causality workshop december

[Stukker, Ninke]

International workshop on Causality in Language and Cognition
Utrecht institute of Linguistics OTS, Utrecht University, December 1-2, 2005

THEME OF THE WORKSHOP
The conceptualization of causality is a fundamental aspect of human
cognition. It is one of the most basic aspects of the way we conceive
coherence in the world we inhabit, in our experience, and in our
relationships with other people. Without much risk of overstatement, it may
be claimed that all languages of the world provide their speakers with means
to indicate causal relationships. For instance, causality can be expressed
by means of causal conjunctions or connectives, such as: therefore, as a
result, so, which indicate 'forward' causality, as opposed to because,
since, and for, which indicate 'backward' causality. Causality can also be
expressed by means of prepositions (by, through), or verbal constructions
like the so-called causative constructions (with make, have, let) as in She
made him cry, I had him bake a cake, and Let me know what you think. The
following three aspects of causality will be central to the workshop.

1. Types of causality: categorization
The systematic use of one lexical item to express a certain type of causal
relationship implies that people distinguish between several types of
causality. In her seminal work, Sweetser (1990) argued that a conjunction
like because is used to express ideational, epistemic, and speech act
meanings. Recent work has focused on the differences in Subjectivity
expressed by causal connectives (Pander Maat & Sanders, 2000, 2001; Pander
Maat & Degand, 2001; Evers-Vermeul, 2005; Pit, 2003; Sanders & Spooren,
2005; Stukker, 2005). Another distinction is that between direct and
indirect causality in the study of causal verbs (Verhagen & Kemmer, 1997).
Exploration and further definition of different types of causality will be
the first issue of this workshop. We will focus on solving several crucial
unresolved issues in the linguistic analysis of causality:
§	To what extent are causal categorizations at the level of the clause
(causative verbs) comparable to categorizations at the level of discourse
(causal connectives) (Degand, 2001; Stukker, 2005)?
§	How is Causality related to semantic aspects of the connected
segments, such as tense (Oversteegen, 2005) and aspect? 
§	Is Subjectivity a scalar notion (Pander Maat & Degand, 2001; Pit,
2003) or is it handled better with prototypical usage schemata (Stukker,
2005; Verhagen, 2005)?
§	How does Subjectivity relate to Perspective (J. Sanders & Redeker,
1996) and Mental Space Theory (Dancygier & Sweetser, 2000; Verhagen, 2005)?

2. Causality across languages and historical periods
>>From the few examples mentioned above, it is already obvious that a language
may indeed distinguish between different types of causation: the connectives
mentioned are not all synonymous, and neither are the verbs. It is here that
we may expect languages to exhibit differences and to undergo diachronic
changes (Loewenthal, 2006; Verhagen, 2000). Even if a distinction turns out
to be fairly universal in itself (as seems plausible for at least some
subcategories), the exact way in which it is delimited, or its prototype,
etcetera, may easily vary across languages or change through time. In other
words, as to the nature and the delimitation of such subtypes of causal
relations, cultures and languages presumably differ more markedly than as
far as causation per se is involved. It is this area -- cross-linguistic and
historical variation in the marking of types of causation, and the
conditioning factors involved -- that we want to address as the second topic
in this workshop.

3. Causality in discourse processing and language acquisition
If the conceptual categories encoded in language actually have cognitive
relevance, it can be expected that they influence the cognitive
representation of discourse as well as the real-time cognitive processes of
discourse interpretation.
	There is a vast amount of processing research on causality (Noordman
& Vonk, 1998). A consistent result is that causally connected information is
remembered better than non-causally related information. During processing,
causal relations tend to be read faster (Sanders & Noordman, 2000) and
reading time decreases when causality increases (Keenan et al., 1984; Myers,
Shinjo, & Duffy, 1987; Wolfe et al., 2005). These processing results suggest
the so-called Paradox of Causal Complexity: Although causal relations are
considered conceptually complex structures, processing research shows they
cost less effort and result in more accessible representations than less
complex structures like additive relations (Sanders, 2005; Mulder & Sanders,
2005). In an often neglected mode in research on discourse processing,
recent production studies have also shown the relevance of Causality: Den
Ouden (2004) found evidence for the different prosodic realization of causal
versus non-causal relations.
	Finally, conceptual categories like Causality and Subjectivity are
also expected to influence the way in which children learn language. And
indeed Causal relations seem to be acquired later than additive ones
(Evers-Vermeul, 2005). 

This workshop brings together a unique set of researchers that have all
recently worked on the three issues mentioned here.

INVITED SPEAKERS
Suzanne Kemmer (Rice University, Texas, USA)
Dirk Geeraerts (KU Leuven, Belgium)
Leo Noordman (Tilburg University / Radboud University Nijmegen, The
Netherlands)

PRELIMINARY PROGRAM
The workshop will take place on Thursday, December 1 from 9.30 am - 18.00
pm, and Friday, December 2 from 9.30 am - 14.00 pm. In addition to the
invited speakers, the following researchers will present their work on
causality: Liesbeth Degand, Jacqueline Evers-Vermeul, Judith Loewenthal,
Gerben Mulder, Leonoor Oversteegen, Henk Pander Maat, José Sanders, Ted
Sanders, Wilbert Spooren, Ninke Stukker, and Arie Verhagen.

SUBMISSION INFORMATION
There is still a very limited amount of room for additional presenters.
Proposals should include the title of the presentation, the names and
institutional affiliations of the author(s), including email addresses, and
a 250-word abstract of the presentation for publication in the abstracts
booklet. Please submit your proposal as a Word or similar text document to
J.Evers-Vermeul at let.uu.nl before or on November 17, 2005. Authors will be
notified regarding acceptance by November 18, 2005.

REGISTRATION
Please register before or on November 25 by sending an email to
J.Evers-Vermeul at let.uu.nl. Registration cost is EUR15 (without lunch), or
EUR35 (with lunch), to be paid on site. 

ORGANIZING COMMITTEE
Jacqueline Evers-Vermeul, Utrecht University
Ted Sanders, Utrecht University
Arie Verhagen, Leiden University

CONTACT
J.Evers-Vermeul at let.uu.nl