From phdebrab at yahoo.co.uk Mon Nov 2 05:20:46 2009 From: phdebrab at yahoo.co.uk (Philippe De Brabanter) Date: Mon, 2 Nov 2009 05:20:46 +0000 Subject: Call for papers - workshop on Future at The 43rd annual Meeting of Societas Linguistica Europaea Vilnius University, Lithuania, 2-5 September 2010 Message-ID: Workshop ‘Future tense(s) / future time(s)' The 43rd annual Meeting of Societas Linguistica Europaea Vilnius University, Lithuania, 2-5 September 2010 Convenors: Philippe De Brabanter (Université Paris 4-Sorbonne – Institut Jean Nicod) Mikhail Kissine (FNRS, Université Libre de Bruxelles) Saghie Sharifzadeh (Université Paris 4-Sorbonne) Contact: phdebrab at yahoo.co.uk Call for Papers Time Frame: We ask potential participants to send us their provisional titles and short descriptions no later than 12 November so as to allow us to submit our workshop proposal to the SLE Scientific Committee before 15 November 2009. In case of acceptance of our proposal, all abstracts will have to be submitted by the end of December via the ‘submit abstract’ form to be found on the SLE website. Description: Among tenses and linguistic expressions that anchor events and situations in time, those that refer to the future occupy a special place. The most obvious reason is the 'open' or 'indeterminate' character of the future: at least from our present point of view, the future course of events is not fixed while there is arguably only one past. This problem has exercised the minds of all those who have attempted to provide a semantic account of future temporal reference. Not surprisingly, this has led numerous linguists to argue that (at least certain) linguistic markers of futurity belong to the category of modality rather than to the tense system proper. And it is true, typically in Germanic languages, that the central markers of futurity have often developed diachronically from modal verbs. However, the semantic indeterminacy of future reference is just one among many fascinating questions. These include (the list is not exhaustive): - pastness in the future - futurity in the past - ‘distance’ in the future (near vs. remote future) - the use of future tense or other verbal forms marking future time in subordinate clauses - the use of verbal forms usually marking future time to mean other things than reference to future time. In this workshop, we would like to promote a fresh look at the future by bringing together semanticists, typologists, cognitive linguists and other linguists interested in all things future. We encourage scholars from various theoretical traditions to submit papers. We also wish to reach across traditional languages lines and welcome submissions that examine similarities and differences between Romance or Germanic languages on the one hand, and other language groups on the other. Important dates: Deadline for submissions: November 12, 2009 Conference: September 2-5, 2010 From Freek.VanDeVelde at arts.kuleuven.be Tue Nov 3 11:07:16 2009 From: Freek.VanDeVelde at arts.kuleuven.be (Freek Van de Velde) Date: Tue, 3 Nov 2009 12:07:16 +0100 Subject: call for papers workshop Vilnius Message-ID: Hi, This call for papers might interest the subscribers of Funknet. Best regards, Freek Van de Velde. SLE 2010 Vilnius: Workshop proposal Multiple source constructions in language change In recent work on grammaticalization and language change in general, it has often been stressed that change does not affect individual lexemes, but entire constructions (see Bybee et al. 1994: 11; Croft 2000:62, 156, 163; Heine 2003: 575; Bybee 2003: 602-3, 2007; Traugott 2007). However, although most case studies on diachronic language change now recognize the importance of the source construction as a whole, they generally focus on just one such construction, drawing gradual, yet straight lines from one particular source construction to one specific syntagm. Using the metaphor proposed in Croft (2000: 32-37), constructions form diachronic lineages as they are replicated in usage, and change is typically conceived of as occurring within a lineage through altered replication. Recent studies, however, demonstrate that innovations in language change may derive not just from one, but from different sources at once. That is, change often seems to involve some interaction between lineages or between the branches of a lineage. Multiplicity of source constructions can be witnessed on two levels. On the macro-level, the involvement of multiple source constructions entails a merger of clearly distinct lineages. One linguistic item or construction can then be traced back to two independent items or constructions, each with its own prior history. Several types of merger can be discerned, which are however not mutually exclusive: · Syntactic blends ('intraference' in Croft 2000): the formal and functional features of different lineages are recombined into a new construction. For example, the Lunda passive has been argued to combine two source constructions, a left-dislocated object construction and an impersonal construction (Givón & Kawasha 2006). The history of English gerunds and present participles seems to be a protracted series of mergers, with exchange of formal, semantic and distributional features (Fanego 1998; Miller 2000), to the point that the two clause types are now believed to have merged completely (Huddleston & Pullum 2002). · Contact-induced change ('interference' in Croft 2000): the function of a foreign construction is merged with a 'home-bred' form. Examples are the use of the locative preposition bei instead of von to mark the agent of passives in Pennsylvania Dutch under the influence of English (Heine & Kuteva 2003: 538), or the emergence of a periphrastic perfect in Silesian Polish, calqued on the German perfect (Croft 2000: 146). · Two lineages produce paradigmatic alternates in a single construction. Here lineages merge on a functional level, but their different forms are retained and integrated in a new paradigm. The clearest case is morphological suppletion, as in English go/went or Classical Greek trekh-/dram- 'run'. However, the phenomenon also occurs in syntax, as illustrated by the alternation of Dutch hebben/zijn or German haben/sein as perfect auxiliaries. As is well known, the choice for one auxiliary or the other depends on the semantics of the verb: transitives and unergatives take hebben/haben; unaccusatives take zijn/sein. Though currently functioning as alternates within a single grammatical category, the hebben/haben-perfect and the zijn/sein-perfect can be traced back to different source constructions (Van der Wal 1992:152-153). · A constructional slot attracts new items: it has been proposed that when functional domains recruit new items through grammaticalization, this may in part be due to analogical attraction by a more abstract syntactic construction (Fischer 2007). This seems particularly plausible when, in the extreme case, an abstract slot recruits productively from a single source domain. For instance, the English evidential be-Ved-to-V-construction has become productive for verbs of perception, communication and cognition (Noël 2001). But the issue is more complicated when items from different source domains are involved. Prepositions, for instance, may be derived from very different sources yet converge on a single new category, as illustrated by German statt and wegen, deriving from nominal constructions, as opposed to während, deriving from a participle (Kluge 2002). On the micro-level, innovation can take place within what is historically a single lineage, but under the influence of different uses of the same item. · In lexical semantics, Geeraerts (1997) proposes that two senses of a polysemous lexical item may conspire to produce a third. · The same seems to happen in grammar. New uses of a grammatical or grammaticalizing item may be triggered by pragmatic implicatures arising (seemingly?) independently in a number of its collocations. For example, the aspectual meanings of the English phrasal verb particle out arose in several specific collocations at once (De Smet forthc.). The development of the emphasizing meaning of particular was influenced by two other sense strains of the adjective - a descriptive and a determining one - each associated with its own specific collocational set. (Ghesquière 2009). · The most dramatic cases are certain examples of degrammaticalization. For example, Fischer (2000) has argued that, long after it had been reanalysed as an infinitive marker, English to has developed back in the direction of the preposition to. The recurrent involvement of multiple source constructions in language change raises a number of questions, from methodological/descriptive to theoretical: 1. How do we prove that different source constructions have a genuine impact? Clearly, mere resemblance of constructions does not necessarily imply that they actually interact as sources of an innovation. 2. How should we typologize the various changes involving multiple source constructions? For a start, involvement of multiple sources may be more likely in some domains of grammar than others (semantics, morphology, syntax) and is certainly more conspicuous in some cases than in others (macro-level vs. micro-level). It is not entirely clear, then, whether in all cases we are dealing with a similar phenomenon, triggered by fundamentally similar mechanisms. 3. How common is the involvement of multiple source constructions in language change? It is possible that the involvement of multiple source constructions is a significant catalyst for change, which could even imply that 'uncontaminated' lineage-internal changes form the exception. Alternatively, the involvement of multiple sources could be merely apparent or accidental and have no great impact on change. 4. How can developments involving multiple source constructions be modelled in a theory of grammar and language change? Especially if change canonically involves multiple sources, this has implications for how constructions are represented in speakers' minds and how language change takes place (Joseph 1992). Proper theoretical modelling of different changes is also necessary to determine to what extent multiplicity of source constructions in change is a homogeneous phenomenon. We invite papers that address one or more of the above questions, to be presented in a one-day workshop, bringing together scholars interested in language change, from the domains of grammar, grammaticalization, morphology and typology. Particularly welcome are papers that are based on corpus and/or historical data and that aim to contribute to existing theorizing. Confirmed key note speaker: Brian Joseph Venue: The workshop is to be held at the 43rd annual meeting of the Societas Linguistica Europeae in Vilnius, September 2-5 (http://www.flf.vu.lt/sle2010/). Timeline: We ask potential participants to send us their provisional titles and short descriptions no later than November 12, so as to allow us to submit a workshop programme, including a preliminary list of participants and a short description of their topics, to the SLE Scientific Committee. Contributors will be notified if the workshop is accepted by December 15. Abstracts should then be submitted electronically via the SLE website by January 1. Contact: Lobke.Ghesquiere at arts.kuleuven.be Workshop conveners: Freek Van de Velde, Lobke Ghesquière, Hendrik De Smet References Bybee, J., R. Perkins & W. Pagliuca (1994). The evolution of grammar. Tense, aspect, and modality in the languages of the world. Chicago: University of Chicago Press. Bybee, J. (2003). Mechanisms of change in grammaticalization. The role of frequency. In: Joseph, B.D. & R.D. Janda (eds.). The Handbook of Historical Linguistics. Oxford: Blackwell. 602-623. Bybee, J. (2007). Historical Linguistics. In: Geeraerts, D. & H. Cuyckens (eds.) The handbook of cognitive linguistics. Oxford: Oxford University Press. 945-987. Croft, W. (2000). Explaining language change. An evolutionary approach. Harlow: Longman. De Smet, H. (forthc.). Grammatical interference. Subject marker for and phrasal verb particle out. In: Traugott, E. & G. Trousdale (eds). Gradualness, gradience and grammaticalization. Berlin: Mouton de Gruyter. Fanego, T. (1998). Developments in argument linking in early Modern English gerund phrases. English Language and Linguistics 2: 87-119. Fischer, O. (2000). Grammaticalisation: unidirectional, non-reversible? The case of to before the infinitive in English. In: Fischer, O., A. Rosenbach & D. Stein (eds.). Pathways of change. Grammaticalization in English. Amsterdam: John Benjamins. 149-169. Fischer, O. (2007). Approaches to morphosyntactic change from a functional and formal perspective. Oxford: Oxford University Press. Geeraerts, D. (1997). Diachronic prototype semantics. A contribution to historical lexicology. Oxford: Clarendon Press Ghesquière, L. (2009). (Inter)subjectification and structural movement in the English NP. The adjectives of specificity. Folia Linguistica 43 (2): 311-343. Givón, T. & B. Kawasha. (2006). Indiscrete grammatical relations. The Lunda passive. In: Tsunoda, T. & T. Kageyama (eds.). Voice and Grammatical Relations. In Honor of Masayoshi Shibatani (Typology Studies in Language 65). Amsterdam: John Benjamins. 15-41. Heine, B. (2003). Grammaticalization. In: Joseph, B.D. & R.D. Janda (eds.). The Handbook of Historical Linguistics. Oxford: Blackwell. 575-601. Heine, B. & T. Kuteva (2003). "On contact-induced grammaticalization". Studies in Language 27:529-572. Huddleston, R. & Pullum, G. (2002). The Cambridge grammar of the English language. Cambrige: Cambridge University Press. Joseph, B.D. (1992). Diachronic explanation. Putting the speaker back into the picture. In: Davis, G.W. & G.K. Iverson (eds.). Explanations in historical linguistics. John Benjamins. 123-144. Kluge, F. (2002). Etymologisches Wörterbuch der deutschen Sprache. Berlin: De Gruyter. Miller, G.D. (2002). Nonfinite structures in theory and change. Oxford: Oxford University Press. Noël, D. (2001). The passive matrices of English infinitival complement clauses. Evidentials on the road to auxiliarihood? Studies in Language 25: 255-296. Traugott, E. (2007). The concepts of constructional mismatch and type-shifting from the perspective of grammaticalization. Cognitive Linguistics 18: 523-557. Van der Wal, M. (i.c.w. C. van Bree) (1992). Geschiedenis van het Nederlands. Utrecht: Spectrum. --- Freek Van de Velde University of Leuven, Fac. of Arts Dept. of Linguistics Blijde Inkomststraat 21, P.O. Box 3308 BE-3000 Leuven 0032 16 32 47 81 http://wwwling.arts.kuleuven.be/nedling/fvandevelde/ From Lieselotte.Brems at arts.kuleuven.be Tue Nov 3 11:50:41 2009 From: Lieselotte.Brems at arts.kuleuven.be (Lot Brems) Date: Tue, 3 Nov 2009 12:50:41 +0100 Subject: call for papers: workshop at SLE 43 'Binominal syntagms as a neglected locus of synchronic variation and diachronic change: Towards a unified approach' Message-ID: Workshop proposal 'Binominal syntagms as a neglected locus of synchronic variation and diachronic change: Towards a unified approach' Recent Call for Papers Call Deadline: 12-Nov-2009 43rd Annual Meeting of SLE (Societas Linguistica Europaea), Vilnius, 2-5 September 2010 Call for Papers Convenors: Lieselotte.Brems at arts.kuleuven.be Bernard.declerck at ugent.be Katrien.Verveckken at arts.kuleuven.be Time Frame: The workshop proposal, including a preliminary list of participants and a three line description of their topics, should be submitted to the SLE Scientific Committee before November 15, 2009. Therefore we ask potential participants to send us the provisional titles and short descriptions of their presentations no later than November 12 to lieselotte.brems at arts.kuleuven.be. All abstracts should be submitted by the end of December to the submit abstract form to be found at the SLE website. Description: Although in recent years various theoretical frameworks have shown an increasing interest in the semantico-syntactic organization of noun phrases in general, comparatively little attention has been paid to binominal syntagms. Binominal syntagms are a type of complex noun phrase attested in many European languages that involves two nominal elements, possibly linked by means of a linking element. Most studies so far have focussed on various English '(determiner) (modifier) NP1 + of + (determiner) (modifier) NP2'-constructions (e.g. Akmajian, Adrian & Lehrer 1976, Aarts 1998, Keizer 2001, Denison 2002, Brems 2003, Willemse 2005, Traugott 2008, Langacker forth.), and (less so) on its equivalents in other Germanic languages, e.g. Dutch (Everaert 1992, Joosten 2003, Rijkhoff 2009) and Romance languages, e.g. Spanish (Verveckken 2007) and French (Foolen 2004). The binominal construction poses many descriptive-theoretical challenges to both formal and cognitive-functional frameworks. A key problem in the literature has been that of identifying the head of binominal syntagms. Some authors or reference grammars argue for one analysis that covers all instances of the binominal construction (Quirk et al. 1985); others consider a distinction between a syntactic and a semantic head of the construction a useful way out (Halliday 1994); yet others allow head status to shift between NP1 and NP2 (e.g. Brems 2003, Traugott 2008). Different semantic and syntactic tests for determining head status have been proposed in the literature (e.g. Hudson 1987, Aarts 1998). It would be interesting to address their reliability and conclusiveness in the workshop. Another central issue is the question of whether different types of binominals can be distinguished and on what grounds. Syntactically speaking, binominals may differ according to the presence or absence of determiners with the second nominal element (e.g. a wonder of a man, the book of John, heaps of people), presence or absence of a linking element (e.g. the poet Shakespeare, John's book, the majority of the guests) and allowing non-nominal elements in the NP2-slot, e.g. (comparative) adjectives (loads softer, massa's lekker: lit. 'masses tasty', De Clerck & Colleman 2009). From a semantic point of view, the nominal elements may have referential value (e.g. city in a wonder of a city), intensifying value (e.g. wonder in a wonder of a city), possessive value (the manager's office), quantifier value (heaps/lots of in heaps/lots of people), hedging meaning (kind of in She is kind of a groupie), (es)phoric value (the lights of a car) etc. Furthermore, different types of relations between the two nominal elements have been observed (Keizer 2007): modification, complementation, predication, qualification, quantification. Typically, the traditional typology of binominal syntagms comprises possessive constructions, partitive constructions, pseudo-partitive constructions, 'predicative' binominal noun phrases, close appositions, etc. An important question is whether these constructions can be linked in a constructional network, with macro-, meso- and micro-level schemas generalizing over subsets of binominal syntagms. In addition to the attested synchronic variation, this workshop also wants to address the claim that binominals are a locus of (ongoing) grammaticalization, subjectification and decategorialization processes. In some (types) of binominals, the nominal elements seem to have lost or are losing typically nominal features such as the potential for pre- and postmodification, pluralization, etc. (e.g. *a nice wonder of a city, *bunches of idiots, etc.) and may be shifting to the categories of quantifier, intensifier, hedger, etc. Such issues also touch on interesting concepts such as 'categorial gradience', i.e. fuzzy boundaries between two or more categories (Denison 2006, Aarts, Denison, Keizer & Popova 2004). The current variation in binominal constructions could then be seen as a case of synchronic layering (Hopper & Traugott 2003). This workshop aims to arrive at a better understanding of the organization and development of (different types of) binominal constructions in order to account for the rich synchronic and diachronic semantico-syntactic variety they harbour. We particularly welcome empirically based talks that contribute to the aforementioned theoretical issues. We welcome papers on English as well as on other languages and contributions may be language-internal or comparative in nature. The following list sums up possible avenues of thinking that may be addressed in the talks: · How can the synchronic variation in binominal syntagms be analyzed syntactically, semantically, collocationally, etc. in a unified way? · Are there (partial) syntactic and/or semantic tests to determine headedness and categorial noun status of the nominal elements in a binominal syntagm and what is their validity? · What are possible typologies of binominal syntagms? · Which kinds of tests can be used to distinguish between types of uses, and what is their validity (e.g. Rijkhoff 2009) · Binominal syntagms as a locus of grammaticalization, e.g. in which paths of change do binominals engage crosslinguistically? · Which properties in the binominal as a source construction explain the wide variety of synchronic variation and potential for diachronic change it displays? · What can specific theoretical frameworks contribute to the analysis of binominal syntagms, e.g. cognitive grammar, construction grammar, functional grammar, usage-based approaches? References: Aarts, Bas. 1998. "Binominal Noun Phrases in English". Transactions of the Philological Society 96: 117-158. Aarts, Bas, David Denison, Eveline Keizer & Gergana Popova. 2004. Fuzzy Grammar: a reader. Oxford: Oxford University Press. Akmajian, Adrian and Adrienne Lehrer. 1976. "NP-like quantifiers and the problem of determining the head of an NP". Linguistic Analysis 2: 395-413. Brems, Lieselotte. 2003. "Measure Noun constructions: an instance of semantically-driven grammaticalization". International Journal of Corpus Linguistics 8 (2): 283-312. De Clerck, Bernard & Timothy Colleman. 2009. "Het was massa's lekker! From noun to intensifier: massa's in (Flemish) varieties of Dutch". Presentation at Current Trends in Grammaticalization Research, Groningen, 7-9 October 2009. Denison, David. 2002. "History of the sort of construction family". Paper presented at the Second International Conference on Construction Grammar, University of Helsinki, 7 September 2002. [Online draft version available at http://www.llc.manchester.ac.uk/subjects/lel/staff/david-denison/papers/thefile,100126,en.pdf] Denison, D. 2006. "Category change and gradience in the determiner system." In Ans Van Kemenade & Bettelou Los, eds. The Handbook of the History of English. 279-304 Everaert, Martin. 1992. "Nogmaals: Een schat van een kind". In Hans Bennis & Jan W. de Vries, eds. De binnenbouw van het Nederlands: een bundel artikelen voor Piet Paardekooper. Dordrecht: Foris. 45-54. Foolen, Ad. 2004. "Expressive binominal NPs in Germanic and Romance languages". In Günter Radden & Klaus-Uwe Panther, eds. 75-100. Studies in Linguistics Motivation. Berlin/New York: Mouton de Gruyter. Halliday, Michael A.K. 1994. An Introduction to Functional Grammar. 2nd edition. London: Arnold. Hopper, Paul J. and Elizabeth Closs Traugott. 2003 [1993]. Grammaticalization. Second Edition. [First Edition]. Cambridge: Cambridge University Press. Hudson, Richard A. 1987. "Zwicky on heads". Journal of Linguistics 23: 109-132. Joosten, Frank. 2003. Collectiva en Aggregaatsnamen in het Nederlands: Begripsbepaling en Typologie. Unpublished PhD thesis. University of Leuven. Keizer, Evelien. 2001. "A classification of sort/kind/type-constructions". Ms. University College London. Keizer, M.E. (2007). The English Noun Phrase: the Nature of Linguistic Categorization. Cambridge: CUP. Langacker, Ronald W. forthcoming a. "A lot of quantifiers". In Sally Rice and John Newman, eds. Experimental and Empirical Methods (provisional title). Proceedings from CSDL 2004. Quirk, Randolph, Sidney Greenbaum, Geoffrey Leech and Jan Svartvik. 1985. A Comprehensive Grammar of the English Language. London/ New York: Longman. Rijkhoff, J. 2009, 'On the co-variation between form and function of adnominal possessive modifiers in Dutch and English', in McGregor, W.B. (ed.), The Expression of Possession (The Expression of Cognitive Categories [ECC] - Volume 2), Mouton de Gruyter, Berlin/New York, pp. 51-106. Traugott, Elizabeth Closs. 2008. "The grammaticalization of NP of NP patterns". In Alex Bergs & Gabriele Diewald, eds. Constructions and Language Change. Berlin: Mouton. 23-45. Verveckken, K. 2007. Grammaticization of Spanish Size Noun-Constructions. A cognitive perspective. Unpublished Masterpaper. University of Leuven Willemse, Peter. 2005. Nominal reference point constructions: possessive and esphoric NPs in English. Unpublished PhD Thesis. University of Leuven. From c.j.hart at herts.ac.uk Tue Nov 3 15:51:11 2009 From: c.j.hart at herts.ac.uk (Christopher Hart) Date: Tue, 3 Nov 2009 15:51:11 +0000 Subject: 3rd CFP: 3rd UK Cognitive Linguistics Conference Message-ID: 3rd CALL FOR PAPERS - 3rd UK COGNITIVE LINGUISTICS CONFERENCE (UK-CLC3) CONFERENCE WEBSITE: http://uk-clc3.org The third UK Cognitive Linguistics conference (UK-CLC3) will take place at the University of Hertfordshire, over three days: 6-8th inclusive, July 2010. The conference theme is "meaning, mind and (social) reality". The following distinguished scholars will be giving keynote lectures relating to aspects of the conference theme: * Professor William Croft (University of New Mexico, USA) * Professor Ewa Dabrowska (University of Sheffield, UK) * Professor John Lucy (University of Chicago, USA) * Professor Peter Stockwell (University of Nottingham, UK) * Professor Gabriella Vigliocco (University College London, UK) We invite the submission of abstracts (for paper or poster presentations) addressing all aspects of Cognitive Linguistics. These include but are by no means limited to: * Domains and frame semantics * Categorisation, prototypes and polysemy * Metaphor and metonymy * Mental spaces and conceptual blending * Cognitive and construction grammar * Embodiment and language acquisition * Language evolution and language change * Language use and linguistic relativity Cognitive Linguistics is an inherently interdisciplinary enterprise which is broadly concerned with the connection between language and cognition in relation to body, culture and contexts of use. We are therefore especially interested in interdisciplinary research - theoretical, empirical, applied - that combines theories and methods from across the cognitive, biological and social sciences. These include but are not limited to: * Linguistics * Anthropology * Evolution * Paleoanthropology * Primatology * Neuroscience * Cognitive and developmental psychology * (Critical) Discourse and Communication studies Papers will be allocated 20 minutes plus 10 minutes for question. Posters will stay up for a day and be allocated to dedicated, timetabled sessions. The language of the conference is English. Abstracts of no more than 300 words (excluding references) should be sent by email as a Word attachment to c.j.hart at herts.ac.uk by 15 December 2009. The document should contain presentation title, the abstract and preference for paper or poster presentation. Please DO NOT include information identifying the author(s) in the email attachment. Author(s) information including name, affiliation and email address(es) should be detailed in the body of the email. All abstracts will be subject to peer review by an international Scientific Committee. Notification of acceptance decisions will be communicated by 15 February 2010. Presenters will be invited to submit papers based on the conference theme for an edited volume to be published by Equinox Publishing Co. in the Advances in Cognitive Linguistics series. Accepted papers will be subject to peer-review. Keep up-to-date by bookmarking and checking the conference website regularly: http://uk-clc3.org The conference is organised by Chris Hart (Chair of local organising committee), and Vyv Evans (on behalf of the UK-CLA). For details of the UK-CLA see: www.uk-cla.org.uk -- Christopher Hart Lecturer in English Language and Communication School of Humanities University of Hertfordshire www.go.herts.ac.uk/cjhart From drosenblum at umail.ucsb.edu Tue Nov 3 19:54:48 2009 From: drosenblum at umail.ucsb.edu (Daisy Rosenblum) Date: Tue, 3 Nov 2009 11:54:48 -0800 Subject: Please post: WAIL 2010 CFP Message-ID: CALL FOR PAPERS Workshop on American Indigenous Languages Santa Barbara, CA April 30th-May 1st, 2010 The Linguistics department at the University of California, Santa Barbara announces its 13th annual Workshop on American Indigenous Languages (WAIL), which provides a forum for the discussion of theoretical, descriptive, and practical studies of the indigenous languages of the Americas. Anonymous abstracts are invited for talks on any topic relevant to the study of language in the Americas. Talks will be 20 minutes, followed by 10 minutes for discussion. Guidelines: Abstracts should be 500 words or less (excluding examples and/or references). Hard copy submissions will be accepted from those who do not have internet access. Individuals may submit abstracts for one single-authored and one co-authored paper. Please indicate your source(s) and type(s) of data in the abstract (e.g. recordings, texts, conversational, elicited, narrative, etc.). For co-authored papers, please indicate who plans to present the paper as well as who will be in attendance. Special panel: This year's workshop will include a panel presented by academic and community-based researchers working on the documentation, description and revitalization of their heritage languages. Talks will be 20 minutes each, followed by a group discussion/question-and-answer period. Online submissions: Please submit all abstracts online at http://linguistlist.org/confcustom/wail2010 . PDF, RTF, Microsoft Word and Open Office formats are preferred. For hard copy submissions: Please send four copies of your abstract, along with a 3x5 card with the following information: (1) your name; (2) affiliation; (3) mailing address; (4) phone number; (5) email address; (6) title of your paper; (7) whether your submission is for the general session or the Special Panel. Send hard copy submissions to: Workshop on American Indigenous Languages Attn: Daisy Rosenblum or Stephanie Morse Department of Linguistics University of California, Santa Barbara Santa Barbara, CA 93106 DEADLINE FOR RECEIPT OF ABSTRACTS: February 1st, 2010 Notification of acceptance will be by email no later than March 1st, 2009. General Information: Santa Barbara is situated on the Pacific Ocean near the Santa Yñez Mountains. The UCSB campus is located near the Santa Barbara airport. Participants may also fly into LAX airport in Los Angeles, which is approximately 90 miles southeast of the campus. Shuttle buses run between LAX and Santa Barbara. Information about hotel accommodations will be posted on our website (http://orgs.sa.ucsb.edu/nailsg/ ). For further information contact the conference coordinators, Daisy Rosenblum and Stephanie Morse, at wail.ucsb at gmail.com, or check out our website at http://orgs.sa.ucsb.edu/nailsg/ From c.j.hart at herts.ac.uk Thu Nov 5 20:23:45 2009 From: c.j.hart at herts.ac.uk (Christopher Hart) Date: Thu, 5 Nov 2009 20:23:45 +0000 Subject: 2nd Call for Papers: CADAAD 2010 Message-ID: Dear all, We are pleased to announce the third international conference Critical Approaches to Discourse Analysis across Disciplines. The conference will take place in Lodz, Poland 13-15 September 2010. The conference has a general theme of "Ideology, identity and interaction". In line with previous CADAAD conferences, this conference aims to promote new directions in cross-disciplinary critical discourse research. We welcome contributions from all areas of critically applied linguistics. We especially encourage papers which assess the state of the art and explore new methodologies in critical discourse research oriented toward the general theme of /ideology, identity and interaction/*. *Possible areas of analysis include but are by no means limited to the following: * · Identities in discourse * · Political communication * · Language in the news * · Language in the new media * · Discourse of advertising * · Institutional discourse * · Language and globalisation * · Business communication * · Scientific discourse * · Health communication * · Language and ecology The following plenary speakers, selected for their expertise in different approaches to critical discourse research, have been confirmed: * Professor Paul Chilton (Lancaster University) * Professor Seana Coulson (University of California, San Diego) * Professor Anna Duszak (University of Warsaw) * Professor Bob Hodge (University of Western Sydney) * Professor Martin Reisigl (University of Vienna) Papers will be allocated 20 minutes plus 10 minutes for questions. The language of the conference is English. General queeries should be sent to the local organiser, Piotr Cap, at strus_pl at yahoo.com Abstracts of no more than 350 words (excluding references) should be sent by email as a Word attachment to discourse at cadaad.org by 15 January 2010. Please include name, affiliation, email address and paper title in the body of the email. All abstracts will be accepted subject to review by an international Scientific Committee. Notification of acceptance decisions will be communicated via email by the end of February 2010. Presenters will be invited to submit papers based on the general theme for publication in the CADAAD journal. -- Christopher Hart Lecturer in English Language and Communication School of Humanities University of Hertfordshire www.go.herts.ac.uk/cjhart From hallowel at ohio.edu Thu Nov 5 21:25:44 2009 From: hallowel at ohio.edu (hallowel at ohio.edu) Date: Thu, 5 Nov 2009 16:25:44 -0500 Subject: Postdoctoral Research Scholar in Neurogenic Language Disorders Message-ID: Dear colleague: Please share the announcement below with anyone you know who may be seeking a postdoctoral research position in the area of acquired neurogenic language disorders in adults. The new position entails personalized mentorship in scholarly career development and exceptional opportunities for hands-on experience in technology transfer using eye-tracking technology. The position requires a completed Ph.D. and strong interests in aphasia and other acquired neurogenic language disorders in adults. Applicants may be from any disciplinary background. Thank you. Sincerely, Brooke Hallowell (hallowel at ohio.edu) Postdoctoral Research Scholar in Neurogenic Language Disorders School of Hearing, Speech and Language Sciences, College of Health and Human Services, Ohio University Position Description: Postdoctoral scholars are invited to apply for a twelve-month appointment in a thriving research laboratory group dedicated to acquired neurogenic language disorders in adults. The position is funded through the National Institutes of Health (NIH) National Institute on Deafness and other Communication Disorders (NIDCD) and the Ohio University Technology Gap Fund. Responsibilities include: (a) coordination, recruitment and scheduling of research participants (controls and adults with aphasia) for experiments, (b) coordination of data collection involving people with and without aphasia, (c) development of research databases, (d) assistance with data analysis, and (e) contribution to scholarly manuscripts for publications based on results. Strong teamwork is essential. The successful applicant will be encouraged to take advantage of personalized mentorship in scholarly career development, including research processes, publication, and grant writing. Additionally, the position entails exceptional opportunities for hands-on experience in technology transfer and commercialization of research. The Ohio University Neurolinguistics Laboratory: Directed by Dr. Brooke Hallowell, the Ohio University Neurolinguistics Laboratory is dedicated to the study of acquired neurogenic language disorders in adults. Disorders under study include aphasia and aspects of brain injury, dementia, stroke, and diabetes that affect people's cognitive and communicative abilities. New technologies are under development to address problems of assessment of language comprehension, working memory, attention, and other areas of linguistic and cognitive processing. In addition to its on-campus research space in Grover Center, the Neurolinguistics Laboratory has multiple affiliated clinical research sites, including the Cleveland Hearing and Speech Center (Cleveland, OH), the Ohio University Clinical Research Site in Columbus (Columbus, OH), the University of West Virginia School of Medicine (Morgantown, VA), the Stroke Comeback Center (Oakton, VA), and the Moscow Federal Center of Speech Pathology and Neurorehabilitation (Moscow, Russia). Research is also active with collaborators in the United Kingdom, India, China, and Korea. Current extramural funding sources include the National Institutes of Health and the National Science Foundation. Neurolinguistics Laboratory members demonstrate ongoing excellent success with research awards and peer-reviewed research publications and conference presentations. The School of Hearing, Speech and Language Sciences (HSLS): The School is one of the oldest and largest academic programs in communication sciences and disorders in the world. HSLS offers five degree programs: BS in Hearing, Speech and Language Sciences, MA in Speech-Language Pathology, AuD (Clinical Doctorate in Audiology), PhD in Speech and Language Science, and PhD in Hearing Science. The School has a solid commitment to international collaboration and ample external clinical research sites throughout the US and internationally. The School has a rich track record of active interdisciplinary engagement. Faculty, graduate student and postdoctoral scholar backgrounds represent a rich array of credentials, education and experience in diverse areas. The School is one of six schools in the College of Health and Human Services. The College is housed in Grover Center, a recently remodeled academic facility housing offices and research laboratories for faculty, "smart" classrooms, a fitness/wellness center, and a spacious state-of-the-art Hearing, Speech and Language Clinic. The clinic includes ample diagnostic and treatment materials and clinical technology. Additional information about the school and community may be accessed at: http://www.hhs.ohiou.edu/hsls/. Ohio University is a state-assisted Doctoral Research-Extensive university with 20,000 students on its picturesque Athens campus and 8,500 students on five regional campuses. Qualifications: A Ph.D. and strong interests in aphasia and other neurogenic communication disorders in adults are required. Demonstrated educational and research background in one or more of the following areas is desired: communication sciences and disorders, speech-language pathology, cognitive science, linguistics, psychology, and/or biomedical engineering. Starting Date: Negotiable. Desired start date is January 1, 2010. Salary and Benefits: Salary is commensurate with qualifications and experience. The position is for a twelve-month appointment, with possible renewal. Postdoctoral scholars are provided office space and access to the Ohio University Neurolinguistics Laboratory. University benefits include tuition for employee plus qualified dependents, a comprehensive insurance package (prescription plan, vision benefits, dental plan, and life insurance), and a retirement program. Application: A completed application includes: a curriculum vitae, a letter specifically describing how qualifications and accomplishments fit the requirements of the position, and the names, titles, addresses, and telephone numbers of three current references. Candidates from underrepresented groups are encouraged to apply. All applicants must complete the on-line Quick Application at: www.ohiouniversityjobs.com/applicants/Central?quickFind=55481 For additional information, contact Brooke Hallowell, Ph.D., Director, School of Hearing, Speech and Language Sciences. E-mail: hallowel at ohio.edu Address: W218 Grover Center, Ohio University, Athens, OH 45701 USA Telephone: 740-593-1356 Fax: 740-593-0287 Application Timeframe: Apply by November 30, 2009 for optimal consideration. Review begins immediately and continues until position is filled. Ohio University is an Equal Opportunity/Affirmative Action Employer -- Brooke Hallowell, Ph.D., CCC-SLP, F-ASHA Director, School of Hearing, Speech and Language Sciences President Elect, Council of Academic Programs in Communication Sciences and Disorders College of Health and Human Services W218 Grover Center Ohio University Athens, OH 45701 USA From funknet-bounces at mailman.rice.edu Fri Nov 6 12:47:44 2009 From: funknet-bounces at mailman.rice.edu (=?ISO-8859-1?Q?=A9_VIAGRA_=AE_?= Official Site) Date: Fri, 6 Nov 2009 10:27:44 -0180 Subject: Dear funknet@listserv.linguistlist.org 72% 0FF on Pfizer. Message-ID: An HTML attachment was scrubbed... URL: -------------- next part -------------- Click here http://www.maaltsxg.cn to view as a web page. View image in browser now http://mediapix.ru/pics/e086300d07a127077990cbfc7a66f113.gif Unsubscribe at http://www.maaltsxg.cn Change e-mail address at http://www.maaltsxg.cn Privacy Policy at http://www.maaltsxg.cn About Us at http://www.maaltsxg.cn Copyright © 2009 bowlo Inc. All rights reserved. From kouii74 at gmail.com Mon Nov 9 13:34:42 2009 From: kouii74 at gmail.com (Nayoung Kwon) Date: Mon, 9 Nov 2009 21:34:42 +0800 Subject: Job posting - All fields in Linguistics, Nanyang Technological University, Singapore In-Reply-To: Message-ID: With apologies for cross-posting, best, Nayoung Kwon Faculty Appointments in Linguistics - All Fields (at Assistant Professor / Associate Professor Level) The Division of Linguistics and Multilingual Studies (LMS) in the School of Humanities and Social Sciences at Nanyang Technological University, Singapore, invites qualified academics to apply for a number of tenure-track faculty positions at either Assistant or Associate Professor level. The new Division of LMS was established in 2008 to oversee the teaching of a new BA (Honours) programme in Linguistics and Multilingual Studies, which admits some 60 majors every year. In line with NTU's mission to become a world-class research-led university, the new division places strong emphasis on cutting-edge research and international publications. With multilingualism as a central theme, research in the division is geared towards a deepening of our understanding of multilingualism through empirical studies of topics such as language description and documentation, language contact, loanword phonology, machine translation, language maintenance and shift, and multilingual language processing and acquisition. Potential applicants can view more details about the division's teaching and research on its website: http://www.ntu.edu.sg/HSS/Linguistics/Pages/default.aspx Successful applicants can look forward to a research-stimulating environment. Interdisciplinary research is strongly encouraged and supported in the School and teaching duties are commensurate with top research universities in the world. New faculty members will be entitled to apply for a Start Up Grant of up to SGD 100,000. The School also makes generous annual provision for conference travel and research grants. Suitable applicants should have PhDs in Linguistics or related fields and be able to contribute to the running of the Linguistics programme by teaching core courses. The appointees will also be expected to offer electives in one or more areas of specialisation. At the current stage of the programme, the Division seeks applicants interested in multilingualism from all fields, including but not limited to topics such as bilingual cognition, language contact, corpus linguistics, typology of Asian languages and historical linguistics. A research background in languages spoken in the region is highly desirable. In addition to teaching at the undergraduate level, successful applicants will be expected to contribute to postgraduate-level teaching and supervision, and be active in research and publication. Appointees should complement existing strengths in the Division and also add to those strengths in new and substantive ways. For appointments at the Associate Professorship level, applicants should possess very high standing in their fields of specialisation, as well as extensive experience in administration, teaching and research. To apply, please refer to the Guidelines for Submitting an Application for Faculty Appointment (http://www.ntu.edu.sg/ohr/Career/SubmitApplications/Pages/Faculty.aspx), and send your application the address below. Please arrange for three references to be independently emailed to the Chair of the Selection Committee, Professor K.K. Luke at H-LMS[image: http://linguistlist.org/images/address-marker.gif]ntu.edu.sg. For further inquiries, please contact Professor Luke. Review of applications will begin on 1st November 2009 and the closing date for the applications will be 30th November 2009. Application Deadline: 30-Nov-2009 Mailing Address for Applications: Office of Human Resources Administration Building, Level 4 50 Nanyang Avenue Singapore 639798 Singapore Email Address for Applications: Acad-talent[image: http://linguistlist.org/images/address-marker.gif]ntu.edu.sg Contact Information: Professor K.K. Luke Email: H-LMS at ntu.edu.sg Fax: (65) 6791 9340 From sepkit at utu.fi Tue Nov 10 06:03:47 2009 From: sepkit at utu.fi (=?iso-8859-1?B?IlNlcHBvIEtpdHRpbOQi?=) Date: Tue, 10 Nov 2009 08:03:47 +0200 Subject: Cfp: Re-thinking synonymy: semantic sameness and similarity in languages and their description Message-ID: (Apologies for multiple postings) Re-thinking synonymy: semantic sameness and similarity in languages and their description SKY (The Linguistic Association of Finland) organizes a symposium ‘Re-thinking synonymy: semantic sameness and similarity in languages and their description’ in Helsinki, October 28-30, 2010. The official website of the symposium, with the Call for Papers and other information (to be added/updated later), is found at: http://www.linguistics.fi/synonymy Traditionally, synonymy refers to a situation where a language has two (or more) linguistic forms for expressing one meaning. Synonymy is by no means uncommon in languages, exemplified also by the large number of synonym dictionaries and thesauri. However, it is important to note that the existence or lack of synonymy is largely a matter of definition. On one hand, if we define synonymy as (very close) semantic similarity or (essentially) identical reference, it definitely exists to some extent in all languages. On the other hand, if we confine the notion to absolute synonymy (comprising not only reference, but also, for example, stylistic and sociolinguistic factors as well as contextual preferences), it becomes less clear whether synonymy really exists. Many theories of grammar (such as Cognitive Grammar and Construction Grammar) do not acknowledge the concept of synonymy at all. Synonymy seems to militate against the expected relation of meaning and form: a difference in form should always and necessarily correspond to a difference in meaning. However, within these theories (and within linguistics in general), a recurring topic of study is lexical, constructional, functional and formal similarity. In addition, current research seems to steer clear of synonymy (and sameness), but at the same time puts a great deal of emphasis on similarities, e.g. when and why two or more constructions with seemingly similar meanings are used as each other's alternatives. But where does the boundary lie between the two, i.e. when do we cross over from synonymy to mere similarity, or vice versa, and, moreover, how different can two constructions or expressions be and yet still be considered similar in terms of their meaning/function? Do all synonymous expressions share a common conceptual (abstract) schema, and are the formal differences merely ‘coincidental’? What is the relation between these schemas and lexical (i.e. ‘traditional’) synonymy? The idea of the symposium is to challenge linguists both to re-think the synonymy and sameness of linguistic expressions and to approach the concept of synonymy from a broader perspective. What we propose is that synonymy is best seen as sameness or similarity of forms and functions – whether words, constructions or syntactic structures – not only as a notion related to lexical semantics. For example, many languages, such as Finnish and Estonian, allow the expression of location through both cases and adpositions, and many languages have both intransitive and transitive reflexive forms; these expressions may be identical in meaning in certain contexts, but upon closer examination they also display differences. In brief: Does a difference in form always correspond to a difference in meaning/function? If so, is there any justification for the validity of the notion of synonymy in linguistic description? If synonymy really exists on some level, do we need to broaden the concept of synonymy and if so, how? What does the way that synonymy has been studied tell us about language and, perhaps as interestingly, about linguistics? We welcome contributions dealing with synonymy from various perspectives and backgrounds (including theoretical, empirical and experimental approaches), ranging from studies of lexical, functional and formal synonymy to studies of synonymy within and across languages. Possible topics for talks include (but are by no means not restricted to) the following: - The role of synonymy in linguistic theory - Corpus-based studies of (lexical/functional) synonymy - Psycholinguistic studies of synonymy/processing of synonymy - Seemingly synonymous/similar categories across languages (e.g. dative, reflexive, person, tense, deixis etc.), comparability of functions across languages - The role of synonymy in lexical typology: do ‘identical’ lexemes in different languages express identical/similar meanings? - Translatability of lexemes - The development of synonymy; competition of synonymous forms in grammaticalization/lexicalization - Synonymy in different theories of grammar - The relation between lexical (‘traditional’) synonymy and functional synonymy - Potential differences between sameness and similarity; is the distinction meaningful or necessary? - What does synonymy (at any level/in any form) reveal about language? - What motivates the use of seemingly synonymous forms? Context, meaning, sociolinguistic factors, disambiguation, verbal semantics etc. - The synonymy of syntactic structural variants (e.g. differences in comparative constructions) - Synonymy of constructions within and across languages - Semantic vs. pragmatic synonymy The deadline for submission of abstracts (in English; max 500 words excluding data, tables and references) is April 16, 2010. Please submit your abstract by e-mail to the address of the organizing committee (synonymy-2010 /at/ Helsinki.fi). Send your abstract as attachment to an e-mail message (in both .pdf and .doc formats). Please indicate clearly whether your abstract is intended as a poster or a section paper. The abstracts will be evaluated by the organizing committee and by the members of the scientific committee (see below). Participants will be notified about acceptance by May 15, 2010. The book of abstracts will be published on the web pages of the symposium at: http://www.linguistics.fi/synonymy/abstracts.shtml Body of the message should include the following information (preferably in this order): Name of the participant Title of presentation Affiliation E-mail address Is the paper meant as a section paper or, a poster, or a workshop Workshops Proposals for workshops should be submitted no later than March 15, 2010. Notification of acceptance will be given by April 9. These one-day workshops will run in parallel sessions with the main conference program. Alternatively, the first day of the symposium may be dedicated to workshops. The symposium organizers will provide the lecture rooms and other facilities, but the workshop organizers will be responsible for the organization of their workshops (choosing the speakers etc.). Activities - Presentations by invited speakers - Presentation by other participants - Posters - Workshops Confirmed invited speakers Dirk Geeraerts (University of Leuven) Martin Haspelmath (MPI, Leipzig) Beth Levin (Stanford University) Scientific committee Antti Arppe (University of Helsinki) Peter Austin (SOAS, London) Denis Creissels (University of Lyon) Dagmar Divjak (University of Sheffield) Adele Goldberg (Princeton University) Stefan Gries (UCSB) Tuomas Huumo (University of Tartu) Laura Janda (University of Tromsø) Jarmo Jantunen (University of Oulu) Silvia Luraghi (University of Pavia) Sally Rice (University of Alberta) Anna Siewierska (University of Lancaster) Bernhard Wälchli (University of Berne) Organizing committee Antti Arppe (University of Helsinki) Seppo Kittilä (University of Helsinki) Aki Kyröläinen (University of Turku) Maarit Niemelä (University of Oulu) Alexandre Nikolaev (University of Joensuu) Jouni Rostila (University of Tampere) Turo Vartiainen (University of Helsinki) Laura Visapää (University of Helsinki) Registration The registration deadline is October 1, 2010. An on-line registration form to the symposium will appear on the webpage of the symposium after the evaluation of abstracts. Registration fees General: 100 Euro Members of the association: 80 Euro Undergraduate students: 50 Euro Finnish participants are requested to pay the registration fee to the SKY bank account when they register for the conference (bank account number 174530-71243 (Nordea)). Participants from abroad are likewise requested to pay in advance by bank transfer, if at all possible, to the SKY bank account in Finland (Bank: Nordea; IBAN: FI76 1745 3000 0712 43, BIC: NDEAFIHH). However, we may also accept payment IN CASH (only in Euros; moreover, we CANNOT accept credit cards of any sort) upon arrival in case bank transfer is not possible. If you have paid via bank transfer from abroad, we would kindly ask you to bring a COPY of the original transaction receipt with you and present it upon registration. Conference venue University of Helsinki Contact Please send all queries to synonymy-2010 /at/ helsinki.fi From mark.turner at case.edu Wed Nov 11 17:31:26 2009 From: mark.turner at case.edu (Mark Turner) Date: Wed, 11 Nov 2009 09:31:26 -0800 Subject: Fwd: CSN Cognitive Linguistics: Cognition, Language, Gesture Vol. 1 No. 18, 11/11/2009 Message-ID: if this message does not display correctly, click here COGNITIVE LINGUISTICS: COGNITION, LANGUAGE, GESTURE ABSTRACTS Vol. 1, No. 18: Nov 11, 2009 MARK TURNER, EDITOR Institute Professor, Case Western Reserve University - Department of Cognitive Science mark.turner at case.edu Browse ALL abstracts for this journal Links: Subscribe ~ Unsubscribe | Distribution | Advisory Board | Submit ~ Revise Your Papers Table of Contents Evolutionary Linguistics William Croft, University of New Mexico Peirce's Law of Triviality: The Implementation of the Trivium of Logic, Rhetoric, and Grammar; Basic Categories for Linguistics and Literature Studies from a Universal Semiotic Theory Fee-Alexandra Haase, affiliation not provided to SSRN Linguistics and Claim Construction Kristen Jakobsen Osenga, University of Richmond - School of Law Adam Smith's Rational Choice Linguistics David M. Levy, George Mason University ^top COGNITIVE LINGUISTICS: COGNITION, LANGUAGE, GESTURE ABSTRACTS "Evolutionary Linguistics" Annual Review of Anthropology, Vol. 37, October 2008 WILLIAM CROFT, University of New Mexico Email: wcroft at unm.edu Both qualitative concepts and quantitative methods from evolutionary biology have been applied to linguistics. Many linguists have noted the similarity between biological evolution and language change, but usually have only employed selective analogies or metaphors. The development of generalized theories of evolutionary change (Dawkins and Hull) has spawned models of language change based on such generalized theories. These models have led to the positing of new mechanisms of language change and new types of selection that may not have biological parallels. Quantitative methods have been applied to questions of language phylogeny in the past decade. The focus has been on widely accepted families with cognates already established by the comparative method (Indo-European, Bantu, Austronesian). Increasingly sophisticated phylogeny reconstruction models have been applied to these families, to resolve questions of subgrouping, contact and migration. Little progress has been made so far in analyzing sound correspondences in the cognates themselves. "Peirce's Law of Triviality: The Implementation of the Trivium of Logic, Rhetoric, and Grammar; Basic Categories for Linguistics and Literature Studies from a Universal Semiotic Theory" FEE-ALEXANDRA HAASE, affiliation not provided to SSRN Email: F.a.haase at gmx.de This article focuses on the aspects that refer to linguistics in the works of Charles S. Peirce. His pragmatic philosophy implemented many other sciences and among them is the traditional trivium of logic, grammar, and rhetoric. Peirce divided into different kinds of logic, grammar, and rhetoric. While the impact of the work of Peirce on theses sciences is weak, the integration of the sciences in his philosophy is interesting as a step in the history of science and his work is an example for eclecticism and historism of science in the 19th century and the universalism of science deducted from a philosophy that uses the sign as an unitarian principle. Triple constructions are a very common feature in the writings of Peirce, and the trivium is an example of an academic construction Peirce implemented. "Linguistics and Claim Construction" KRISTEN JAKOBSEN OSENGA, University of Richmond - School of Law Email: kosenga at richmond.edu Despite its great importance in patent litigation and recent interest derived from the U.S. Court of Appeals for the Federal Circuit's en banc Phillips opinion, claim construction - the process of giving a patent claim meaning through defining its terms - is largely an unsettled and uncertain area of patent law. In part, this uncertainty may be due to the Federal Circuit's failure to provide adequate guidance on the process. This Article suggests that the Federal Circuit should clarify its claim construction jurisprudence, looking to the science of linguistics to provide bases for an improved set of guidelines that will improve certainty in patent law. This Article argues that claim construction should instead track the way in which we, as readers of a language, attempt to understand what is being conveyed via the written word. First, there is a base level of conventional understanding from which all interpretation starts, an understanding that either a priori exists based on our earlier encounters with the word or is obtained from a dictionary in cases where we lack previous knowledge. Second, from this conventional understanding, we construct the actual meaning of the term based on a number of linguistic clues, both internal to the document and external from our prior experiences. In particular, there are at least five notions from linguistics that can help shape a more consistent claim construction methodology: 1) every reader, including a judge, possesses a mental lexicon with a common sense (or conventional) understanding of word meaning which is a point from which to start when interpreting claims; 2) there is an appropriate place for dictionary usage, which is to inform the judge's common sense understanding about a word where he has none; 3) patent claims have their own grammar which must inform the syntactical and contextual analysis, but may also skew the reader's common understanding that was obtained either from a mental lexicon or from a dictionary; 4) regardless of the common sense understanding, the PHOSITA must be returned to the analysis and changes made to the law to effectuate the return of the PHOSITA; and 5) extensive resort to the specification and prosecution history to divine the patentee's intent is inappropriate. "Adam Smith's Rational Choice Linguistics" DAVID M. LEVY, George Mason University Email: DLEVY at GMU.EDU Adam Smith offers an account, based on rational choice considerations, of the grammatical change experienced by languages when adults attempt to communicate across languages in such a way as to minimize transactions costs. His model predicts what is known to linguists as a "pidgin," a language learned by adults in which to make trades. His model can be extended to predict the grammatical trajectory toward pidgin experienced by dying languages. ^top Solicitation of Abstracts "Cognitive linguistics goes beyond the visible structure of language and investigates the considerably more complex backstage operations of cognition that create grammar, conceptualization, discourse, and thought itself. The theoretical insights of cognitive linguistics are based on extensive empirical observation in multiple contexts, and on experimental work in psychology and neuroscience. Results of cognitive linguistics, especially from metaphor theory and conceptual integration theory, have been applied to wide ranges of nonlinguistic phenomena." - Gilles Fauconnier. 2006. "Cognitive Linguistics." Encyclopedia of Cognitive Science. John Wiley & Sons. To submit your research to SSRN, log in to the SSRN User HeadQuarters, and click on the My Papers link on the left menu, and then click on Start New Submission at the top of the page. Distribution Services If your organization is interested in increasing readership for its research by starting a Research Paper Series, or sponsoring a Subject Matter eJournal, please email: RPS at SSRN.com Distributed by: Cognitive Science Network (CSN), a division of Social Science Electronic Publishing (SSEP) and Social Science Research Network (SSRN) Advisory Board Cognitive Linguistics: Cognition, Language, Gesture TERRENCE DEACON Professor of Biological Anthropology and Linguistics, University of California, Berkeley - Department of Anthropology GILLES FAUCONNIER Professor, Department of Cognitive Science, University of California, San Diego RONALD W. LANGACKER Professor Emeritus, University of California, San Diego - Linguistics Department ^top Links: Subscribe to Journal | Unsubscribe from Journal | Join Site License | Financial Hardship Subscription Management You can change your journal subscriptions by logging into SSRN User HQ. If you have questions or problems with this process, please email UserSupport at SSRN.com or call 877-SSRNHelp (877.777.6435 or 585.442.8170). Outside of the United States, call 00+1+585+4428170. Site License Membership Many university departments and other institutions have purchased site licenses covering all of the journals in a particular network. If you want to subscribe to any of the SSRN journals, you may be able to do so without charge by first checking to see if your institution currently has a site license. To do this please click on any of the following URLs. Instructions for joining the site are included on these pages. Accounting Research Network NEW Cognitive Science Network NEW NEW Corporate Governance Network NEW Economics Research Network Entrepreneurship Research & Policy Network Financial Economics Network Health Economics Network Information Systems & eBusiness Network Legal Scholarship Network Management Research Network Political Science Network Social Insurance Research Network HRN Classics Research Network HRN English & American Literature Research Network HRN Philosophy Research Network If your institution or department is not listed as a site, we would be happy to work with you to set one up. Please contact site at ssrn.com for more information. Individual Membership (for those not covered by a site license) Join a site license, request a trial subscription, or purchase a subscription within the SSRN User HeadQuarters: http://www.ssrn.com/subscribe Financial Hardship SSRN understands there is financial hardship in certain countries (for example the former Soviet Union and Eastern Bloc). If you are undergoing financial hardship and believe you cannot pay for a journal, please send a detailed explanation to Subscribe at SSRN.com ^top To ensure delivery of this journal, please add CSN at publish.ssrn.com (Mark Turner) to your email contact list. If you are missing an issue or are having any problems with your subscription, please Email usersupport at ssrn.com or call 877-SSRNHELP (877.777.6435 or 585.442.8170). FORWARDING & REDISTRIBUTION Subscriptions to the journal are for single users. You may forward a particular eJournal issue, or an excerpt from an issue, to an individual or individuals who might be interested in it. It is a violation of copyright to redistribute this eJournal on a recurring basis to another person or persons, without the permission of Social Science Electronic Publishing, Inc. For information about individual subscriptions and site licenses, please contact us at Site at SSRN.com ^top Copyright © 2009 Social Science Electronic Publishing, Inc. All Rights Reserved From sathomps at linguistics.ucsb.edu Wed Nov 11 20:54:42 2009 From: sathomps at linguistics.ucsb.edu (Sandra Thompson) Date: Wed, 11 Nov 2009 12:54:42 -0800 Subject: UC Santa Barbara PhD program Message-ID: Apologies for cross-posting. Linguistics at the University of California, Santa Barbara The Department of Linguistics at UCSB offers a Ph.D. program with a functional theoretical orientation and a strong commitment to the principle that linguistic theory should be based on language use. We seek explanations for the linguistic structures of the world's languages in discourse and interaction, the sociocultural, cognitive, and physical forces shaping language use, and the ways in which these forces motivate language change. Our recently restructured graduate program offers Ph.D. tracks in structural, sociocultural, cognitive, and corpus linguistics. Following a rigorous two-year Master's program including courses in all four areas, students take doctoral-level courses in their chosen track, with flexibility reflecting their individual interests, and advance to Ph.D. candidacy by the end of their fourth year. Training in empirical methodologies is an essential component of our program; in addition to Master's level courses in discourse transcription and basic statistics for linguistics, each Ph.D. track features relevant methods courses, such as field methods, sociocultural methods, and advanced statistics. Our department has a strong tradition of language documentation and description and, in addition to field methods, offers courses in typology, language contact, grammar writing, and documentary linguistics. The department also has an international reputation in sociocultural linguistics, a broadly interdisciplinary specialization originating at UCSB that encompasses the traditional fields of sociolinguistics, linguistic anthropology, socially oriented discourse analysis, and related areas. We now offer a corpus linguistics track that gives students in-depth training on how to transcribe, annotate, and retrieve corpus data, how to compile a corpus, and how to analyze corpus data of different types using the most current statistical techniques. Our cognitive track provides training in the cognitive and psycholinguistic underpinnings of language, including language acquisition, production, and comprehension, as well as advanced statistical analysis. We welcome applications to our graduate program. Be sure to note our application deadline of December 1. UCSB offers four- and five-year central fellowships to qualified applicants; smaller awards are also available. Please visit our website-www.linguistics.ucsb.edu-for further information about our graduate program, faculty, research specializations, and language areas. From sepkit at utu.fi Fri Nov 13 09:30:54 2009 From: sepkit at utu.fi (=?iso-8859-1?B?IlNlcHBvIEtpdHRpbOQi?=) Date: Fri, 13 Nov 2009 11:30:54 +0200 Subject: Cfp: Case in Uralic Message-ID: (apologies for multiple postings) Uralic case Workshop at the 14th International Morphology Meeting Budapest, Hungary, May 13 to 16, 2010 Organizers Seppo Kittilä (Helsinki) and Anne Tamm (Budapest/Florence) This workshop is devoted to the study of case systems in Uralic languages. The Uralic languages are well known for their rich case inventories. However, most studies of Uralic cases deal with the rather extensively studied Hungarian, Finnish and perhaps Estonian cases and case systems. Cases of other Uralic languages have been studied to a much lesser extent. The goal of this workshop is to fill that void by giving a fuller picture of case systems of Uralic languages (including dialects). We thus especially encourage contributions dealing with lesser-studied Uralic languages (such as Samoyedic, Mari, Mordvinian, Sami languages and Khanty). The workshop consists of two parts. The first part of the workshop clarifies the phenomena, the terminology and the comparability of the data in the individual languages, as specific to Uralic and also in more general terms. The goal is to accumulate knowledge about the case systems of each language, and about the specific cases in Uralic languages and dialects. We thus plan ‘case studies of case’, such as genitive, partitive, abessive, locatives, comitative etc. in Uralic languages, both in individual languages and across (Uralic) languages and we also invite papers on more general issues, such as the 'Uralicness' of the case systems and cases. Please send your anonymous abstract, maximum 2 pages (including examples and references), and the same abstract containing your data and named yournameabstract.pdf, by January 15, 2010 to the organizers Seppo Kittilä and Anne Tamm, seppo.kittila at helsinki.fi and anne.tamm at unifi.it . Authors will be notified about the acceptance status of their paper by January 31. For updates and more information about the workshop, please consult our workspace at The webpage of the main event (The 14th International Morphology Meeting) is found at . Since the participants of the workshop on Uralic case need to register to the main event, please consult the website for details of registration, accommodation, the venue, and several other practical issues. From gj.steen at let.vu.nl Tue Nov 17 16:42:57 2009 From: gj.steen at let.vu.nl (Steen, G.J.) Date: Tue, 17 Nov 2009 17:42:57 +0100 Subject: 2nd cfp: RaAM 8: Metaphor and domains of discourse Message-ID: Second call for abstracts: RaAM 8 conference: Metaphor and Domains of Discourse http://raam8.let.vu.nl/ We are pleased to announce the 8th conference of the Researching and Applying Metaphor International Association (RaAM), which will be held at VU University (Vrije Universiteit), Amsterdam, the Netherlands, from 30 June through 3 July 2010. As an association, RaAM strives to advance the study of metaphor, metonymy and other aspects of figurative language, with a commitment to the application of metaphor research to 'real world' issues. In light of this, the theme of the upcoming international conference will be 'metaphor and domains of discourse'. The theme is intended to highlight the socio-cultural as well as the situational diversity of metaphor as manifested in, for example: -- government and politics; -- religion and ethics; -- education; -- science and healthcare; -- business and organizations; -- mass media and journalism; and -- literature and the arts. The conference will feature plenary lectures by: - Paul Chilton Dept. of Linguistics and English Language, Lancaster University, UK - Dedre Gentner Dept. of Psychology and School of Education and Social Policy, Northwestern University, USA and an address by the outgoing Chair of the RaAM Executive Committee: - Lynne Cameron Faculty of Education and Language Studies, Open University, UK We are soliciting abstracts for 20-minute papers and for poster presentations. Abstracts should be no more than 500 words (excluding references), and should be submitted via the conference web site at http://raam8.let.vu.nl/abstractsubmission.html . The deadline for abstracts is 31 December 2009. Notification of acceptance decisions will be sent by 1 March 2010. Early registration will be open between 1 March and 30 April 2010. The conference will also include a new way of linking basic and applied research: in addition to regular papers and a poster session, a selection of 'real world workshops' will be offered. The workshops will involve demonstrations for, and with, conference participants on how metaphor can be used as an intervention or tool to change people's way of thinking and reasoning. 'Real world workshops' will be offered on: -- Metaphor in communicating public interest issues (Joseph Grady, Cultural Logic, USA) -- Metaphor in business organizations (Joep Cornelissen, Leeds University Business School, UK) -- Metaphor in education professionals' discourse (Graham Low, University of York, UK) -- Metaphor in knowledge management (Daan Andriessen, INHolland University of Applied Sciences, NL) -- Metaphor and metonymy in painting (Irene Mittelberg, RWTH Aachen University, Germany) - Metaphor in product design (Paul Hekkert, Technical University Delft, NL). A limited number of travel bursaries/stipends will be available for PhD students from the RaAM Executive Committee and the local organising committee. In addition, an Early Career Prize and a prize for the best presentation by a PhD student will be awarded during the conference, and there will also be a raffle for book vouchers for PhD students attending a RaAM conference for the first time. Details are available at http://raam8.let.vu.nl/phdforum.html . Several tutorials geared toward PhD students will also be offered on 30 June before the conference begins. The topics include: - Identification of figurative networks in multimodal discourse - The use of dictionaries and WordSmith Tools with the Pragglejaz MIP - Metonymy as a research tool - How to make an effective conference presentation. Descriptions can be found on the conference website at http://raam8.let.vu.nl/preconferencetutorials.html . The RaAM8 scientific committee consists of: John Barnden (University of Birmingham, United Kingdom) Frank Boers (Erasmus College of Brussels, Belgium) Lynne Cameron (Open University, United Kingdom) Jonathan Charteris-Black (University of the West of England, United Kingdom) Alan Cienki (Vrije Universiteit, Netherlands) Charles Forceville (Universiteit van Amsterdam, Netherlands) Veronika Koller (Lancaster University, United Kingdom) Zouhair Maalej (King Saud University, Saudi Arabia) Brigitte Nerlich (University of Nottingham, United Kingdom) Elena Semino (Lancaster University, United Kingdom) Gerard Steen (Vrije Universiteit, Netherlands) Dvora Yanow (Vrije Universiteit, Netherlands) Ning Yu (University of Oklahoma, United States of America) We look forward to welcoming you to Amsterdam for RaAM 8! The local organizing committee: Alan Cienki and Gerard Steen (chairs); Lettie Dorst, Berenike Herrmann, Anna Kaal, Tina Krennmayr, Tryntje Pasma Know anyone who is not yet a member of the RaAM International Association and wishes to join? Send them this URL for the RaAM web page and mention the link for ‘Joining’ at the top: http://www.raam.org.uk/Home.html From mcarrete at filol.ucm.es Sat Nov 28 15:05:46 2009 From: mcarrete at filol.ucm.es (MARTA BEGONA CARRETERO LAPEYRE) Date: Sat, 28 Nov 2009 16:05:46 +0100 Subject: First Call for Papers: 4th Modality in English Conference (ModE4) Message-ID: Dear Funknetters, We are pleased to announce the 4th Modality in English Conference, which will take place at the Facultad de Filología, Universidad Complutense de Madrid, 9-11 September 2010. Fourth International Conference on Modality in English-ModE4 Universidad Complutense de Madrid, 9-11 September 2010 Departamento de Filología Inglesa I http://www.ucm.es/centros/webs/se5065/ The conference is designed to be a follow-up to the: - International Conference on Modality in Contemporary English, University of Verona (Italy), 6-8 September 2001. - Second International Conference on Modality in English, University of Pau (France), 2-4 September 2004. - Third International Conference on Modality in English, Aristotle University of Thessaloniki (Greece), 4-6 May 2007. CALL FOR PAPERS ModE4 invites the submission of papers and posters from all (sub)domains of modality and evidentiality in English, including crosslinguistic studies. In addition to individual talks, we also welcome proposals for theme sessions. The conference aims to provide a forum for the exchange of ideas between researchers working in modality and evidentiality in English, and to bring to the fore the most recent developments in the field. PLENARY SPEAKERS Johan van der Auwera (University of Antwerp) Ronald W. Langacker (University of California, San Diego) Geoffrey Leech (University of Lancaster) Anne-Marie Simon-Vandenbergen (University of Ghent) Anastasios Tsangalidis (Aristotle University of Thessaloniki) VENUE The venue of the conference will be the Facultad de Filología, on the campus of the Universidad Complutense de Madrid, which is of easy access from the city centre and the hotels. (There are convenient bus links and an underground station on campus). PAPER PRESENTATIONS AND POSTERS Papers and posters are invited on all topics belonging to the field of modality and evidentiality in English, including crosslinguistic studies. Presentations of papers will be allocated 20 minutes plus 5 minutes for questions. Authors of papers and posters should submit anonymous abstracts, together with a separate page specifying the author's name, affiliation, surface mail address and e-mail address. Abstracts should be between 600-700 words (excluding references), and should state research questions, approach, method, data and (expected) results. All submitted abstracts will go through a double-blind reviewing process (at least two reviewers). Abstracts should be sent by e-mail, as attachments, to ModE4 (mode4 at filol.ucm.es) Please use Word or RTF format; and if your abstract contains special symbols, please include a PDF version as well. The deadline for all abstracts (papers and posters) is 31 January 2010. Notifications of acceptance will be sent out by 31 March 2010. THEME SESSIONS Proposals for theme sessions are welcome. The proposal should include the name(s) of the convenor(s), a common title and the description of the topic (see instructions for paper abstracts above). The sessions will consist of two one hour and a half slots (maximum 5 papers) focusing on a common topic within modality and/or evidentiality. Each theme session should include a 30-minute slot for final discussion on the topic. Proposals should be sent by e-mail, as attachments, to ModE4 (mode4 at filol.ucm.es) The deadline for the submission of proposals is 29 December 2009. Theme session organisers will be notified by 17 January 2010. At the same time, a call for abstracts for the theme sessions will go out. REGISTRATION Registration will start from April 1 onwards. Registration fees are anticipated to be the following: Early registration fee (from 1 April 2010 to 31 May 2010): 150 Euros Students (without salary or grant): 70 Euros Late registration fee: 180 Euros Students (without salary or grant): 100 Euros The registration fee includes the conference materials, coffee/tea, the conference reception, and a walking tour to places of interest in Madrid. SOCIAL PROGRAMME There will be a reception and a walking tour (included in the registration fee), and a conference dinner. On Saturday afternoon there will be a post-conference excursion to Toledo (full details will be given in due course on the conference website). Further information about the social programme will be given in the second circular. IMPORTANT DATES 31 January 2010: Deadline for submission of abstracts 31 March 2010: Notification of acceptance 1 April 2010: Early registration starts 1 June 2010: Registration (full fee) ModE GENERAL COMMITTEE - Johan van der Auwera (University of Antwerp) - Pierre Busuttil (University of Pau) - Roberta Facchinetti (University of Verona) - Paul Larreya (University of Paris 13) - Anastasios Tsangalidis (Aristotle University of Thessaloniki) ORGANIZING COMMITTEE - Juana I. Marín-Arrese (Chair) - Marta Carretero (Secretary) - Jorge Arús - Elena Domínguez - Carmen Maíz Arévalo - Mª Victoria Martín de la Rosa - Juan Rafael Zamorano CONTACT ModE4 Organizing committee: Departamento de Filología Inglesa I Facultad de Filología Universidad Complutense de Madrid Ciudad Universitaria, s/n E-28040 Madrid Spain Phone: +34-91-394-5357/5835/5382 Fax: +34-91-394-5762/5357 E-mail: mode4 at filol.ucm.es Marta Carretero Departamento de Filología Inglesa I Facultad de Filología Universidad Complutense de Madrid From michel.launey at ird.fr Sun Nov 29 20:02:08 2009 From: michel.launey at ird.fr (michel.launey at ird.fr) Date: Sun, 29 Nov 2009 17:02:08 -0300 Subject: terminological contest Message-ID: Répondre À : michel.launey at ird.fr Dear Funknetters, I'm looking for an adequate English term for a grammatical tense-aspect-mood form which appears in Classical Nahuatl. My grammar, written in French, is now being translated by Chris Mackay, from the University of Alberta. He's doing great work, but we both come across a snag here, and I thought maybe some of you know in some language a form which has more or less similar properties and which has a more or less common or consensual name. The form is a verbal suffix -ni, which has the following semantic values: -1. "Used to", "be liable or likely to", "have a tendency to", "like to", "be prone to"... Ex. die > mortal; sleep > fond of sleeping, big sleeper; eat > big eater; sin > sinner; know > wise etc. -2. (subcase of 1, in the passive): passive property or propensity Ex be eaten > edible; be heard > audible, etc. -3. present or past irrealis (in the if-clause), counterfactual hypothesis or wish Ex. If he were present (I would tell him); if I hadn't done that (I wouldn't be in such a trouble nowadays); If only he were there! I wish I'd never said that! etc.   Since no grammar of Nahuatl (and there are some very good ones since the Conquest!) gives an encompassing name, I finally called it (in French) éventuel, which unfortunately is a (well known) false friend of English eventual. Fr. éventuel refers to something which may or may not happen according to circumstances, and is adequate to the iterative/potential uses as well as the hypothetical/optative ones. It has been used by some linguists (among them Lazard) for other languages. I suppose this cluster of semantic values (which is easy to explain) is present elsewhere, but I can't remember seeing an encompassing English term for that. The suggestions so far are: - potential (which I used in a recent article in English), but English-speaking colleagues seem to have mixed feelings about it - habitual, but this doesn't account for the hypothetical values (3), and is even bad in some cases of (1) (e.g. mortal) - normative, which is Chris Mackay's ultimate suggestion, but I would like to have other native English speakers' advice.   So I thereby launch a terminological contest: find an adequate term. Accompanying arguments and references are particularly welcome. I'll be the only member of the jury, this admittedly dictatorial position being tempered by consulting some English-speaking non-funknetters I know. The winner will be the first person whose suggestion is accepted by the jury, and the prize will be a dedicated copy of the book when it comes out (this should be in the second half of 2010)   Thanks in advance for any help. Michel Launey ----- Fin du message transféré ----- -------------- next part -------------- Dear Funknetters, I?m looking for an adequate English term for a grammatical tense-mood form which appears in Classical Nahuatl. My grammar, written in French, is now being translated by Chris Mackay, from the University of Alberta. He?s doing great work, but we both come across a snag here, and I thought maybe some of you know in some language a form which has more or less similar properties and which has a more or less common or consensual name. The form is a verbal suffix ?ni, which has the following semantic values: -1. ?Used to?, ?be liable or likely to?, ?have a tendency to?, ?like to?, ?be prone to? Ex. die > mortal; sleep > fond of sleeping, big sleeper; eat > big eater; sin > sinner; know > wise etc. -2. (in the passive): passive property or propensity (subcase of 1) Ex be eaten > edible; be heard > audible, etc. -3. present or past irrealis (in the if-clause), counterfactual hypothesis or wish Ex. If he were present (I would tell him); if I hadn?t done that (I wouldn?t be in such a trouble nowadays); If only he were there! I wish I?d never said that! etc.   Since no grammar of Nahuatl (and there are some very good ones since the Conquest!) gives an encompassing name, I finally called it (in French) éventuel, which unfortunately is a (well known) false friend of English eventual. Fr. éventuel refers to something which may or may not happen according to circumstances, and is adequate to the iterative/potential uses as well as the hypothetical ones. It has been used by some linguists (among them Lazard) for other languages. I suppose this cluster of semantic values (which is easy to explain) is present elsewhere, but I can?t remember seeing an encompassing English term for that. The suggestions so far are: - potential (which I used in a recent article in English), but English-speaking colleagues seem to have mixed feelings about it - habitual, but this doesn?t account for the hypothetical values (3), and is even bad in some cases of (1) (e.g. mortal) - normative, which is Chris Mackay?s ultimate suggestion, but I would like to have other native English speakers? advice.   So I thereby launch a terminological contest: find an adequate term. Accompanying arguments and references are particularly welcome. I?ll be the only member of the jury, this dictatorial position being tempered by consulting some English-speaking non-funknetters I know. The winner will be the first person whose suggestion is accepted by the jury, and the prize will be a dedicated copy of the book when it comes out (this should be in the second half of 2010)   Thanks in advance for any help. Michel Launey From phdebrab at yahoo.co.uk Mon Nov 2 05:20:46 2009 From: phdebrab at yahoo.co.uk (Philippe De Brabanter) Date: Mon, 2 Nov 2009 05:20:46 +0000 Subject: Call for papers - workshop on Future at The 43rd annual Meeting of Societas Linguistica Europaea Vilnius University, Lithuania, 2-5 September 2010 Message-ID: Workshop ?Future tense(s) / future time(s)' The 43rd annual Meeting of Societas Linguistica Europaea Vilnius University, Lithuania, 2-5 September 2010 Convenors: Philippe De Brabanter (Universit? Paris 4-Sorbonne ? Institut Jean Nicod) Mikhail Kissine (FNRS, Universit? Libre de Bruxelles) Saghie Sharifzadeh (Universit? Paris 4-Sorbonne) Contact: phdebrab at yahoo.co.uk Call for Papers Time Frame: We ask potential participants to send us their provisional titles and short descriptions no later than 12 November so as to allow us to submit our workshop proposal to the SLE Scientific Committee before 15 November 2009. In case of acceptance of our proposal, all abstracts will have to be submitted by the end of December via the ?submit abstract? form to be found on the SLE website. Description: Among tenses and linguistic expressions that anchor events and situations in time, those that refer to the future occupy a special place. The most obvious reason is the 'open' or 'indeterminate' character of the future: at least from our present point of view, the future course of events is not fixed while there is arguably only one past. This problem has exercised the minds of all those who have attempted to provide a semantic account of future temporal reference. Not surprisingly, this has led numerous linguists to argue that (at least certain) linguistic markers of futurity belong to the category of modality rather than to the tense system proper. And it is true, typically in Germanic languages, that the central markers of futurity have often developed diachronically from modal verbs. However, the semantic indeterminacy of future reference is just one among many fascinating questions. These include (the list is not exhaustive): - pastness in the future - futurity in the past - ?distance? in the future (near vs. remote future) - the use of future tense or other verbal forms marking future time in subordinate clauses - the use of verbal forms usually marking future time to mean other things than reference to future time. In this workshop, we would like to promote a fresh look at the future by bringing together semanticists, typologists, cognitive linguists and other linguists interested in all things future. We encourage scholars from various theoretical traditions to submit papers. We also wish to reach across traditional languages lines and welcome submissions that examine similarities and differences between Romance or Germanic languages on the one hand, and other language groups on the other. Important dates: Deadline for submissions: November 12, 2009 Conference: September 2-5, 2010 From Freek.VanDeVelde at arts.kuleuven.be Tue Nov 3 11:07:16 2009 From: Freek.VanDeVelde at arts.kuleuven.be (Freek Van de Velde) Date: Tue, 3 Nov 2009 12:07:16 +0100 Subject: call for papers workshop Vilnius Message-ID: Hi, This call for papers might interest the subscribers of Funknet. Best regards, Freek Van de Velde. SLE 2010 Vilnius: Workshop proposal Multiple source constructions in language change In recent work on grammaticalization and language change in general, it has often been stressed that change does not affect individual lexemes, but entire constructions (see Bybee et al. 1994: 11; Croft 2000:62, 156, 163; Heine 2003: 575; Bybee 2003: 602-3, 2007; Traugott 2007). However, although most case studies on diachronic language change now recognize the importance of the source construction as a whole, they generally focus on just one such construction, drawing gradual, yet straight lines from one particular source construction to one specific syntagm. Using the metaphor proposed in Croft (2000: 32-37), constructions form diachronic lineages as they are replicated in usage, and change is typically conceived of as occurring within a lineage through altered replication. Recent studies, however, demonstrate that innovations in language change may derive not just from one, but from different sources at once. That is, change often seems to involve some interaction between lineages or between the branches of a lineage. Multiplicity of source constructions can be witnessed on two levels. On the macro-level, the involvement of multiple source constructions entails a merger of clearly distinct lineages. One linguistic item or construction can then be traced back to two independent items or constructions, each with its own prior history. Several types of merger can be discerned, which are however not mutually exclusive: ? Syntactic blends ('intraference' in Croft 2000): the formal and functional features of different lineages are recombined into a new construction. For example, the Lunda passive has been argued to combine two source constructions, a left-dislocated object construction and an impersonal construction (Giv?n & Kawasha 2006). The history of English gerunds and present participles seems to be a protracted series of mergers, with exchange of formal, semantic and distributional features (Fanego 1998; Miller 2000), to the point that the two clause types are now believed to have merged completely (Huddleston & Pullum 2002). ? Contact-induced change ('interference' in Croft 2000): the function of a foreign construction is merged with a 'home-bred' form. Examples are the use of the locative preposition bei instead of von to mark the agent of passives in Pennsylvania Dutch under the influence of English (Heine & Kuteva 2003: 538), or the emergence of a periphrastic perfect in Silesian Polish, calqued on the German perfect (Croft 2000: 146). ? Two lineages produce paradigmatic alternates in a single construction. Here lineages merge on a functional level, but their different forms are retained and integrated in a new paradigm. The clearest case is morphological suppletion, as in English go/went or Classical Greek trekh-/dram- 'run'. However, the phenomenon also occurs in syntax, as illustrated by the alternation of Dutch hebben/zijn or German haben/sein as perfect auxiliaries. As is well known, the choice for one auxiliary or the other depends on the semantics of the verb: transitives and unergatives take hebben/haben; unaccusatives take zijn/sein. Though currently functioning as alternates within a single grammatical category, the hebben/haben-perfect and the zijn/sein-perfect can be traced back to different source constructions (Van der Wal 1992:152-153). ? A constructional slot attracts new items: it has been proposed that when functional domains recruit new items through grammaticalization, this may in part be due to analogical attraction by a more abstract syntactic construction (Fischer 2007). This seems particularly plausible when, in the extreme case, an abstract slot recruits productively from a single source domain. For instance, the English evidential be-Ved-to-V-construction has become productive for verbs of perception, communication and cognition (No?l 2001). But the issue is more complicated when items from different source domains are involved. Prepositions, for instance, may be derived from very different sources yet converge on a single new category, as illustrated by German statt and wegen, deriving from nominal constructions, as opposed to w?hrend, deriving from a participle (Kluge 2002). On the micro-level, innovation can take place within what is historically a single lineage, but under the influence of different uses of the same item. ? In lexical semantics, Geeraerts (1997) proposes that two senses of a polysemous lexical item may conspire to produce a third. ? The same seems to happen in grammar. New uses of a grammatical or grammaticalizing item may be triggered by pragmatic implicatures arising (seemingly?) independently in a number of its collocations. For example, the aspectual meanings of the English phrasal verb particle out arose in several specific collocations at once (De Smet forthc.). The development of the emphasizing meaning of particular was influenced by two other sense strains of the adjective - a descriptive and a determining one - each associated with its own specific collocational set. (Ghesqui?re 2009). ? The most dramatic cases are certain examples of degrammaticalization. For example, Fischer (2000) has argued that, long after it had been reanalysed as an infinitive marker, English to has developed back in the direction of the preposition to. The recurrent involvement of multiple source constructions in language change raises a number of questions, from methodological/descriptive to theoretical: 1. How do we prove that different source constructions have a genuine impact? Clearly, mere resemblance of constructions does not necessarily imply that they actually interact as sources of an innovation. 2. How should we typologize the various changes involving multiple source constructions? For a start, involvement of multiple sources may be more likely in some domains of grammar than others (semantics, morphology, syntax) and is certainly more conspicuous in some cases than in others (macro-level vs. micro-level). It is not entirely clear, then, whether in all cases we are dealing with a similar phenomenon, triggered by fundamentally similar mechanisms. 3. How common is the involvement of multiple source constructions in language change? It is possible that the involvement of multiple source constructions is a significant catalyst for change, which could even imply that 'uncontaminated' lineage-internal changes form the exception. Alternatively, the involvement of multiple sources could be merely apparent or accidental and have no great impact on change. 4. How can developments involving multiple source constructions be modelled in a theory of grammar and language change? Especially if change canonically involves multiple sources, this has implications for how constructions are represented in speakers' minds and how language change takes place (Joseph 1992). Proper theoretical modelling of different changes is also necessary to determine to what extent multiplicity of source constructions in change is a homogeneous phenomenon. We invite papers that address one or more of the above questions, to be presented in a one-day workshop, bringing together scholars interested in language change, from the domains of grammar, grammaticalization, morphology and typology. Particularly welcome are papers that are based on corpus and/or historical data and that aim to contribute to existing theorizing. Confirmed key note speaker: Brian Joseph Venue: The workshop is to be held at the 43rd annual meeting of the Societas Linguistica Europeae in Vilnius, September 2-5 (http://www.flf.vu.lt/sle2010/). Timeline: We ask potential participants to send us their provisional titles and short descriptions no later than November 12, so as to allow us to submit a workshop programme, including a preliminary list of participants and a short description of their topics, to the SLE Scientific Committee. Contributors will be notified if the workshop is accepted by December 15. Abstracts should then be submitted electronically via the SLE website by January 1. Contact: Lobke.Ghesquiere at arts.kuleuven.be Workshop conveners: Freek Van de Velde, Lobke Ghesqui?re, Hendrik De Smet References Bybee, J., R. Perkins & W. Pagliuca (1994). The evolution of grammar. Tense, aspect, and modality in the languages of the world. Chicago: University of Chicago Press. Bybee, J. (2003). Mechanisms of change in grammaticalization. The role of frequency. In: Joseph, B.D. & R.D. Janda (eds.). The Handbook of Historical Linguistics. Oxford: Blackwell. 602-623. Bybee, J. (2007). Historical Linguistics. In: Geeraerts, D. & H. Cuyckens (eds.) The handbook of cognitive linguistics. Oxford: Oxford University Press. 945-987. Croft, W. (2000). Explaining language change. An evolutionary approach. Harlow: Longman. De Smet, H. (forthc.). Grammatical interference. Subject marker for and phrasal verb particle out. In: Traugott, E. & G. Trousdale (eds). Gradualness, gradience and grammaticalization. Berlin: Mouton de Gruyter. Fanego, T. (1998). Developments in argument linking in early Modern English gerund phrases. English Language and Linguistics 2: 87-119. Fischer, O. (2000). Grammaticalisation: unidirectional, non-reversible? The case of to before the infinitive in English. In: Fischer, O., A. Rosenbach & D. Stein (eds.). Pathways of change. Grammaticalization in English. Amsterdam: John Benjamins. 149-169. Fischer, O. (2007). Approaches to morphosyntactic change from a functional and formal perspective. Oxford: Oxford University Press. Geeraerts, D. (1997). Diachronic prototype semantics. A contribution to historical lexicology. Oxford: Clarendon Press Ghesqui?re, L. (2009). (Inter)subjectification and structural movement in the English NP. The adjectives of specificity. Folia Linguistica 43 (2): 311-343. Giv?n, T. & B. Kawasha. (2006). Indiscrete grammatical relations. The Lunda passive. In: Tsunoda, T. & T. Kageyama (eds.). Voice and Grammatical Relations. In Honor of Masayoshi Shibatani (Typology Studies in Language 65). Amsterdam: John Benjamins. 15-41. Heine, B. (2003). Grammaticalization. In: Joseph, B.D. & R.D. Janda (eds.). The Handbook of Historical Linguistics. Oxford: Blackwell. 575-601. Heine, B. & T. Kuteva (2003). "On contact-induced grammaticalization". Studies in Language 27:529-572. Huddleston, R. & Pullum, G. (2002). The Cambridge grammar of the English language. Cambrige: Cambridge University Press. Joseph, B.D. (1992). Diachronic explanation. Putting the speaker back into the picture. In: Davis, G.W. & G.K. Iverson (eds.). Explanations in historical linguistics. John Benjamins. 123-144. Kluge, F. (2002). Etymologisches W?rterbuch der deutschen Sprache. Berlin: De Gruyter. Miller, G.D. (2002). Nonfinite structures in theory and change. Oxford: Oxford University Press. No?l, D. (2001). The passive matrices of English infinitival complement clauses. Evidentials on the road to auxiliarihood? Studies in Language 25: 255-296. Traugott, E. (2007). The concepts of constructional mismatch and type-shifting from the perspective of grammaticalization. Cognitive Linguistics 18: 523-557. Van der Wal, M. (i.c.w. C. van Bree) (1992). Geschiedenis van het Nederlands. Utrecht: Spectrum. --- Freek Van de Velde University of Leuven, Fac. of Arts Dept. of Linguistics Blijde Inkomststraat 21, P.O. Box 3308 BE-3000 Leuven 0032 16 32 47 81 http://wwwling.arts.kuleuven.be/nedling/fvandevelde/ From Lieselotte.Brems at arts.kuleuven.be Tue Nov 3 11:50:41 2009 From: Lieselotte.Brems at arts.kuleuven.be (Lot Brems) Date: Tue, 3 Nov 2009 12:50:41 +0100 Subject: call for papers: workshop at SLE 43 'Binominal syntagms as a neglected locus of synchronic variation and diachronic change: Towards a unified approach' Message-ID: Workshop proposal 'Binominal syntagms as a neglected locus of synchronic variation and diachronic change: Towards a unified approach' Recent Call for Papers Call Deadline: 12-Nov-2009 43rd Annual Meeting of SLE (Societas Linguistica Europaea), Vilnius, 2-5 September 2010 Call for Papers Convenors: Lieselotte.Brems at arts.kuleuven.be Bernard.declerck at ugent.be Katrien.Verveckken at arts.kuleuven.be Time Frame: The workshop proposal, including a preliminary list of participants and a three line description of their topics, should be submitted to the SLE Scientific Committee before November 15, 2009. Therefore we ask potential participants to send us the provisional titles and short descriptions of their presentations no later than November 12 to lieselotte.brems at arts.kuleuven.be. All abstracts should be submitted by the end of December to the submit abstract form to be found at the SLE website. Description: Although in recent years various theoretical frameworks have shown an increasing interest in the semantico-syntactic organization of noun phrases in general, comparatively little attention has been paid to binominal syntagms. Binominal syntagms are a type of complex noun phrase attested in many European languages that involves two nominal elements, possibly linked by means of a linking element. Most studies so far have focussed on various English '(determiner) (modifier) NP1 + of + (determiner) (modifier) NP2'-constructions (e.g. Akmajian, Adrian & Lehrer 1976, Aarts 1998, Keizer 2001, Denison 2002, Brems 2003, Willemse 2005, Traugott 2008, Langacker forth.), and (less so) on its equivalents in other Germanic languages, e.g. Dutch (Everaert 1992, Joosten 2003, Rijkhoff 2009) and Romance languages, e.g. Spanish (Verveckken 2007) and French (Foolen 2004). The binominal construction poses many descriptive-theoretical challenges to both formal and cognitive-functional frameworks. A key problem in the literature has been that of identifying the head of binominal syntagms. Some authors or reference grammars argue for one analysis that covers all instances of the binominal construction (Quirk et al. 1985); others consider a distinction between a syntactic and a semantic head of the construction a useful way out (Halliday 1994); yet others allow head status to shift between NP1 and NP2 (e.g. Brems 2003, Traugott 2008). Different semantic and syntactic tests for determining head status have been proposed in the literature (e.g. Hudson 1987, Aarts 1998). It would be interesting to address their reliability and conclusiveness in the workshop. Another central issue is the question of whether different types of binominals can be distinguished and on what grounds. Syntactically speaking, binominals may differ according to the presence or absence of determiners with the second nominal element (e.g. a wonder of a man, the book of John, heaps of people), presence or absence of a linking element (e.g. the poet Shakespeare, John's book, the majority of the guests) and allowing non-nominal elements in the NP2-slot, e.g. (comparative) adjectives (loads softer, massa's lekker: lit. 'masses tasty', De Clerck & Colleman 2009). From a semantic point of view, the nominal elements may have referential value (e.g. city in a wonder of a city), intensifying value (e.g. wonder in a wonder of a city), possessive value (the manager's office), quantifier value (heaps/lots of in heaps/lots of people), hedging meaning (kind of in She is kind of a groupie), (es)phoric value (the lights of a car) etc. Furthermore, different types of relations between the two nominal elements have been observed (Keizer 2007): modification, complementation, predication, qualification, quantification. Typically, the traditional typology of binominal syntagms comprises possessive constructions, partitive constructions, pseudo-partitive constructions, 'predicative' binominal noun phrases, close appositions, etc. An important question is whether these constructions can be linked in a constructional network, with macro-, meso- and micro-level schemas generalizing over subsets of binominal syntagms. In addition to the attested synchronic variation, this workshop also wants to address the claim that binominals are a locus of (ongoing) grammaticalization, subjectification and decategorialization processes. In some (types) of binominals, the nominal elements seem to have lost or are losing typically nominal features such as the potential for pre- and postmodification, pluralization, etc. (e.g. *a nice wonder of a city, *bunches of idiots, etc.) and may be shifting to the categories of quantifier, intensifier, hedger, etc. Such issues also touch on interesting concepts such as 'categorial gradience', i.e. fuzzy boundaries between two or more categories (Denison 2006, Aarts, Denison, Keizer & Popova 2004). The current variation in binominal constructions could then be seen as a case of synchronic layering (Hopper & Traugott 2003). This workshop aims to arrive at a better understanding of the organization and development of (different types of) binominal constructions in order to account for the rich synchronic and diachronic semantico-syntactic variety they harbour. We particularly welcome empirically based talks that contribute to the aforementioned theoretical issues. We welcome papers on English as well as on other languages and contributions may be language-internal or comparative in nature. The following list sums up possible avenues of thinking that may be addressed in the talks: ? How can the synchronic variation in binominal syntagms be analyzed syntactically, semantically, collocationally, etc. in a unified way? ? Are there (partial) syntactic and/or semantic tests to determine headedness and categorial noun status of the nominal elements in a binominal syntagm and what is their validity? ? What are possible typologies of binominal syntagms? ? Which kinds of tests can be used to distinguish between types of uses, and what is their validity (e.g. Rijkhoff 2009) ? Binominal syntagms as a locus of grammaticalization, e.g. in which paths of change do binominals engage crosslinguistically? ? Which properties in the binominal as a source construction explain the wide variety of synchronic variation and potential for diachronic change it displays? ? What can specific theoretical frameworks contribute to the analysis of binominal syntagms, e.g. cognitive grammar, construction grammar, functional grammar, usage-based approaches? References: Aarts, Bas. 1998. "Binominal Noun Phrases in English". Transactions of the Philological Society 96: 117-158. Aarts, Bas, David Denison, Eveline Keizer & Gergana Popova. 2004. Fuzzy Grammar: a reader. Oxford: Oxford University Press. Akmajian, Adrian and Adrienne Lehrer. 1976. "NP-like quantifiers and the problem of determining the head of an NP". Linguistic Analysis 2: 395-413. Brems, Lieselotte. 2003. "Measure Noun constructions: an instance of semantically-driven grammaticalization". International Journal of Corpus Linguistics 8 (2): 283-312. De Clerck, Bernard & Timothy Colleman. 2009. "Het was massa's lekker! From noun to intensifier: massa's in (Flemish) varieties of Dutch". Presentation at Current Trends in Grammaticalization Research, Groningen, 7-9 October 2009. Denison, David. 2002. "History of the sort of construction family". Paper presented at the Second International Conference on Construction Grammar, University of Helsinki, 7 September 2002. [Online draft version available at http://www.llc.manchester.ac.uk/subjects/lel/staff/david-denison/papers/thefile,100126,en.pdf] Denison, D. 2006. "Category change and gradience in the determiner system." In Ans Van Kemenade & Bettelou Los, eds. The Handbook of the History of English. 279-304 Everaert, Martin. 1992. "Nogmaals: Een schat van een kind". In Hans Bennis & Jan W. de Vries, eds. De binnenbouw van het Nederlands: een bundel artikelen voor Piet Paardekooper. Dordrecht: Foris. 45-54. Foolen, Ad. 2004. "Expressive binominal NPs in Germanic and Romance languages". In G?nter Radden & Klaus-Uwe Panther, eds. 75-100. Studies in Linguistics Motivation. Berlin/New York: Mouton de Gruyter. Halliday, Michael A.K. 1994. An Introduction to Functional Grammar. 2nd edition. London: Arnold. Hopper, Paul J. and Elizabeth Closs Traugott. 2003 [1993]. Grammaticalization. Second Edition. [First Edition]. Cambridge: Cambridge University Press. Hudson, Richard A. 1987. "Zwicky on heads". Journal of Linguistics 23: 109-132. Joosten, Frank. 2003. Collectiva en Aggregaatsnamen in het Nederlands: Begripsbepaling en Typologie. Unpublished PhD thesis. University of Leuven. Keizer, Evelien. 2001. "A classification of sort/kind/type-constructions". Ms. University College London. Keizer, M.E. (2007). The English Noun Phrase: the Nature of Linguistic Categorization. Cambridge: CUP. Langacker, Ronald W. forthcoming a. "A lot of quantifiers". In Sally Rice and John Newman, eds. Experimental and Empirical Methods (provisional title). Proceedings from CSDL 2004. Quirk, Randolph, Sidney Greenbaum, Geoffrey Leech and Jan Svartvik. 1985. A Comprehensive Grammar of the English Language. London/ New York: Longman. Rijkhoff, J. 2009, 'On the co-variation between form and function of adnominal possessive modifiers in Dutch and English', in McGregor, W.B. (ed.), The Expression of Possession (The Expression of Cognitive Categories [ECC] - Volume 2), Mouton de Gruyter, Berlin/New York, pp. 51-106. Traugott, Elizabeth Closs. 2008. "The grammaticalization of NP of NP patterns". In Alex Bergs & Gabriele Diewald, eds. Constructions and Language Change. Berlin: Mouton. 23-45. Verveckken, K. 2007. Grammaticization of Spanish Size Noun-Constructions. A cognitive perspective. Unpublished Masterpaper. University of Leuven Willemse, Peter. 2005. Nominal reference point constructions: possessive and esphoric NPs in English. Unpublished PhD Thesis. University of Leuven. From c.j.hart at herts.ac.uk Tue Nov 3 15:51:11 2009 From: c.j.hart at herts.ac.uk (Christopher Hart) Date: Tue, 3 Nov 2009 15:51:11 +0000 Subject: 3rd CFP: 3rd UK Cognitive Linguistics Conference Message-ID: 3rd CALL FOR PAPERS - 3rd UK COGNITIVE LINGUISTICS CONFERENCE (UK-CLC3) CONFERENCE WEBSITE: http://uk-clc3.org The third UK Cognitive Linguistics conference (UK-CLC3) will take place at the University of Hertfordshire, over three days: 6-8th inclusive, July 2010. The conference theme is "meaning, mind and (social) reality". The following distinguished scholars will be giving keynote lectures relating to aspects of the conference theme: * Professor William Croft (University of New Mexico, USA) * Professor Ewa Dabrowska (University of Sheffield, UK) * Professor John Lucy (University of Chicago, USA) * Professor Peter Stockwell (University of Nottingham, UK) * Professor Gabriella Vigliocco (University College London, UK) We invite the submission of abstracts (for paper or poster presentations) addressing all aspects of Cognitive Linguistics. These include but are by no means limited to: * Domains and frame semantics * Categorisation, prototypes and polysemy * Metaphor and metonymy * Mental spaces and conceptual blending * Cognitive and construction grammar * Embodiment and language acquisition * Language evolution and language change * Language use and linguistic relativity Cognitive Linguistics is an inherently interdisciplinary enterprise which is broadly concerned with the connection between language and cognition in relation to body, culture and contexts of use. We are therefore especially interested in interdisciplinary research - theoretical, empirical, applied - that combines theories and methods from across the cognitive, biological and social sciences. These include but are not limited to: * Linguistics * Anthropology * Evolution * Paleoanthropology * Primatology * Neuroscience * Cognitive and developmental psychology * (Critical) Discourse and Communication studies Papers will be allocated 20 minutes plus 10 minutes for question. Posters will stay up for a day and be allocated to dedicated, timetabled sessions. The language of the conference is English. Abstracts of no more than 300 words (excluding references) should be sent by email as a Word attachment to c.j.hart at herts.ac.uk by 15 December 2009. The document should contain presentation title, the abstract and preference for paper or poster presentation. Please DO NOT include information identifying the author(s) in the email attachment. Author(s) information including name, affiliation and email address(es) should be detailed in the body of the email. All abstracts will be subject to peer review by an international Scientific Committee. Notification of acceptance decisions will be communicated by 15 February 2010. Presenters will be invited to submit papers based on the conference theme for an edited volume to be published by Equinox Publishing Co. in the Advances in Cognitive Linguistics series. Accepted papers will be subject to peer-review. Keep up-to-date by bookmarking and checking the conference website regularly: http://uk-clc3.org The conference is organised by Chris Hart (Chair of local organising committee), and Vyv Evans (on behalf of the UK-CLA). For details of the UK-CLA see: www.uk-cla.org.uk -- Christopher Hart Lecturer in English Language and Communication School of Humanities University of Hertfordshire www.go.herts.ac.uk/cjhart From drosenblum at umail.ucsb.edu Tue Nov 3 19:54:48 2009 From: drosenblum at umail.ucsb.edu (Daisy Rosenblum) Date: Tue, 3 Nov 2009 11:54:48 -0800 Subject: Please post: WAIL 2010 CFP Message-ID: CALL FOR PAPERS Workshop on American Indigenous Languages Santa Barbara, CA April 30th-May 1st, 2010 The Linguistics department at the University of California, Santa Barbara announces its 13th annual Workshop on American Indigenous Languages (WAIL), which provides a forum for the discussion of theoretical, descriptive, and practical studies of the indigenous languages of the Americas. Anonymous abstracts are invited for talks on any topic relevant to the study of language in the Americas. Talks will be 20 minutes, followed by 10 minutes for discussion. Guidelines: Abstracts should be 500 words or less (excluding examples and/or references). Hard copy submissions will be accepted from those who do not have internet access. Individuals may submit abstracts for one single-authored and one co-authored paper. Please indicate your source(s) and type(s) of data in the abstract (e.g. recordings, texts, conversational, elicited, narrative, etc.). For co-authored papers, please indicate who plans to present the paper as well as who will be in attendance. Special panel: This year's workshop will include a panel presented by academic and community-based researchers working on the documentation, description and revitalization of their heritage languages. Talks will be 20 minutes each, followed by a group discussion/question-and-answer period. Online submissions: Please submit all abstracts online at http://linguistlist.org/confcustom/wail2010 . PDF, RTF, Microsoft Word and Open Office formats are preferred. For hard copy submissions: Please send four copies of your abstract, along with a 3x5 card with the following information: (1) your name; (2) affiliation; (3) mailing address; (4) phone number; (5) email address; (6) title of your paper; (7) whether your submission is for the general session or the Special Panel. Send hard copy submissions to: Workshop on American Indigenous Languages Attn: Daisy Rosenblum or Stephanie Morse Department of Linguistics University of California, Santa Barbara Santa Barbara, CA 93106 DEADLINE FOR RECEIPT OF ABSTRACTS: February 1st, 2010 Notification of acceptance will be by email no later than March 1st, 2009. General Information: Santa Barbara is situated on the Pacific Ocean near the Santa Y?ez Mountains. The UCSB campus is located near the Santa Barbara airport. Participants may also fly into LAX airport in Los Angeles, which is approximately 90 miles southeast of the campus. Shuttle buses run between LAX and Santa Barbara. Information about hotel accommodations will be posted on our website (http://orgs.sa.ucsb.edu/nailsg/ ). For further information contact the conference coordinators, Daisy Rosenblum and Stephanie Morse, at wail.ucsb at gmail.com, or check out our website at http://orgs.sa.ucsb.edu/nailsg/ From c.j.hart at herts.ac.uk Thu Nov 5 20:23:45 2009 From: c.j.hart at herts.ac.uk (Christopher Hart) Date: Thu, 5 Nov 2009 20:23:45 +0000 Subject: 2nd Call for Papers: CADAAD 2010 Message-ID: Dear all, We are pleased to announce the third international conference Critical Approaches to Discourse Analysis across Disciplines. The conference will take place in Lodz, Poland 13-15 September 2010. The conference has a general theme of "Ideology, identity and interaction". In line with previous CADAAD conferences, this conference aims to promote new directions in cross-disciplinary critical discourse research. We welcome contributions from all areas of critically applied linguistics. We especially encourage papers which assess the state of the art and explore new methodologies in critical discourse research oriented toward the general theme of /ideology, identity and interaction/*. *Possible areas of analysis include but are by no means limited to the following: * ? Identities in discourse * ? Political communication * ? Language in the news * ? Language in the new media * ? Discourse of advertising * ? Institutional discourse * ? Language and globalisation * ? Business communication * ? Scientific discourse * ? Health communication * ? Language and ecology The following plenary speakers, selected for their expertise in different approaches to critical discourse research, have been confirmed: * Professor Paul Chilton (Lancaster University) * Professor Seana Coulson (University of California, San Diego) * Professor Anna Duszak (University of Warsaw) * Professor Bob Hodge (University of Western Sydney) * Professor Martin Reisigl (University of Vienna) Papers will be allocated 20 minutes plus 10 minutes for questions. The language of the conference is English. General queeries should be sent to the local organiser, Piotr Cap, at strus_pl at yahoo.com Abstracts of no more than 350 words (excluding references) should be sent by email as a Word attachment to discourse at cadaad.org by 15 January 2010. Please include name, affiliation, email address and paper title in the body of the email. All abstracts will be accepted subject to review by an international Scientific Committee. Notification of acceptance decisions will be communicated via email by the end of February 2010. Presenters will be invited to submit papers based on the general theme for publication in the CADAAD journal. -- Christopher Hart Lecturer in English Language and Communication School of Humanities University of Hertfordshire www.go.herts.ac.uk/cjhart From hallowel at ohio.edu Thu Nov 5 21:25:44 2009 From: hallowel at ohio.edu (hallowel at ohio.edu) Date: Thu, 5 Nov 2009 16:25:44 -0500 Subject: Postdoctoral Research Scholar in Neurogenic Language Disorders Message-ID: Dear colleague: Please share the announcement below with anyone you know who may be seeking a postdoctoral research position in the area of acquired neurogenic language disorders in adults. The new position entails personalized mentorship in scholarly career development and exceptional opportunities for hands-on experience in technology transfer using eye-tracking technology. The position requires a completed Ph.D. and strong interests in aphasia and other acquired neurogenic language disorders in adults. Applicants may be from any disciplinary background. Thank you. Sincerely, Brooke Hallowell (hallowel at ohio.edu) Postdoctoral Research Scholar in Neurogenic Language Disorders School of Hearing, Speech and Language Sciences, College of Health and Human Services, Ohio University Position Description: Postdoctoral scholars are invited to apply for a twelve-month appointment in a thriving research laboratory group dedicated to acquired neurogenic language disorders in adults. The position is funded through the National Institutes of Health (NIH) National Institute on Deafness and other Communication Disorders (NIDCD) and the Ohio University Technology Gap Fund. Responsibilities include: (a) coordination, recruitment and scheduling of research participants (controls and adults with aphasia) for experiments, (b) coordination of data collection involving people with and without aphasia, (c) development of research databases, (d) assistance with data analysis, and (e) contribution to scholarly manuscripts for publications based on results. Strong teamwork is essential. The successful applicant will be encouraged to take advantage of personalized mentorship in scholarly career development, including research processes, publication, and grant writing. Additionally, the position entails exceptional opportunities for hands-on experience in technology transfer and commercialization of research. The Ohio University Neurolinguistics Laboratory: Directed by Dr. Brooke Hallowell, the Ohio University Neurolinguistics Laboratory is dedicated to the study of acquired neurogenic language disorders in adults. Disorders under study include aphasia and aspects of brain injury, dementia, stroke, and diabetes that affect people's cognitive and communicative abilities. New technologies are under development to address problems of assessment of language comprehension, working memory, attention, and other areas of linguistic and cognitive processing. In addition to its on-campus research space in Grover Center, the Neurolinguistics Laboratory has multiple affiliated clinical research sites, including the Cleveland Hearing and Speech Center (Cleveland, OH), the Ohio University Clinical Research Site in Columbus (Columbus, OH), the University of West Virginia School of Medicine (Morgantown, VA), the Stroke Comeback Center (Oakton, VA), and the Moscow Federal Center of Speech Pathology and Neurorehabilitation (Moscow, Russia). Research is also active with collaborators in the United Kingdom, India, China, and Korea. Current extramural funding sources include the National Institutes of Health and the National Science Foundation. Neurolinguistics Laboratory members demonstrate ongoing excellent success with research awards and peer-reviewed research publications and conference presentations. The School of Hearing, Speech and Language Sciences (HSLS): The School is one of the oldest and largest academic programs in communication sciences and disorders in the world. HSLS offers five degree programs: BS in Hearing, Speech and Language Sciences, MA in Speech-Language Pathology, AuD (Clinical Doctorate in Audiology), PhD in Speech and Language Science, and PhD in Hearing Science. The School has a solid commitment to international collaboration and ample external clinical research sites throughout the US and internationally. The School has a rich track record of active interdisciplinary engagement. Faculty, graduate student and postdoctoral scholar backgrounds represent a rich array of credentials, education and experience in diverse areas. The School is one of six schools in the College of Health and Human Services. The College is housed in Grover Center, a recently remodeled academic facility housing offices and research laboratories for faculty, "smart" classrooms, a fitness/wellness center, and a spacious state-of-the-art Hearing, Speech and Language Clinic. The clinic includes ample diagnostic and treatment materials and clinical technology. Additional information about the school and community may be accessed at: http://www.hhs.ohiou.edu/hsls/. Ohio University is a state-assisted Doctoral Research-Extensive university with 20,000 students on its picturesque Athens campus and 8,500 students on five regional campuses. Qualifications: A Ph.D. and strong interests in aphasia and other neurogenic communication disorders in adults are required. Demonstrated educational and research background in one or more of the following areas is desired: communication sciences and disorders, speech-language pathology, cognitive science, linguistics, psychology, and/or biomedical engineering. Starting Date: Negotiable. Desired start date is January 1, 2010. Salary and Benefits: Salary is commensurate with qualifications and experience. The position is for a twelve-month appointment, with possible renewal. Postdoctoral scholars are provided office space and access to the Ohio University Neurolinguistics Laboratory. University benefits include tuition for employee plus qualified dependents, a comprehensive insurance package (prescription plan, vision benefits, dental plan, and life insurance), and a retirement program. Application: A completed application includes: a curriculum vitae, a letter specifically describing how qualifications and accomplishments fit the requirements of the position, and the names, titles, addresses, and telephone numbers of three current references. Candidates from underrepresented groups are encouraged to apply. All applicants must complete the on-line Quick Application at: www.ohiouniversityjobs.com/applicants/Central?quickFind=55481 For additional information, contact Brooke Hallowell, Ph.D., Director, School of Hearing, Speech and Language Sciences. E-mail: hallowel at ohio.edu Address: W218 Grover Center, Ohio University, Athens, OH 45701 USA Telephone: 740-593-1356 Fax: 740-593-0287 Application Timeframe: Apply by November 30, 2009 for optimal consideration. Review begins immediately and continues until position is filled. Ohio University is an Equal Opportunity/Affirmative Action Employer -- Brooke Hallowell, Ph.D., CCC-SLP, F-ASHA Director, School of Hearing, Speech and Language Sciences President Elect, Council of Academic Programs in Communication Sciences and Disorders College of Health and Human Services W218 Grover Center Ohio University Athens, OH 45701 USA From funknet-bounces at mailman.rice.edu Fri Nov 6 12:47:44 2009 From: funknet-bounces at mailman.rice.edu (=?ISO-8859-1?Q?=A9_VIAGRA_=AE_?= Official Site) Date: Fri, 6 Nov 2009 10:27:44 -0180 Subject: Dear funknet@listserv.linguistlist.org 72% 0FF on Pfizer. Message-ID: An HTML attachment was scrubbed... URL: -------------- next part -------------- Click here http://www.maaltsxg.cn to view as a web page. View image in browser now http://mediapix.ru/pics/e086300d07a127077990cbfc7a66f113.gif Unsubscribe at http://www.maaltsxg.cn Change e-mail address at http://www.maaltsxg.cn Privacy Policy at http://www.maaltsxg.cn About Us at http://www.maaltsxg.cn Copyright ? 2009 bowlo Inc. All rights reserved. From kouii74 at gmail.com Mon Nov 9 13:34:42 2009 From: kouii74 at gmail.com (Nayoung Kwon) Date: Mon, 9 Nov 2009 21:34:42 +0800 Subject: Job posting - All fields in Linguistics, Nanyang Technological University, Singapore In-Reply-To: Message-ID: With apologies for cross-posting, best, Nayoung Kwon Faculty Appointments in Linguistics - All Fields (at Assistant Professor / Associate Professor Level) The Division of Linguistics and Multilingual Studies (LMS) in the School of Humanities and Social Sciences at Nanyang Technological University, Singapore, invites qualified academics to apply for a number of tenure-track faculty positions at either Assistant or Associate Professor level. The new Division of LMS was established in 2008 to oversee the teaching of a new BA (Honours) programme in Linguistics and Multilingual Studies, which admits some 60 majors every year. In line with NTU's mission to become a world-class research-led university, the new division places strong emphasis on cutting-edge research and international publications. With multilingualism as a central theme, research in the division is geared towards a deepening of our understanding of multilingualism through empirical studies of topics such as language description and documentation, language contact, loanword phonology, machine translation, language maintenance and shift, and multilingual language processing and acquisition. Potential applicants can view more details about the division's teaching and research on its website: http://www.ntu.edu.sg/HSS/Linguistics/Pages/default.aspx Successful applicants can look forward to a research-stimulating environment. Interdisciplinary research is strongly encouraged and supported in the School and teaching duties are commensurate with top research universities in the world. New faculty members will be entitled to apply for a Start Up Grant of up to SGD 100,000. The School also makes generous annual provision for conference travel and research grants. Suitable applicants should have PhDs in Linguistics or related fields and be able to contribute to the running of the Linguistics programme by teaching core courses. The appointees will also be expected to offer electives in one or more areas of specialisation. At the current stage of the programme, the Division seeks applicants interested in multilingualism from all fields, including but not limited to topics such as bilingual cognition, language contact, corpus linguistics, typology of Asian languages and historical linguistics. A research background in languages spoken in the region is highly desirable. In addition to teaching at the undergraduate level, successful applicants will be expected to contribute to postgraduate-level teaching and supervision, and be active in research and publication. Appointees should complement existing strengths in the Division and also add to those strengths in new and substantive ways. For appointments at the Associate Professorship level, applicants should possess very high standing in their fields of specialisation, as well as extensive experience in administration, teaching and research. To apply, please refer to the Guidelines for Submitting an Application for Faculty Appointment (http://www.ntu.edu.sg/ohr/Career/SubmitApplications/Pages/Faculty.aspx), and send your application the address below. Please arrange for three references to be independently emailed to the Chair of the Selection Committee, Professor K.K. Luke at H-LMS[image: http://linguistlist.org/images/address-marker.gif]ntu.edu.sg. For further inquiries, please contact Professor Luke. Review of applications will begin on 1st November 2009 and the closing date for the applications will be 30th November 2009. Application Deadline: 30-Nov-2009 Mailing Address for Applications: Office of Human Resources Administration Building, Level 4 50 Nanyang Avenue Singapore 639798 Singapore Email Address for Applications: Acad-talent[image: http://linguistlist.org/images/address-marker.gif]ntu.edu.sg Contact Information: Professor K.K. Luke Email: H-LMS at ntu.edu.sg Fax: (65) 6791 9340 From sepkit at utu.fi Tue Nov 10 06:03:47 2009 From: sepkit at utu.fi (=?iso-8859-1?B?IlNlcHBvIEtpdHRpbOQi?=) Date: Tue, 10 Nov 2009 08:03:47 +0200 Subject: Cfp: Re-thinking synonymy: semantic sameness and similarity in languages and their description Message-ID: (Apologies for multiple postings) Re-thinking synonymy: semantic sameness and similarity in languages and their description SKY (The Linguistic Association of Finland) organizes a symposium ?Re-thinking synonymy: semantic sameness and similarity in languages and their description? in Helsinki, October 28-30, 2010. The official website of the symposium, with the Call for Papers and other information (to be added/updated later), is found at: http://www.linguistics.fi/synonymy Traditionally, synonymy refers to a situation where a language has two (or more) linguistic forms for expressing one meaning. Synonymy is by no means uncommon in languages, exemplified also by the large number of synonym dictionaries and thesauri. However, it is important to note that the existence or lack of synonymy is largely a matter of definition. On one hand, if we define synonymy as (very close) semantic similarity or (essentially) identical reference, it definitely exists to some extent in all languages. On the other hand, if we confine the notion to absolute synonymy (comprising not only reference, but also, for example, stylistic and sociolinguistic factors as well as contextual preferences), it becomes less clear whether synonymy really exists. Many theories of grammar (such as Cognitive Grammar and Construction Grammar) do not acknowledge the concept of synonymy at all. Synonymy seems to militate against the expected relation of meaning and form: a difference in form should always and necessarily correspond to a difference in meaning. However, within these theories (and within linguistics in general), a recurring topic of study is lexical, constructional, functional and formal similarity. In addition, current research seems to steer clear of synonymy (and sameness), but at the same time puts a great deal of emphasis on similarities, e.g. when and why two or more constructions with seemingly similar meanings are used as each other's alternatives. But where does the boundary lie between the two, i.e. when do we cross over from synonymy to mere similarity, or vice versa, and, moreover, how different can two constructions or expressions be and yet still be considered similar in terms of their meaning/function? Do all synonymous expressions share a common conceptual (abstract) schema, and are the formal differences merely ?coincidental?? What is the relation between these schemas and lexical (i.e. ?traditional?) synonymy? The idea of the symposium is to challenge linguists both to re-think the synonymy and sameness of linguistic expressions and to approach the concept of synonymy from a broader perspective. What we propose is that synonymy is best seen as sameness or similarity of forms and functions ? whether words, constructions or syntactic structures ? not only as a notion related to lexical semantics. For example, many languages, such as Finnish and Estonian, allow the expression of location through both cases and adpositions, and many languages have both intransitive and transitive reflexive forms; these expressions may be identical in meaning in certain contexts, but upon closer examination they also display differences. In brief: Does a difference in form always correspond to a difference in meaning/function? If so, is there any justification for the validity of the notion of synonymy in linguistic description? If synonymy really exists on some level, do we need to broaden the concept of synonymy and if so, how? What does the way that synonymy has been studied tell us about language and, perhaps as interestingly, about linguistics? We welcome contributions dealing with synonymy from various perspectives and backgrounds (including theoretical, empirical and experimental approaches), ranging from studies of lexical, functional and formal synonymy to studies of synonymy within and across languages. Possible topics for talks include (but are by no means not restricted to) the following: - The role of synonymy in linguistic theory - Corpus-based studies of (lexical/functional) synonymy - Psycholinguistic studies of synonymy/processing of synonymy - Seemingly synonymous/similar categories across languages (e.g. dative, reflexive, person, tense, deixis etc.), comparability of functions across languages - The role of synonymy in lexical typology: do ?identical? lexemes in different languages express identical/similar meanings? - Translatability of lexemes - The development of synonymy; competition of synonymous forms in grammaticalization/lexicalization - Synonymy in different theories of grammar - The relation between lexical (?traditional?) synonymy and functional synonymy - Potential differences between sameness and similarity; is the distinction meaningful or necessary? - What does synonymy (at any level/in any form) reveal about language? - What motivates the use of seemingly synonymous forms? Context, meaning, sociolinguistic factors, disambiguation, verbal semantics etc. - The synonymy of syntactic structural variants (e.g. differences in comparative constructions) - Synonymy of constructions within and across languages - Semantic vs. pragmatic synonymy The deadline for submission of abstracts (in English; max 500 words excluding data, tables and references) is April 16, 2010. Please submit your abstract by e-mail to the address of the organizing committee (synonymy-2010 /at/ Helsinki.fi). Send your abstract as attachment to an e-mail message (in both .pdf and .doc formats). Please indicate clearly whether your abstract is intended as a poster or a section paper. The abstracts will be evaluated by the organizing committee and by the members of the scientific committee (see below). Participants will be notified about acceptance by May 15, 2010. The book of abstracts will be published on the web pages of the symposium at: http://www.linguistics.fi/synonymy/abstracts.shtml Body of the message should include the following information (preferably in this order): Name of the participant Title of presentation Affiliation E-mail address Is the paper meant as a section paper or, a poster, or a workshop Workshops Proposals for workshops should be submitted no later than March 15, 2010. Notification of acceptance will be given by April 9. These one-day workshops will run in parallel sessions with the main conference program. Alternatively, the first day of the symposium may be dedicated to workshops. The symposium organizers will provide the lecture rooms and other facilities, but the workshop organizers will be responsible for the organization of their workshops (choosing the speakers etc.). Activities - Presentations by invited speakers - Presentation by other participants - Posters - Workshops Confirmed invited speakers Dirk Geeraerts (University of Leuven) Martin Haspelmath (MPI, Leipzig) Beth Levin (Stanford University) Scientific committee Antti Arppe (University of Helsinki) Peter Austin (SOAS, London) Denis Creissels (University of Lyon) Dagmar Divjak (University of Sheffield) Adele Goldberg (Princeton University) Stefan Gries (UCSB) Tuomas Huumo (University of Tartu) Laura Janda (University of Troms?) Jarmo Jantunen (University of Oulu) Silvia Luraghi (University of Pavia) Sally Rice (University of Alberta) Anna Siewierska (University of Lancaster) Bernhard W?lchli (University of Berne) Organizing committee Antti Arppe (University of Helsinki) Seppo Kittil? (University of Helsinki) Aki Kyr?l?inen (University of Turku) Maarit Niemel? (University of Oulu) Alexandre Nikolaev (University of Joensuu) Jouni Rostila (University of Tampere) Turo Vartiainen (University of Helsinki) Laura Visap?? (University of Helsinki) Registration The registration deadline is October 1, 2010. An on-line registration form to the symposium will appear on the webpage of the symposium after the evaluation of abstracts. Registration fees General: 100 Euro Members of the association: 80 Euro Undergraduate students: 50 Euro Finnish participants are requested to pay the registration fee to the SKY bank account when they register for the conference (bank account number 174530-71243 (Nordea)). Participants from abroad are likewise requested to pay in advance by bank transfer, if at all possible, to the SKY bank account in Finland (Bank: Nordea; IBAN: FI76 1745 3000 0712 43, BIC: NDEAFIHH). However, we may also accept payment IN CASH (only in Euros; moreover, we CANNOT accept credit cards of any sort) upon arrival in case bank transfer is not possible. If you have paid via bank transfer from abroad, we would kindly ask you to bring a COPY of the original transaction receipt with you and present it upon registration. Conference venue University of Helsinki Contact Please send all queries to synonymy-2010 /at/ helsinki.fi From mark.turner at case.edu Wed Nov 11 17:31:26 2009 From: mark.turner at case.edu (Mark Turner) Date: Wed, 11 Nov 2009 09:31:26 -0800 Subject: Fwd: CSN Cognitive Linguistics: Cognition, Language, Gesture Vol. 1 No. 18, 11/11/2009 Message-ID: if this message does not display correctly, click here COGNITIVE LINGUISTICS: COGNITION, LANGUAGE, GESTURE ABSTRACTS Vol. 1, No. 18: Nov 11, 2009 MARK TURNER, EDITOR Institute Professor, Case Western Reserve University - Department of Cognitive Science mark.turner at case.edu Browse ALL abstracts for this journal Links: Subscribe ~ Unsubscribe | Distribution | Advisory Board | Submit ~ Revise Your Papers Table of Contents Evolutionary Linguistics William Croft, University of New Mexico Peirce's Law of Triviality: The Implementation of the Trivium of Logic, Rhetoric, and Grammar; Basic Categories for Linguistics and Literature Studies from a Universal Semiotic Theory Fee-Alexandra Haase, affiliation not provided to SSRN Linguistics and Claim Construction Kristen Jakobsen Osenga, University of Richmond - School of Law Adam Smith's Rational Choice Linguistics David M. Levy, George Mason University ^top COGNITIVE LINGUISTICS: COGNITION, LANGUAGE, GESTURE ABSTRACTS "Evolutionary Linguistics" Annual Review of Anthropology, Vol. 37, October 2008 WILLIAM CROFT, University of New Mexico Email: wcroft at unm.edu Both qualitative concepts and quantitative methods from evolutionary biology have been applied to linguistics. Many linguists have noted the similarity between biological evolution and language change, but usually have only employed selective analogies or metaphors. The development of generalized theories of evolutionary change (Dawkins and Hull) has spawned models of language change based on such generalized theories. These models have led to the positing of new mechanisms of language change and new types of selection that may not have biological parallels. Quantitative methods have been applied to questions of language phylogeny in the past decade. The focus has been on widely accepted families with cognates already established by the comparative method (Indo-European, Bantu, Austronesian). Increasingly sophisticated phylogeny reconstruction models have been applied to these families, to resolve questions of subgrouping, contact and migration. Little progress has been made so far in analyzing sound correspondences in the cognates themselves. "Peirce's Law of Triviality: The Implementation of the Trivium of Logic, Rhetoric, and Grammar; Basic Categories for Linguistics and Literature Studies from a Universal Semiotic Theory" FEE-ALEXANDRA HAASE, affiliation not provided to SSRN Email: F.a.haase at gmx.de This article focuses on the aspects that refer to linguistics in the works of Charles S. Peirce. His pragmatic philosophy implemented many other sciences and among them is the traditional trivium of logic, grammar, and rhetoric. Peirce divided into different kinds of logic, grammar, and rhetoric. While the impact of the work of Peirce on theses sciences is weak, the integration of the sciences in his philosophy is interesting as a step in the history of science and his work is an example for eclecticism and historism of science in the 19th century and the universalism of science deducted from a philosophy that uses the sign as an unitarian principle. Triple constructions are a very common feature in the writings of Peirce, and the trivium is an example of an academic construction Peirce implemented. "Linguistics and Claim Construction" KRISTEN JAKOBSEN OSENGA, University of Richmond - School of Law Email: kosenga at richmond.edu Despite its great importance in patent litigation and recent interest derived from the U.S. Court of Appeals for the Federal Circuit's en banc Phillips opinion, claim construction - the process of giving a patent claim meaning through defining its terms - is largely an unsettled and uncertain area of patent law. In part, this uncertainty may be due to the Federal Circuit's failure to provide adequate guidance on the process. This Article suggests that the Federal Circuit should clarify its claim construction jurisprudence, looking to the science of linguistics to provide bases for an improved set of guidelines that will improve certainty in patent law. This Article argues that claim construction should instead track the way in which we, as readers of a language, attempt to understand what is being conveyed via the written word. First, there is a base level of conventional understanding from which all interpretation starts, an understanding that either a priori exists based on our earlier encounters with the word or is obtained from a dictionary in cases where we lack previous knowledge. Second, from this conventional understanding, we construct the actual meaning of the term based on a number of linguistic clues, both internal to the document and external from our prior experiences. In particular, there are at least five notions from linguistics that can help shape a more consistent claim construction methodology: 1) every reader, including a judge, possesses a mental lexicon with a common sense (or conventional) understanding of word meaning which is a point from which to start when interpreting claims; 2) there is an appropriate place for dictionary usage, which is to inform the judge's common sense understanding about a word where he has none; 3) patent claims have their own grammar which must inform the syntactical and contextual analysis, but may also skew the reader's common understanding that was obtained either from a mental lexicon or from a dictionary; 4) regardless of the common sense understanding, the PHOSITA must be returned to the analysis and changes made to the law to effectuate the return of the PHOSITA; and 5) extensive resort to the specification and prosecution history to divine the patentee's intent is inappropriate. "Adam Smith's Rational Choice Linguistics" DAVID M. LEVY, George Mason University Email: DLEVY at GMU.EDU Adam Smith offers an account, based on rational choice considerations, of the grammatical change experienced by languages when adults attempt to communicate across languages in such a way as to minimize transactions costs. His model predicts what is known to linguists as a "pidgin," a language learned by adults in which to make trades. His model can be extended to predict the grammatical trajectory toward pidgin experienced by dying languages. ^top Solicitation of Abstracts "Cognitive linguistics goes beyond the visible structure of language and investigates the considerably more complex backstage operations of cognition that create grammar, conceptualization, discourse, and thought itself. The theoretical insights of cognitive linguistics are based on extensive empirical observation in multiple contexts, and on experimental work in psychology and neuroscience. Results of cognitive linguistics, especially from metaphor theory and conceptual integration theory, have been applied to wide ranges of nonlinguistic phenomena." - Gilles Fauconnier. 2006. "Cognitive Linguistics." Encyclopedia of Cognitive Science. John Wiley & Sons. To submit your research to SSRN, log in to the SSRN User HeadQuarters, and click on the My Papers link on the left menu, and then click on Start New Submission at the top of the page. Distribution Services If your organization is interested in increasing readership for its research by starting a Research Paper Series, or sponsoring a Subject Matter eJournal, please email: RPS at SSRN.com Distributed by: Cognitive Science Network (CSN), a division of Social Science Electronic Publishing (SSEP) and Social Science Research Network (SSRN) Advisory Board Cognitive Linguistics: Cognition, Language, Gesture TERRENCE DEACON Professor of Biological Anthropology and Linguistics, University of California, Berkeley - Department of Anthropology GILLES FAUCONNIER Professor, Department of Cognitive Science, University of California, San Diego RONALD W. LANGACKER Professor Emeritus, University of California, San Diego - Linguistics Department ^top Links: Subscribe to Journal | Unsubscribe from Journal | Join Site License | Financial Hardship Subscription Management You can change your journal subscriptions by logging into SSRN User HQ. If you have questions or problems with this process, please email UserSupport at SSRN.com or call 877-SSRNHelp (877.777.6435 or 585.442.8170). Outside of the United States, call 00+1+585+4428170. Site License Membership Many university departments and other institutions have purchased site licenses covering all of the journals in a particular network. If you want to subscribe to any of the SSRN journals, you may be able to do so without charge by first checking to see if your institution currently has a site license. To do this please click on any of the following URLs. Instructions for joining the site are included on these pages. 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If you are undergoing financial hardship and believe you cannot pay for a journal, please send a detailed explanation to Subscribe at SSRN.com ^top To ensure delivery of this journal, please add CSN at publish.ssrn.com (Mark Turner) to your email contact list. If you are missing an issue or are having any problems with your subscription, please Email usersupport at ssrn.com or call 877-SSRNHELP (877.777.6435 or 585.442.8170). FORWARDING & REDISTRIBUTION Subscriptions to the journal are for single users. You may forward a particular eJournal issue, or an excerpt from an issue, to an individual or individuals who might be interested in it. It is a violation of copyright to redistribute this eJournal on a recurring basis to another person or persons, without the permission of Social Science Electronic Publishing, Inc. For information about individual subscriptions and site licenses, please contact us at Site at SSRN.com ^top Copyright ? 2009 Social Science Electronic Publishing, Inc. All Rights Reserved From sathomps at linguistics.ucsb.edu Wed Nov 11 20:54:42 2009 From: sathomps at linguistics.ucsb.edu (Sandra Thompson) Date: Wed, 11 Nov 2009 12:54:42 -0800 Subject: UC Santa Barbara PhD program Message-ID: Apologies for cross-posting. Linguistics at the University of California, Santa Barbara The Department of Linguistics at UCSB offers a Ph.D. program with a functional theoretical orientation and a strong commitment to the principle that linguistic theory should be based on language use. We seek explanations for the linguistic structures of the world's languages in discourse and interaction, the sociocultural, cognitive, and physical forces shaping language use, and the ways in which these forces motivate language change. Our recently restructured graduate program offers Ph.D. tracks in structural, sociocultural, cognitive, and corpus linguistics. Following a rigorous two-year Master's program including courses in all four areas, students take doctoral-level courses in their chosen track, with flexibility reflecting their individual interests, and advance to Ph.D. candidacy by the end of their fourth year. Training in empirical methodologies is an essential component of our program; in addition to Master's level courses in discourse transcription and basic statistics for linguistics, each Ph.D. track features relevant methods courses, such as field methods, sociocultural methods, and advanced statistics. Our department has a strong tradition of language documentation and description and, in addition to field methods, offers courses in typology, language contact, grammar writing, and documentary linguistics. The department also has an international reputation in sociocultural linguistics, a broadly interdisciplinary specialization originating at UCSB that encompasses the traditional fields of sociolinguistics, linguistic anthropology, socially oriented discourse analysis, and related areas. We now offer a corpus linguistics track that gives students in-depth training on how to transcribe, annotate, and retrieve corpus data, how to compile a corpus, and how to analyze corpus data of different types using the most current statistical techniques. Our cognitive track provides training in the cognitive and psycholinguistic underpinnings of language, including language acquisition, production, and comprehension, as well as advanced statistical analysis. We welcome applications to our graduate program. Be sure to note our application deadline of December 1. UCSB offers four- and five-year central fellowships to qualified applicants; smaller awards are also available. Please visit our website-www.linguistics.ucsb.edu-for further information about our graduate program, faculty, research specializations, and language areas. From sepkit at utu.fi Fri Nov 13 09:30:54 2009 From: sepkit at utu.fi (=?iso-8859-1?B?IlNlcHBvIEtpdHRpbOQi?=) Date: Fri, 13 Nov 2009 11:30:54 +0200 Subject: Cfp: Case in Uralic Message-ID: (apologies for multiple postings) Uralic case Workshop at the 14th International Morphology Meeting Budapest, Hungary, May 13 to 16, 2010 Organizers Seppo Kittil? (Helsinki) and Anne Tamm (Budapest/Florence) This workshop is devoted to the study of case systems in Uralic languages. The Uralic languages are well known for their rich case inventories. However, most studies of Uralic cases deal with the rather extensively studied Hungarian, Finnish and perhaps Estonian cases and case systems. Cases of other Uralic languages have been studied to a much lesser extent. The goal of this workshop is to fill that void by giving a fuller picture of case systems of Uralic languages (including dialects). We thus especially encourage contributions dealing with lesser-studied Uralic languages (such as Samoyedic, Mari, Mordvinian, Sami languages and Khanty). The workshop consists of two parts. The first part of the workshop clarifies the phenomena, the terminology and the comparability of the data in the individual languages, as specific to Uralic and also in more general terms. The goal is to accumulate knowledge about the case systems of each language, and about the specific cases in Uralic languages and dialects. We thus plan ?case studies of case?, such as genitive, partitive, abessive, locatives, comitative etc. in Uralic languages, both in individual languages and across (Uralic) languages and we also invite papers on more general issues, such as the 'Uralicness' of the case systems and cases. Please send your anonymous abstract, maximum 2 pages (including examples and references), and the same abstract containing your data and named yournameabstract.pdf, by January 15, 2010 to the organizers Seppo Kittil? and Anne Tamm, seppo.kittila at helsinki.fi and anne.tamm at unifi.it . Authors will be notified about the acceptance status of their paper by January 31. For updates and more information about the workshop, please consult our workspace at The webpage of the main event (The 14th International Morphology Meeting) is found at . Since the participants of the workshop on Uralic case need to register to the main event, please consult the website for details of registration, accommodation, the venue, and several other practical issues. From gj.steen at let.vu.nl Tue Nov 17 16:42:57 2009 From: gj.steen at let.vu.nl (Steen, G.J.) Date: Tue, 17 Nov 2009 17:42:57 +0100 Subject: 2nd cfp: RaAM 8: Metaphor and domains of discourse Message-ID: Second call for abstracts: RaAM 8 conference: Metaphor and Domains of Discourse http://raam8.let.vu.nl/ We are pleased to announce the 8th conference of the Researching and Applying Metaphor International Association (RaAM), which will be held at VU University (Vrije Universiteit), Amsterdam, the Netherlands, from 30 June through 3 July 2010. As an association, RaAM strives to advance the study of metaphor, metonymy and other aspects of figurative language, with a commitment to the application of metaphor research to 'real world' issues. In light of this, the theme of the upcoming international conference will be 'metaphor and domains of discourse'. The theme is intended to highlight the socio-cultural as well as the situational diversity of metaphor as manifested in, for example: -- government and politics; -- religion and ethics; -- education; -- science and healthcare; -- business and organizations; -- mass media and journalism; and -- literature and the arts. The conference will feature plenary lectures by: - Paul Chilton Dept. of Linguistics and English Language, Lancaster University, UK - Dedre Gentner Dept. of Psychology and School of Education and Social Policy, Northwestern University, USA and an address by the outgoing Chair of the RaAM Executive Committee: - Lynne Cameron Faculty of Education and Language Studies, Open University, UK We are soliciting abstracts for 20-minute papers and for poster presentations. Abstracts should be no more than 500 words (excluding references), and should be submitted via the conference web site at http://raam8.let.vu.nl/abstractsubmission.html . The deadline for abstracts is 31 December 2009. Notification of acceptance decisions will be sent by 1 March 2010. Early registration will be open between 1 March and 30 April 2010. The conference will also include a new way of linking basic and applied research: in addition to regular papers and a poster session, a selection of 'real world workshops' will be offered. The workshops will involve demonstrations for, and with, conference participants on how metaphor can be used as an intervention or tool to change people's way of thinking and reasoning. 'Real world workshops' will be offered on: -- Metaphor in communicating public interest issues (Joseph Grady, Cultural Logic, USA) -- Metaphor in business organizations (Joep Cornelissen, Leeds University Business School, UK) -- Metaphor in education professionals' discourse (Graham Low, University of York, UK) -- Metaphor in knowledge management (Daan Andriessen, INHolland University of Applied Sciences, NL) -- Metaphor and metonymy in painting (Irene Mittelberg, RWTH Aachen University, Germany) - Metaphor in product design (Paul Hekkert, Technical University Delft, NL). A limited number of travel bursaries/stipends will be available for PhD students from the RaAM Executive Committee and the local organising committee. In addition, an Early Career Prize and a prize for the best presentation by a PhD student will be awarded during the conference, and there will also be a raffle for book vouchers for PhD students attending a RaAM conference for the first time. Details are available at http://raam8.let.vu.nl/phdforum.html . Several tutorials geared toward PhD students will also be offered on 30 June before the conference begins. The topics include: - Identification of figurative networks in multimodal discourse - The use of dictionaries and WordSmith Tools with the Pragglejaz MIP - Metonymy as a research tool - How to make an effective conference presentation. Descriptions can be found on the conference website at http://raam8.let.vu.nl/preconferencetutorials.html . The RaAM8 scientific committee consists of: John Barnden (University of Birmingham, United Kingdom) Frank Boers (Erasmus College of Brussels, Belgium) Lynne Cameron (Open University, United Kingdom) Jonathan Charteris-Black (University of the West of England, United Kingdom) Alan Cienki (Vrije Universiteit, Netherlands) Charles Forceville (Universiteit van Amsterdam, Netherlands) Veronika Koller (Lancaster University, United Kingdom) Zouhair Maalej (King Saud University, Saudi Arabia) Brigitte Nerlich (University of Nottingham, United Kingdom) Elena Semino (Lancaster University, United Kingdom) Gerard Steen (Vrije Universiteit, Netherlands) Dvora Yanow (Vrije Universiteit, Netherlands) Ning Yu (University of Oklahoma, United States of America) We look forward to welcoming you to Amsterdam for RaAM 8! The local organizing committee: Alan Cienki and Gerard Steen (chairs); Lettie Dorst, Berenike Herrmann, Anna Kaal, Tina Krennmayr, Tryntje Pasma Know anyone who is not yet a member of the RaAM International Association and wishes to join? Send them this URL for the RaAM web page and mention the link for ?Joining? at the top: http://www.raam.org.uk/Home.html From mcarrete at filol.ucm.es Sat Nov 28 15:05:46 2009 From: mcarrete at filol.ucm.es (MARTA BEGONA CARRETERO LAPEYRE) Date: Sat, 28 Nov 2009 16:05:46 +0100 Subject: First Call for Papers: 4th Modality in English Conference (ModE4) Message-ID: Dear Funknetters, We are pleased to announce the 4th Modality in English Conference, which will take place at the Facultad de Filolog?a, Universidad Complutense de Madrid, 9-11 September 2010. Fourth International Conference on Modality in English-ModE4 Universidad Complutense de Madrid, 9-11 September 2010 Departamento de Filolog?a Inglesa I http://www.ucm.es/centros/webs/se5065/ The conference is designed to be a follow-up to the: - International Conference on Modality in Contemporary English, University of Verona (Italy), 6-8 September 2001. - Second International Conference on Modality in English, University of Pau (France), 2-4 September 2004. - Third International Conference on Modality in English, Aristotle University of Thessaloniki (Greece), 4-6 May 2007. CALL FOR PAPERS ModE4 invites the submission of papers and posters from all (sub)domains of modality and evidentiality in English, including crosslinguistic studies. In addition to individual talks, we also welcome proposals for theme sessions. The conference aims to provide a forum for the exchange of ideas between researchers working in modality and evidentiality in English, and to bring to the fore the most recent developments in the field. PLENARY SPEAKERS Johan van der Auwera (University of Antwerp) Ronald W. Langacker (University of California, San Diego) Geoffrey Leech (University of Lancaster) Anne-Marie Simon-Vandenbergen (University of Ghent) Anastasios Tsangalidis (Aristotle University of Thessaloniki) VENUE The venue of the conference will be the Facultad de Filolog?a, on the campus of the Universidad Complutense de Madrid, which is of easy access from the city centre and the hotels. (There are convenient bus links and an underground station on campus). PAPER PRESENTATIONS AND POSTERS Papers and posters are invited on all topics belonging to the field of modality and evidentiality in English, including crosslinguistic studies. Presentations of papers will be allocated 20 minutes plus 5 minutes for questions. Authors of papers and posters should submit anonymous abstracts, together with a separate page specifying the author's name, affiliation, surface mail address and e-mail address. Abstracts should be between 600-700 words (excluding references), and should state research questions, approach, method, data and (expected) results. All submitted abstracts will go through a double-blind reviewing process (at least two reviewers). Abstracts should be sent by e-mail, as attachments, to ModE4 (mode4 at filol.ucm.es) Please use Word or RTF format; and if your abstract contains special symbols, please include a PDF version as well. The deadline for all abstracts (papers and posters) is 31 January 2010. Notifications of acceptance will be sent out by 31 March 2010. THEME SESSIONS Proposals for theme sessions are welcome. The proposal should include the name(s) of the convenor(s), a common title and the description of the topic (see instructions for paper abstracts above). The sessions will consist of two one hour and a half slots (maximum 5 papers) focusing on a common topic within modality and/or evidentiality. Each theme session should include a 30-minute slot for final discussion on the topic. Proposals should be sent by e-mail, as attachments, to ModE4 (mode4 at filol.ucm.es) The deadline for the submission of proposals is 29 December 2009. Theme session organisers will be notified by 17 January 2010. At the same time, a call for abstracts for the theme sessions will go out. REGISTRATION Registration will start from April 1 onwards. Registration fees are anticipated to be the following: Early registration fee (from 1 April 2010 to 31 May 2010): 150 Euros Students (without salary or grant): 70 Euros Late registration fee: 180 Euros Students (without salary or grant): 100 Euros The registration fee includes the conference materials, coffee/tea, the conference reception, and a walking tour to places of interest in Madrid. SOCIAL PROGRAMME There will be a reception and a walking tour (included in the registration fee), and a conference dinner. On Saturday afternoon there will be a post-conference excursion to Toledo (full details will be given in due course on the conference website). Further information about the social programme will be given in the second circular. IMPORTANT DATES 31 January 2010: Deadline for submission of abstracts 31 March 2010: Notification of acceptance 1 April 2010: Early registration starts 1 June 2010: Registration (full fee) ModE GENERAL COMMITTEE - Johan van der Auwera (University of Antwerp) - Pierre Busuttil (University of Pau) - Roberta Facchinetti (University of Verona) - Paul Larreya (University of Paris 13) - Anastasios Tsangalidis (Aristotle University of Thessaloniki) ORGANIZING COMMITTEE - Juana I. Mar?n-Arrese (Chair) - Marta Carretero (Secretary) - Jorge Ar?s - Elena Dom?nguez - Carmen Ma?z Ar?valo - M? Victoria Mart?n de la Rosa - Juan Rafael Zamorano CONTACT ModE4 Organizing committee: Departamento de Filolog?a Inglesa I Facultad de Filolog?a Universidad Complutense de Madrid Ciudad Universitaria, s/n E-28040 Madrid Spain Phone: +34-91-394-5357/5835/5382 Fax: +34-91-394-5762/5357 E-mail: mode4 at filol.ucm.es Marta Carretero Departamento de Filolog?a Inglesa I Facultad de Filolog?a Universidad Complutense de Madrid From michel.launey at ird.fr Sun Nov 29 20:02:08 2009 From: michel.launey at ird.fr (michel.launey at ird.fr) Date: Sun, 29 Nov 2009 17:02:08 -0300 Subject: terminological contest Message-ID: R?pondre ??: michel.launey at ird.fr Dear Funknetters, I'm looking for an adequate English term for a grammatical tense-aspect-mood form which appears in Classical Nahuatl. My grammar, written in French, is now being translated by Chris Mackay, from the University of Alberta. He's doing great work, but we both come across a snag here, and I thought maybe some of you know in some language a form which has more or less similar properties and which has a more or less common or consensual name. The form is a verbal suffix -ni, which has the following semantic values: -1. "Used to", "be liable or likely to", "have a tendency to", "like to", "be prone to"... Ex. die > mortal; sleep > fond of sleeping, big sleeper; eat > big eater; sin > sinner; know > wise etc. -2. (subcase of 1, in the passive): passive property or propensity Ex be eaten > edible; be heard > audible, etc. -3. present or past irrealis (in the if-clause), counterfactual hypothesis or wish Ex. If he were present (I would tell him); if I hadn't done that (I wouldn't be in such a trouble nowadays); If only he were there! I wish I'd never said that! etc. ? Since no grammar of Nahuatl (and there are some very good ones since the Conquest!) gives an encompassing name, I finally called it (in French) ?ventuel, which unfortunately is a (well known) false friend of English eventual. Fr. ?ventuel refers to something which may or may not happen according to circumstances, and is adequate to the iterative/potential uses as well as the hypothetical/optative ones. It has been used by some linguists (among them Lazard) for other languages. I suppose this cluster of semantic values (which is easy to explain) is present elsewhere, but I can't remember seeing an encompassing English term for that. The suggestions so far are: - potential (which I used in a recent article in English), but English-speaking colleagues seem to have mixed feelings about it - habitual, but this doesn't account for the hypothetical values (3), and is even bad in some cases of (1) (e.g. mortal) - normative, which is Chris Mackay's ultimate suggestion, but I would like to have other native English speakers' advice. ? So I thereby launch a terminological contest: find an adequate term. Accompanying arguments and references are particularly welcome. I'll be the only member of the jury, this admittedly dictatorial position being tempered by consulting some English-speaking non-funknetters I know. The winner will be the first person whose suggestion is accepted by the jury, and the prize will be a dedicated copy of the book when it comes out (this should be in the second half of 2010) ? Thanks in advance for any help. Michel Launey ----- Fin du message transf?r? ----- -------------- next part -------------- Dear Funknetters, I?m looking for an adequate English term for a grammatical tense-mood form which appears in Classical Nahuatl. My grammar, written in French, is now being translated by Chris Mackay, from the University of Alberta. He?s doing great work, but we both come across a snag here, and I thought maybe some of you know in some language a form which has more or less similar properties and which has a more or less common or consensual name. The form is a verbal suffix ?ni, which has the following semantic values: -1. ?Used to?, ?be liable or likely to?, ?have a tendency to?, ?like to?, ?be prone to? Ex. die > mortal; sleep > fond of sleeping, big sleeper; eat > big eater; sin > sinner; know > wise etc. -2. (in the passive): passive property or propensity (subcase of 1) Ex be eaten > edible; be heard > audible, etc. -3. present or past irrealis (in the if-clause), counterfactual hypothesis or wish Ex. If he were present (I would tell him); if I hadn?t done that (I wouldn?t be in such a trouble nowadays); If only he were there! I wish I?d never said that! etc. ? Since no grammar of Nahuatl (and there are some very good ones since the Conquest!) gives an encompassing name, I finally called it (in French) ?ventuel, which unfortunately is a (well known) false friend of English eventual. Fr. ?ventuel refers to something which may or may not happen according to circumstances, and is adequate to the iterative/potential uses as well as the hypothetical ones. It has been used by some linguists (among them Lazard) for other languages. I suppose this cluster of semantic values (which is easy to explain) is present elsewhere, but I can?t remember seeing an encompassing English term for that. The suggestions so far are: - potential (which I used in a recent article in English), but English-speaking colleagues seem to have mixed feelings about it - habitual, but this doesn?t account for the hypothetical values (3), and is even bad in some cases of (1) (e.g. mortal) - normative, which is Chris Mackay?s ultimate suggestion, but I would like to have other native English speakers? advice. ? So I thereby launch a terminological contest: find an adequate term. Accompanying arguments and references are particularly welcome. I?ll be the only member of the jury, this dictatorial position being tempered by consulting some English-speaking non-funknetters I know. The winner will be the first person whose suggestion is accepted by the jury, and the prize will be a dedicated copy of the book when it comes out (this should be in the second half of 2010) ? Thanks in advance for any help. Michel Launey