Studies II

10:20   Donna Gerdts (Simon Fraser Univ.)
        Mapping possessors: Parameterizing the EP construction

11:00   Jack Martin (C. of William and Mary)
        External Possession in Muskogean

     11:40              Lunch

1:00    Noel Rude (Confederated Tribes of the Umatilla Indian Reservation)
        EP in Sahaptian

1:40    Ronald Schaefer (U. of Illinois)
        On the properties of Emai possessor promotion

2:20    Discussant: T.B.A.


Session 6: Incorporation and EP

3:00    Mark Baker (McGill Univ.)
        Conditions on external possession in Mohawk: Incorporation, argument
        structure, and aspect

3:40    Paulette Levy
        "Where" rather than "what": Incorporation of "parts" in Totonac

4:20    Veerle van Geenhoven (Max Planck Inst.)
        A semantic analysis of external possessors in West Greenlandic noun
        incorporating constructions

5:00    Discussant: Marianne Mithun (UC at Santa Barbara)

     5:30               Dinner

Session 7: Incorporation vs. EP

7:00    Roberto Zavala (Max Planck Inst.)
        Possessor raising and incorporation of body parts in Oluta Popoluca
        (Mixean)

7:40    Mark Donahue (U. of Manchester)
        Syntactic roles vs. semantic roles: External possession in Tukang Besi

8:20    Discussant: Suzanne Kemmer (Rice U.)


Wednesday, September 10

     8:15       Registration and Continental breakfast

Session 8: EP, subjects, and "Subjects"

9:00    Toshihide Nakayama (UC at Santa Barbara)
        Two ways of marking possession of arguments in Nootka

9:40    Judith Aissen (UC at Santa Cruz)
        Possessor and logical subject in Tz'utujil

10:20   Pamela Munro (UCLA)
        Possession of non-canonical subjecthood

11:00   Discussant: T.B.A.

     11:20              Break

     11:40      Panel discussion: Towards an adequate theory of syntax

Discussants:    Judith Aissen (UCSC)
        Mark Baker (McGill U.)
        Bill Croft (U. of Manchester)
        Suzanne Kemmer (Rice U.)
        Marianne Mithun (UCSB)
        Doris Payne (U. of Oregon)

     6:30       BBQ dinner at the home of Tom and Doris Payne (Please
                register at the desk; see map for address and directions.)