From agreenwood at utpress.utoronto.ca Mon Aug 8 13:54:46 2011 From: agreenwood at utpress.utoronto.ca (Greenwood, Audrey) Date: Mon, 8 Aug 2011 13:54:46 +0000 Subject: Now available on Project MUSE - Canadian Journal of Linguistics 56(2) July 2011 Message-ID: The Canadian Journal of Linguistics / La revue canadienne de linguistique 56(2) July 2011 is now available at http://muse.jhu.edu/journals/canadian_journal_of_linguistics/toc/cjl.56.2.html This issue contains: Synchronic evidence of a diachronic change: Voicing and duration in French and Spanish stop–liquid clusters Laura Colantoni, Jeffrey Steele Abstract: This article investigates the role that the phonetic parameters of duration and voicing play in shaping asymmetric patterns of Romance stop-liquid cluster realization. Based on acoustic analysis of experimental data from Quebec French and Argentine Spanish, we demonstrate the existence of an asymmetry in the proportional duration of the stop and a following epenthetic vowel or lateral: sonorants are shorter after voiceless stops in stop–liquid clusters. Rhotics do not participate in this process. The Spanish tap does not vary significantly in length, and the French dorsal fricative is longer in voiceless clusters. We propose that compensatory adjustments of the following sonorant are the result of the interaction of coarticulatory constraints, both universal (shorter sonorants after voiceless stops or fricatives) and language-specific (voicing in dorsal fricatives in French). Parallels are drawn between the synchronic variation attested and well-known patterns of diachronic change in Romance. Résumé: Le présent article examine le rôle que jouent deux paramètres phonétiques, soit la durée et le voisement, dans la réalisation asymétrique des groupes consonantiques occlusive-liquide dans les langues romanes. À partir d’une analyse acoustique de données expérimentales du français québécois et de l’espagnol argentin, nous démontrons qu’il existe une asymétrie dans la durée proportionnelle des occlusives et de certains segments qui les suivent (voyelles latérales ou épenthétiques) : les sonantes sont plus courtes après les occlusives sourdes. Les rhotiques ne participent pas à ce processus. La durée de la vibrante battue de l’espagnol ne varie pas de façon significative, et la fricative dorsale du français est plus longue lorsqu’elle fait partie d’un groupe consonantique sourd. Nous proposons que l’ajustement compensatoire des sonantes résulte de l’interaction entre des contraintes coarticulatoires tant universelle (sonantes plus courtes après occlusives ou fricatives sourdes) que propre à une seule langue (voisement des fricatives dorsales en français). Enfin, nous dégageons des parallèles entre la variation synchronique observée et certains changements diachroniques bien connus. Media representations of minority French: Valorization, identity, and the Acadieman phenomenon Philip Comeau, Ruth King Abstract: This article is concerned with the role of media representations of language use in the promotion of language ideologies and in identity construction. It focuses on media representations of Chiac, a traditionally low-status variety of Acadian French. We consider performances of this variety in the adventures of an animated superhero, Acadieman, presented in a cable TV show running on Rogers TV from 2005 to 2009. We first contextualize Acadieman in terms of the linguistic and cultural contexts in which Chiac is spoken. We then consider how particular social meanings are created through contrasts between Chiac-speaking characters and speakers of other varieties. While the juxtaposition of varieties is at one level quite humorous, on another level it draws on complex indexicalities and valorizes the local variety and, by extension, its speakers. Finally, we argue that the Acadieman phenomenon provides a discursive space within which present-day Acadian identities can be negotiated. Résumé: Cet article traite du rôle de la représentation de la langue par les médias dans la promotion d’idéologies linguistiques et dans la construction d’identités. Il porte sur la présentation par les médias du chiac, une variété du français acadien habituellement stigmatisée. Nous considérons des manifestations de cette variété dans les aventures d’un superhéros, Acadieman, présentées dans une série d’animation télévisée entre 2005 et 2009 par la TV Rogers. D’abord nous situons Acadieman en termes des contextes linguistique et culturel dans lesquels le chiac est parlé. Ensuite, nous considérons la manière dont certaines connotations sociales sont créées via les contrastes entre les personnages parlant chiac et ceux qui parlent d’autres variétés. Alors que la juxtaposition des variétés est plutôt comique, à un autre niveau discursif, elle se sert d’indexicalisations complexes et valorise la variété locale et, par extension, ses locuteurs. Enfin, nous proposons que le phénomène Acadieman établit un espace discursif à l’intérieur duquel les identités acadiennes peuvent être négociées. Palatalization and “strong i” across Inuit dialects Richard Compton, B. Elan Dresher Abstract: Inuit dialects with palatalization all distinguish between “strong i” and “weak i”: instances of surface [i] that cause palatalization and those that do not, respectively. All dialects that have completely lost this contrast also lack palatalization. Why are there no /i, a, u/ dialects in which all instances of surface [i] trigger palatalization? We propose that this typological gap can be explained using a contrastivist analysis whereby only contrastive features can be phonologically active, palatalization is triggered by [coronal], and contrastive features are assigned in an order placing [low] and [labial] ahead of [coronal]. In a three-vowel inventory only [low] and [labial] are contrastive, while in the four-vowel inventory [coronal] must also be contrastive to distinguish strong and weak i. It follows from these assumptions that [i] can trigger palatalization only if it is in contrast with a fourth vowel. Résumé: Les dialectes inuits avec palatalisation distinguent tous entre les «i forts» et les «i faibles» : les [i] de surface qui provoquent la palatalisation et ceux qui ne la provoquent pas, respectivement. Dans tous les dialectes où ce contraste est complètement perdu, la palatalisation est absente. Pourquoi n’existe-t-il pas de dialectes /i, a, u/ dans lesquels tous les [i] de surface déclenchent la palatalisation? Nous proposons que cet écart typologique peut être expliqué en utilisant une approche contrastiviste selon laquelle seuls les traits contrastifs peuvent être actifs dans la phonologie, la palatalisation est déclenchée par [coronal] et les traits contrastifs sont ordonnés de telle façon que les traits [bas] et [labial] sont assignés avant [coronal]. Dans un inventaire de trois voyelles, seuls les traits [bas] et [labial] sont contrastifs, tandis que dans un inventaire de quatre voyelles, [coronal] doit aussi être contrastif pour distinguer les i forts des i faibles. Il résulte de ces hypothèses que [i] ne peut déclencher la palatalisation que s’il est en contraste avec une quatrième voyelle. The OCP as a synchronic constraint in Arabic Eiman Mustafawi Abstract: This paper provides evidence for the activity of the Obligatory Contour Principle (OCP) as a constraint on dynamic alternations in the synchronic grammar of Qatari Arabic. It shows that the OCP is subject to proximity and to a gradient similarity effect. In Qatari Arabic, there are two variable phonological alternations that interact with the OCP, affrication and lenition. The velar stops /[inline-graphic 01i]/ and /k/ affricate to [ʤ] and [ʧ], respectively, when adjacent to [i(:)]. However, affrication is blocked when the outcome includes a sequence of segments that are highly similar. Lenition applies variably to the phoneme /ʤ/, which surfaces as [ʤ] or [j]. Usually, the probability of lenition applying to its eligible candidates is around the level of chance. The process, however, applies categorically when a violation of the OCP would otherwise be incurred. The data are analyzed within the framework of Optimality Theory. Résumé: Cet article présente des preuves de l’activité du Principe du contour obligatoire (PCO) comme contrainte sur les alternances dynamiques dans la grammaire synchronique de l’arabe qatari. L’article montre que le PCO est sujet à la proximité et à un effet variable de similarité. Dans l’arabe qatari, il y a deux alternances phonologiques variables qui interagissent avec le PCO : l’affrication et la lénition. Les occlusives vélaires /[inline-graphic 01i]/ et /k/ subissent l’affrication devenant [ʤ] and [ʧ] respectivement lorsqu’elles sont adjacentes à [i(:)]. Cependant, l’affrication est bloquée lorsque le résultat comporte une séquence de segments très similaires. La lénition s’applique de manière variable au phonème /ʤ/, donnant [ʤ] ou [j]. D’habitude la probabilité que la lénition s’applique aux candidats susceptibles de subir la lénition est au niveau du hasard. Le processus, cependant, s’applique de manière catégorique dans le cas où une violation du PCO en résulterait. Les données sont analysées dans le cadre de la Théorie de l’Optimalité. This sentence sucks to analyse: Are suck, bite, blow, and work tough-predicates? Carolyn Pytlyk Abstract: This paper investigates tough-predicates and whether four verbs (suck, bite, blow, and work) can function as this type of predicate. The theoretical analysis uses two syntactic and two semantic properties of prototypical tough-predicates to determine the status of the tough-verb candidates. Syntactically, tough-predicates select a to-infinitival complement and require a referential dependency between the matrix subject and the object gap in the complement clause. Semantically, the matrix subject must possess an inherent or permanent property and tough-predicates assign an “experiencer” role. From these four diagnostic properties, the analysis concludes that suck, bite, and blow are indeed tough-verbs, while the conclusions concerning work are less definitive. To complement the conclusions of the theoretical analysis, native speaker judgements were collected from 22 Canadian English speakers. The results show that for a majority of the consultants, suck, bite, and blow can function as tough-predicates. The behaviour of these verbs suggests that suck, bite, and blow (and possibly work) should be added to the small list of known tough-verbs. Résumé: Cet article étudie les prédicats tough ainsi que la question de savoir si quatre verbes (suck, bite, blow et work) peuvent fonctionner comme prédicats tough. L’analyse théorique se sert de deux propriétés syntaxiques et de deux propriétés sémantiques de prédicats tough prototypiques pour déterminer le statut de ces quatre verbes tough. En ce qui touche à la syntaxe, les prédicats tough sélectionnent un complément toinfinitif et requièrent une dépendance référentielle entre le sujet matrice et le vide du complément dans la subordonnée complétive. En ce qui a trait à la sémantique, le sujet matrice doit posséder une propriété inhérente ou permanente, et les prédicats tough doivent attribuer un rôle d’«expérienceur». En fonction de ces quatre propriétés diagnostiques, l’analyse arrive à la conclusion que suck, bite et blow sont en effet des verbes tough, alors que les conclusions à l’égard de work sont moins probantes. Dans le but de compléter les conclusions de l’analyse théorique, des jugements de 22 Canadiens de langue maternelle anglaise ont été cueillis. Les résultats montrent que pour la majorité des consultants, suck, bite et blow peuvent fonctionner comme des prédicats tough. Le comportement de ces verbes suggère que suck, bite et blow (et peut-être work) devraient s’ajouter à la courte liste de verbes tough connus. Squib/Notule On the Movement Theory of Obligatory Control: Voices from Standard Indonesian Yosuke Sato Reviews/Comptes Rendus The English language in Canada: Status, history and comparative analysis (review) Beau Brock Variation in linguistic systems (review) Anne Marie Devlin Language in the brain (review) Zahir Mumin Uttering trees (review) Yosuke Sato Books Received/Livres Reçus Books Received/Livres reçus The Canadian Journal of Linguistics publishes articles of original research in linguistics in both English and French. The articles deal with linguistic theory, linguistic description of English, French and a variety of other natural languages, phonetics, phonology, morphology, syntax, semantics, historical linguistics, sociolinguistics, psycholinguistics, first and second language acquisition, and other areas of interest to linguists. For more information, please contact: University of Toronto Press - Journals Division 5201 Dufferin St. Toronto, ON M3H 5T8 Tel: (416) 667-7810 Fax: (416) 667-7881 E-mail: journals at utpress.utoronto.ca Join us on Facebook www.facebook.com/utpjournals Join us for advance notice of tables of contents of forthcoming issues, author and editor commentaries and insights, calls for papers and advice on publishing in our journals. Become a fan and receive free access to articles weekly through UTPJournals focus. -------------- next part -------------- An HTML attachment was scrubbed... URL: -------------- next part -------------- _______________________________________________ Histling-l mailing list Histling-l at mailman.rice.edu https://mailman.rice.edu/mailman/listinfo/histling-l From goldenratio at earthlink.net Tue Aug 9 15:51:24 2011 From: goldenratio at earthlink.net (Jess Tauber) Date: Tue, 9 Aug 2011 11:51:24 -0400 Subject: updated archives? Message-ID: Anyone know if there are HISTLING archives more current than from 2005 or so (the mirror on LINGUISTLIST only goes that far)? The group page redirects to the latter. Thanks. Jess Tauber goldenratio at earthlink.net _______________________________________________ Histling-l mailing list Histling-l at mailman.rice.edu https://mailman.rice.edu/mailman/listinfo/histling-l From claire.bowern at yale.edu Tue Aug 9 16:04:15 2011 From: claire.bowern at yale.edu (Claire Bowern) Date: Tue, 9 Aug 2011 12:04:15 -0400 Subject: updated archives? In-Reply-To: <12639279.1312905084583.JavaMail.root@wamui-haziran.atl.sa.earthlink.net> Message-ID: Hi Jess, I've made the list archives public on the Rice site - the link is https://mailman.rice.edu/pipermail/histling-l/ They date from 2007, when I took over administration of the list. I'll look into what's happened with Linguistlist archiving; my memory was that we had arranged to have them archive the list materials, but clearly that isn't happening. Claire On Tue, Aug 9, 2011 at 11:51 AM, Jess Tauber wrote: > Anyone know if there are HISTLING archives more current than from 2005 or so (the mirror on LINGUISTLIST only goes that far)? The group page redirects to the latter. Thanks. > > Jess Tauber > goldenratio at earthlink.net > _______________________________________________ > Histling-l mailing list > Histling-l at mailman.rice.edu > https://mailman.rice.edu/mailman/listinfo/histling-l > -- ----- Claire Bowern Associate Professor Department of Linguistics Yale University 370 Temple St New Haven, CT 06511 North American Dialects survey: http://pantheon.yale.edu/~clb3/NorthAmericanDialects/ _______________________________________________ Histling-l mailing list Histling-l at mailman.rice.edu https://mailman.rice.edu/mailman/listinfo/histling-l From Edith.Pineda-Bernuy at anu.edu.au Tue Aug 16 08:51:11 2011 From: Edith.Pineda-Bernuy at anu.edu.au (Edith Pineda-Bernuy) Date: Tue, 16 Aug 2011 18:51:11 +1000 Subject: Q: references on diachrony of deretroflexion Message-ID: Dear colleagues, I’m currently looking at possible diachronic processes of deretroflexion of affricates. In particular, I’m interested in the change from [ĉ] (affricate retroflex) to [t] (coronal stop). Is there more evidence supporting the direction from affricate retroflex to stops or the other way around (retroflexion)? Any references on the topic will be welcome, specifically those involving cross-linguistic evidence of these changes. Thanks very much for your assistance. Edith Pineda-Bernuy Australian National University -------------- next part -------------- An HTML attachment was scrubbed... URL: -------------- next part -------------- _______________________________________________ Histling-l mailing list Histling-l at mailman.rice.edu https://mailman.rice.edu/mailman/listinfo/histling-l From honohiiri at yandex.ru Mon Aug 22 10:05:43 2011 From: honohiiri at yandex.ru (Idiatov Dmitry) Date: Mon, 22 Aug 2011 14:05:43 +0400 Subject: Call for Papers (WOCAL7): The history of post-verbal negation in African languages Message-ID: CALL FOR PAPERS FOR A WORKSHOP AT WOCAL7 WORKSHOP: The history of post-verbal negation in African languages CONFERENCE: 7th World Congress of African Linguistics, University of Buea, August 20-24, 2012 (http://www.wocal.rutgers.edu/) ORGANIZERS: Maud Devos (Royal Museum for Central Africa, Tervuren) Dmitry Idiatov (LLACAN-CNRS, Paris) CONTACT: maud.devos at africamuseum.be DEADLINE for abstract submission: December 1, 2011 NOTIFICATION of acceptance: December 20, 2011 Following the general GUIDELINES established FOR THE SUBMISSION OF ABSTRACTS for WOCAL7, abstracts of no more than 500 words should be presented in two pages. The first page must contain the title of the paper, author’s name, affiliation, postal address and email. The second page must be left anonymous, with only the title of the paper and the text of the abstract. Abstracts should be sent to maud.devos at africamuseum.be. DESCRIPTION: Notwithstanding a cross-linguistic tendency for negative markers to occur before the verb (Dryer 1988) there is an area in Africa where post-verbal negative markers abound. Following Dryer (2009:307) this area “stretches from Nigeria across to the Central African Republic and down into the northern Democratic Republic of the Congo”. This region overlaps with the “hotbed” of a large linguistic area referred to by Güldemann (2008) as the Macro-Sudan belt. The proposed workshop aims at a better understanding of the typologically unusual phenomenon of post-verbal negative markers and its history in the African context. We invite papers that take a closer look at post-verbal negative markers in African languages (within and beyond the area described above) and contribute to one of the following topics (or another topic relevant to post-verbal negation): 1. The position of the post-verbal negative marker: In the area identified by Dryer the post-verbal negative markers typically occur “at the end of the clause, following any adverbs or adjunct phrases” (Dryer 2009:307). Outside the area the position of the post-verbal negative marker shows more variation. Data, mostly from Bantu languages, show that the post-verbal negative marker may also occur immediately after the verb (Devos et al. 2010), or that (pragmatically motivated) variation is possible (Odden 1996, Philippson & Nurse 2000). 2. The etymology of the post-verbal negative marker: What is the source of the post-verbal negative marker and especially are non-negative source meanings as suggested for Metta (Grassfields Bantu, Mihas 2009), Senufo (Gur, Carlson 1994), Ma (Adamawa-Ubangi, Tucker and Bryan 1966) and a number of Bantu languages (Devos & van der Auwera forthcoming) a recurrent phenomenon? 3. Post-verbal negative markers and “Jespersen Cycles”: For Bantu languages it has been suggested that post-verbal negative markers were originally used to reinforce negation and a fair number of Bantu languages display double, even triple negation. How valid is the Jespersen Cycle as a historical explanation for post-verbal negative markers in Africa and how recurrent is triple negation (involving post-verbal negative markers)? 4. Post-verbal negative markers and language contact: Following Güldemann (2008) post-verbal negation, more precisely the V-O-Neg word order pattern, is one of the linguistic features relevant for the Macro-Sudan belt. How does such a pattern diffuse? Nurse (2008:180) notes that some of the post-verbal negative markers in Bantu languages are Wanderwörter; they are easily transferred from one language to another. Do we find clear cases of borrowed post-verbal negative markers or is contact-induced grammaticalization (Beyer 2009) a more plausible scenario? 5. Stability of post-verbal negative markers: Can post-verbal negative markers be reconstructed for any significant time-depth, such as the level of a proto-family or a major branch of a family? References: Beyer, Klaus. 2009. Double negation-marking: a case of contact-induced grammaticalization in West Africa? In Norbert Cyffer, Erwin Ebermann & Georg Ziegelmeyer (eds.), Negation patterns in West African languages and beyond, 205-222. Amsterdam: John Benjamins. Carlson, R. J. 1994. A grammar of Supyire. Berlin: Mouton de Gruyter. Cyffer, Norbert, Erwin Ebermann & Georg Ziegelmeyer (eds.). 2009. Negation patterns in West African languages and beyond. Amsterdam: John Benjamins. Güldemann, Tom. 2008. The Macro-Sudan belt: towards identifying a linguistic area in northern sub-Saharan Africa. In Bernd Heine & Derek Nurse (eds.), A linguistic geography of Africa, 151-185. Cambridge: Cambridge University Press. Devos, Maud, Michael Tshibanda Kasombo & Johan van der Auwera. 2010. Jespersen cycles in Kanincin: double, triple and maybe even quadruple negation. Africana Linguistica XVI, 155-181. Devos, Maud & Johan van der Auwera. forthcoming. Jespersen Cycles in Bantu: double and triple negation. Dryer, Matthew S. 1988. Universals of negative position. In Michael Hammond, Edith Moravcsik & Jessica Wirth (eds.), Studies in Syntactic Typology, 93-124. Amsterdam: John Benjamins. Dryer, Matthew S. 2009. Verb-object-negative order in Central Africa. In Norbert Cyffer, Erwin Ebermann & Georg Ziegelmeyer (eds.), Negation patterns in West African languages and beyond, 307-362. Amsterdam: John Benjamins. Mihas, E. 2009. Negation in Metta. Rice Working Papers in Linguistics 1: 197-222. Nurse, Derek. 2008. Tense and Aspect in Bantu. Oxford: Oxford University Press. Odden, D. 1996. The Phonology and Morphology of Kimatuumbi. Oxford: Clarendon Press. Philippson, Gérard & Derek Nurse. 2000. Gweno, a little known Bantu language of Northern Tanzania. In Kitore Kahigi & Maarten Mous (eds.), Lugha za Tanzania / Languages of Tanzania, 233-84. Leiden: CNWS. Tucker, A.N. & M. A., Bryan.1966. Linguistic analyses. The non-Bantu languages of North-eastern Africa. Oxford: Oxford University Press. _______________________________________________ Histling-l mailing list Histling-l at mailman.rice.edu https://mailman.rice.edu/mailman/listinfo/histling-l From johanna.barddal at uib.no Tue Aug 30 21:16:01 2011 From: johanna.barddal at uib.no (johanna.barddal at uib.no) Date: Tue, 30 Aug 2011 23:16:01 +0200 Subject: CfP: Non-Canonically Case-Marked Subjects within and across Languages and Language Families: Stability, Variation and Change Message-ID: In collaboration with the Institute of Linguistics at the University of Iceland, the IECASTP/NonCanCase project at the University of Bergen is organizing a conference on "Non-Canonically Case-Marked Subjects within and across Languages and Language Families: Stability, Variation and Change" Invited Speakers: - Miriam Butt (University of Constance) - Thórhallur Eythórsson (University of Iceland) - Julie Ann Legate (University of Pennsylvania) - Andrej Malchukov (Max Planck Institute, Leipzig) Date: 4.-8. June 2012 Location: Reykjavík and Hótel Hekla (near Eyjafjallajökull) Website 1: http://vefir.hi.is/SubjectCase (under construction) website 2: http://org.uib.no/iecastp/IECASTP/SubjectCase.htm Contact Person: Tonya Kim Dewey (University of Bergen) Official Email: SubjectCase @ gmail.com Call for papers: Oblique, "quirky", or non-canonically case-marked subjects have been the focus of enormous interest and massive research ever since Andrews (1976) and Masica (1976). Early on, research in this area was mainly carried out within the generative tradition, but by now interest in oblique subjects has spread to all other frameworks (cf. papers in Aikhenvald, Dixon & Onishi 2001, Bhaskararao & Subbarao 2004, and Malchukov & Spencer 2009). The attention has generally been on the syntactic behavior of oblique subjects, such as their ability to be left unexpressed in conjoined clauses and control infinitives, their ability to figure in object and subject raising, and to control reflexives, as well as on their word order properties (e.g. Sigurðsson 1991). Nevertheless, the validity of certain tests for subjecthood remains controversial, especially in diachronic studies (e.g. Eythórsson & Barðdal 2005). Recent research has increasingly turned to the semantics of oblique subjects, both within individual languages and within language families. Barðdal et. al (2011), for instance, show that there is a host of lexical-semantic verb classes associated with oblique subjects in several of the ancient/archaic Indo-European languages, ranging from experiencer, cognition, perception, and attitudinal predicates, to all kinds of happenstance predicates and predicates denoting purely relational and ontological states. Oblique subjects may also denote possession, modality and evidentiality, as well as featuring in the intransitive variant of causative pairs (anticausatives) in some Indo-European languages (e.g. Cennamo, Eythórsson & Barðdal 2011). In a wider typological perspective, it remains to be established which semantic features are language-family-specific and which are generally found cross-linguistically. Given the central role that Icelandic has played in research on oblique subjects (witness the classic paper by Zaenen, Maling & Thráinsson 1985), Iceland is the obvious location for this conference. The conference will start in Reykjavík, followed by a one-day tour in Southern Iceland, visiting Thingvellir, Geysir, Gullfoss and other places of great natural beauty and historical interest. The concluding part of the conference will take place at Hótel Hekla, a charming country hotel about 70 km east of the capital, Reykjavík, with a marvelous view of (in)famous volcanoes such as Hekla and Eyjafjallajökull. We welcome contributions focusing on a specific language, language family or cross-linguistic comparison, from different theoretical frameworks, on all aspects of oblique subjects, synchronic, diachronic and typological, including the following: - The semantics of the oblique subject construction, for instance in terms of lexical semantics, within a single language, or in a comparative or a typological perspective - The syntactic behavior of oblique subjects within a language, a language family, or across languages - The validity of particular tests for subjecthood, both in modern languages as well as corpus languages (e.g. the older Indo-European languages). - The dichotomy between oblique subjects and subject-like obliques which pass some, but perhaps not all, of the subject tests, and its practical and theoretical implications - The origin and emergence of non-canonical subject case marking The potential role of oblique anticausatives in the emergence of oblique subjects - The syntax and semantics of oblique subjects in non-Indo-European languages Please submit your abstracts of 500 words or less through http://www.easychair.org/conferences/?conf=subjectcase2012, no later than November 15th, 2011. A response on abstracts will be sent out on December 15th, 2011. References: Aikhenvald, Alexandra Y., R.M.W. Dixon & M. Onishi (eds.). 2001. Non-Canonical Marking of Subjects and Objects. Amsterdam: John Benjamins. Andrews, Avery D. 1976. The VP complement analysis in Modern Icelandic. North Eastern Linguistic Society 6: 1-21. Barðdal, Jóhanna, Valgerður Bjarnadóttir, Eystein Dahl, Gard B. Jenset & Thomas Smitherman. 2011. Reconstructing Constructional Semantics: The Dative Subject Construction in Old Norse-Icelandic, Latin, Ancient Greek, Old Russian and Lithuanian. Submitted to a thematic volume in Studies in Language, entitled "Theory and Data in Cognitive Linguistics", Nikolas Gisborne & Willem Hollmann (eds). Bhaskararao, Peri & K. V. Subbarao (eds.) 2004. Non-Nominative Subjects. (2 vols.) (Typological studies in language 60-61.) Amsterdam: John Benjamins. Cennamo, Michela, Thórhallur Eythórsson & Jóhanna Barðdal. 2011. The Rise and Fall of Anticausative Constructions in Indo-European: The Context of Latin and Germanic. Submitted to a thematic volume in Linguistics, entitled ?Typology of Labile Verbs: Focus on Diachrony?, Leonid Kulikov & Nikolaos Lavidas (eds). Eythórsson, Thórhallur & Jóhanna Barðdal. 2005. Oblique Subjects: A Common Germanic Inheritance. Language 81(4): 824-881. Malchukov, Andrej & Andrew Spencer (eds.). 2009. In The Oxford Handbook of Case. Oxford: Oxford University Press. Masica, Colin P. 1976. Defining a Linguistic Area: South Asia. Chicago: University of Chicago Press. Sigurðsson, Halldór Ármann. 1991. Icelandic Case-Marked PRO and the Licensing of Lexical Arguments. Natural Language and Linguistic Theory 9: 327-362. Zaenen, Annie, Joan Maling & Höskuldur Thráinsson. 1985. Case and Grammatical Functions: The Icelandic Passive. Natural Language and Linguistic Theory 3: 441-483. -- =+=+=+=+=+=+=+=+=+=+=+=+=+=+=+=+=+=+=+=+=+=+=+=+=+=+ Jóhanna Barðdal Research Associate Professor Coeditor of the Journal of Historical Linguistics Department of Linguistic, Literary and Aesthetic Studies University of Bergen P.O. box 7805 NO-5020 Bergen Norway johanna.barddal at uib.no Phone +47-55582438 (work) Phone +47-55201117 (home) Fax +47-55589660 (work) http://org.uib.no/iecastp/barddal _______________________________________________ Histling-l mailing list Histling-l at mailman.rice.edu https://mailman.rice.edu/mailman/listinfo/histling-l From agreenwood at utpress.utoronto.ca Mon Aug 8 13:54:46 2011 From: agreenwood at utpress.utoronto.ca (Greenwood, Audrey) Date: Mon, 8 Aug 2011 13:54:46 +0000 Subject: Now available on Project MUSE - Canadian Journal of Linguistics 56(2) July 2011 Message-ID: The Canadian Journal of Linguistics / La revue canadienne de linguistique 56(2) July 2011 is now available at http://muse.jhu.edu/journals/canadian_journal_of_linguistics/toc/cjl.56.2.html This issue contains: Synchronic evidence of a diachronic change: Voicing and duration in French and Spanish stop?liquid clusters Laura Colantoni, Jeffrey Steele Abstract: This article investigates the role that the phonetic parameters of duration and voicing play in shaping asymmetric patterns of Romance stop-liquid cluster realization. Based on acoustic analysis of experimental data from Quebec French and Argentine Spanish, we demonstrate the existence of an asymmetry in the proportional duration of the stop and a following epenthetic vowel or lateral: sonorants are shorter after voiceless stops in stop?liquid clusters. Rhotics do not participate in this process. The Spanish tap does not vary significantly in length, and the French dorsal fricative is longer in voiceless clusters. We propose that compensatory adjustments of the following sonorant are the result of the interaction of coarticulatory constraints, both universal (shorter sonorants after voiceless stops or fricatives) and language-specific (voicing in dorsal fricatives in French). Parallels are drawn between the synchronic variation attested and well-known patterns of diachronic change in Romance. R?sum?: Le pr?sent article examine le r?le que jouent deux param?tres phon?tiques, soit la dur?e et le voisement, dans la r?alisation asym?trique des groupes consonantiques occlusive-liquide dans les langues romanes. ? partir d?une analyse acoustique de donn?es exp?rimentales du fran?ais qu?b?cois et de l?espagnol argentin, nous d?montrons qu?il existe une asym?trie dans la dur?e proportionnelle des occlusives et de certains segments qui les suivent (voyelles lat?rales ou ?penth?tiques) : les sonantes sont plus courtes apr?s les occlusives sourdes. Les rhotiques ne participent pas ? ce processus. La dur?e de la vibrante battue de l?espagnol ne varie pas de fa?on significative, et la fricative dorsale du fran?ais est plus longue lorsqu?elle fait partie d?un groupe consonantique sourd. Nous proposons que l?ajustement compensatoire des sonantes r?sulte de l?interaction entre des contraintes coarticulatoires tant universelle (sonantes plus courtes apr?s occlusives ou fricatives sourdes) que propre ? une seule langue (voisement des fricatives dorsales en fran?ais). Enfin, nous d?gageons des parall?les entre la variation synchronique observ?e et certains changements diachroniques bien connus. Media representations of minority French: Valorization, identity, and the Acadieman phenomenon Philip Comeau, Ruth King Abstract: This article is concerned with the role of media representations of language use in the promotion of language ideologies and in identity construction. It focuses on media representations of Chiac, a traditionally low-status variety of Acadian French. We consider performances of this variety in the adventures of an animated superhero, Acadieman, presented in a cable TV show running on Rogers TV from 2005 to 2009. We first contextualize Acadieman in terms of the linguistic and cultural contexts in which Chiac is spoken. We then consider how particular social meanings are created through contrasts between Chiac-speaking characters and speakers of other varieties. While the juxtaposition of varieties is at one level quite humorous, on another level it draws on complex indexicalities and valorizes the local variety and, by extension, its speakers. Finally, we argue that the Acadieman phenomenon provides a discursive space within which present-day Acadian identities can be negotiated. R?sum?: Cet article traite du r?le de la repr?sentation de la langue par les m?dias dans la promotion d?id?ologies linguistiques et dans la construction d?identit?s. Il porte sur la pr?sentation par les m?dias du chiac, une vari?t? du fran?ais acadien habituellement stigmatis?e. Nous consid?rons des manifestations de cette vari?t? dans les aventures d?un superh?ros, Acadieman, pr?sent?es dans une s?rie d?animation t?l?vis?e entre 2005 et 2009 par la TV Rogers. D?abord nous situons Acadieman en termes des contextes linguistique et culturel dans lesquels le chiac est parl?. Ensuite, nous consid?rons la mani?re dont certaines connotations sociales sont cr??es via les contrastes entre les personnages parlant chiac et ceux qui parlent d?autres vari?t?s. Alors que la juxtaposition des vari?t?s est plut?t comique, ? un autre niveau discursif, elle se sert d?indexicalisations complexes et valorise la vari?t? locale et, par extension, ses locuteurs. Enfin, nous proposons que le ph?nom?ne Acadieman ?tablit un espace discursif ? l?int?rieur duquel les identit?s acadiennes peuvent ?tre n?goci?es. Palatalization and ?strong i? across Inuit dialects Richard Compton, B. Elan Dresher Abstract: Inuit dialects with palatalization all distinguish between ?strong i? and ?weak i?: instances of surface [i] that cause palatalization and those that do not, respectively. All dialects that have completely lost this contrast also lack palatalization. Why are there no /i, a, u/ dialects in which all instances of surface [i] trigger palatalization? We propose that this typological gap can be explained using a contrastivist analysis whereby only contrastive features can be phonologically active, palatalization is triggered by [coronal], and contrastive features are assigned in an order placing [low] and [labial] ahead of [coronal]. In a three-vowel inventory only [low] and [labial] are contrastive, while in the four-vowel inventory [coronal] must also be contrastive to distinguish strong and weak i. It follows from these assumptions that [i] can trigger palatalization only if it is in contrast with a fourth vowel. R?sum?: Les dialectes inuits avec palatalisation distinguent tous entre les ?i forts? et les ?i faibles? : les [i] de surface qui provoquent la palatalisation et ceux qui ne la provoquent pas, respectivement. Dans tous les dialectes o? ce contraste est compl?tement perdu, la palatalisation est absente. Pourquoi n?existe-t-il pas de dialectes /i, a, u/ dans lesquels tous les [i] de surface d?clenchent la palatalisation? Nous proposons que cet ?cart typologique peut ?tre expliqu? en utilisant une approche contrastiviste selon laquelle seuls les traits contrastifs peuvent ?tre actifs dans la phonologie, la palatalisation est d?clench?e par [coronal] et les traits contrastifs sont ordonn?s de telle fa?on que les traits [bas] et [labial] sont assign?s avant [coronal]. Dans un inventaire de trois voyelles, seuls les traits [bas] et [labial] sont contrastifs, tandis que dans un inventaire de quatre voyelles, [coronal] doit aussi ?tre contrastif pour distinguer les i forts des i faibles. Il r?sulte de ces hypoth?ses que [i] ne peut d?clencher la palatalisation que s?il est en contraste avec une quatri?me voyelle. The OCP as a synchronic constraint in Arabic Eiman Mustafawi Abstract: This paper provides evidence for the activity of the Obligatory Contour Principle (OCP) as a constraint on dynamic alternations in the synchronic grammar of Qatari Arabic. It shows that the OCP is subject to proximity and to a gradient similarity effect. In Qatari Arabic, there are two variable phonological alternations that interact with the OCP, affrication and lenition. The velar stops /[inline-graphic 01i]/ and /k/ affricate to [?] and [?], respectively, when adjacent to [i(:)]. However, affrication is blocked when the outcome includes a sequence of segments that are highly similar. Lenition applies variably to the phoneme /?/, which surfaces as [?] or [j]. Usually, the probability of lenition applying to its eligible candidates is around the level of chance. The process, however, applies categorically when a violation of the OCP would otherwise be incurred. The data are analyzed within the framework of Optimality Theory. R?sum?: Cet article pr?sente des preuves de l?activit? du Principe du contour obligatoire (PCO) comme contrainte sur les alternances dynamiques dans la grammaire synchronique de l?arabe qatari. L?article montre que le PCO est sujet ? la proximit? et ? un effet variable de similarit?. Dans l?arabe qatari, il y a deux alternances phonologiques variables qui interagissent avec le PCO : l?affrication et la l?nition. Les occlusives v?laires /[inline-graphic 01i]/ et /k/ subissent l?affrication devenant [?] and [?] respectivement lorsqu?elles sont adjacentes ? [i(:)]. Cependant, l?affrication est bloqu?e lorsque le r?sultat comporte une s?quence de segments tr?s similaires. La l?nition s?applique de mani?re variable au phon?me /?/, donnant [?] ou [j]. D?habitude la probabilit? que la l?nition s?applique aux candidats susceptibles de subir la l?nition est au niveau du hasard. Le processus, cependant, s?applique de mani?re cat?gorique dans le cas o? une violation du PCO en r?sulterait. Les donn?es sont analys?es dans le cadre de la Th?orie de l?Optimalit?. This sentence sucks to analyse: Are suck, bite, blow, and work tough-predicates? Carolyn Pytlyk Abstract: This paper investigates tough-predicates and whether four verbs (suck, bite, blow, and work) can function as this type of predicate. The theoretical analysis uses two syntactic and two semantic properties of prototypical tough-predicates to determine the status of the tough-verb candidates. Syntactically, tough-predicates select a to-infinitival complement and require a referential dependency between the matrix subject and the object gap in the complement clause. Semantically, the matrix subject must possess an inherent or permanent property and tough-predicates assign an ?experiencer? role. From these four diagnostic properties, the analysis concludes that suck, bite, and blow are indeed tough-verbs, while the conclusions concerning work are less definitive. To complement the conclusions of the theoretical analysis, native speaker judgements were collected from 22 Canadian English speakers. The results show that for a majority of the consultants, suck, bite, and blow can function as tough-predicates. The behaviour of these verbs suggests that suck, bite, and blow (and possibly work) should be added to the small list of known tough-verbs. R?sum?: Cet article ?tudie les pr?dicats tough ainsi que la question de savoir si quatre verbes (suck, bite, blow et work) peuvent fonctionner comme pr?dicats tough. L?analyse th?orique se sert de deux propri?t?s syntaxiques et de deux propri?t?s s?mantiques de pr?dicats tough prototypiques pour d?terminer le statut de ces quatre verbes tough. En ce qui touche ? la syntaxe, les pr?dicats tough s?lectionnent un compl?ment toinfinitif et requi?rent une d?pendance r?f?rentielle entre le sujet matrice et le vide du compl?ment dans la subordonn?e compl?tive. En ce qui a trait ? la s?mantique, le sujet matrice doit poss?der une propri?t? inh?rente ou permanente, et les pr?dicats tough doivent attribuer un r?le d??exp?rienceur?. En fonction de ces quatre propri?t?s diagnostiques, l?analyse arrive ? la conclusion que suck, bite et blow sont en effet des verbes tough, alors que les conclusions ? l??gard de work sont moins probantes. Dans le but de compl?ter les conclusions de l?analyse th?orique, des jugements de 22 Canadiens de langue maternelle anglaise ont ?t? cueillis. Les r?sultats montrent que pour la majorit? des consultants, suck, bite et blow peuvent fonctionner comme des pr?dicats tough. Le comportement de ces verbes sugg?re que suck, bite et blow (et peut-?tre work) devraient s?ajouter ? la courte liste de verbes tough connus. Squib/Notule On the Movement Theory of Obligatory Control: Voices from Standard Indonesian Yosuke Sato Reviews/Comptes Rendus The English language in Canada: Status, history and comparative analysis (review) Beau Brock Variation in linguistic systems (review) Anne Marie Devlin Language in the brain (review) Zahir Mumin Uttering trees (review) Yosuke Sato Books Received/Livres Re?us Books Received/Livres re?us The Canadian Journal of Linguistics publishes articles of original research in linguistics in both English and French. The articles deal with linguistic theory, linguistic description of English, French and a variety of other natural languages, phonetics, phonology, morphology, syntax, semantics, historical linguistics, sociolinguistics, psycholinguistics, first and second language acquisition, and other areas of interest to linguists. For more information, please contact: University of Toronto Press - Journals Division 5201 Dufferin St. Toronto, ON M3H 5T8 Tel: (416) 667-7810 Fax: (416) 667-7881 E-mail: journals at utpress.utoronto.ca Join us on Facebook www.facebook.com/utpjournals Join us for advance notice of tables of contents of forthcoming issues, author and editor commentaries and insights, calls for papers and advice on publishing in our journals. Become a fan and receive free access to articles weekly through UTPJournals focus. -------------- next part -------------- An HTML attachment was scrubbed... URL: -------------- next part -------------- _______________________________________________ Histling-l mailing list Histling-l at mailman.rice.edu https://mailman.rice.edu/mailman/listinfo/histling-l From goldenratio at earthlink.net Tue Aug 9 15:51:24 2011 From: goldenratio at earthlink.net (Jess Tauber) Date: Tue, 9 Aug 2011 11:51:24 -0400 Subject: updated archives? Message-ID: Anyone know if there are HISTLING archives more current than from 2005 or so (the mirror on LINGUISTLIST only goes that far)? The group page redirects to the latter. Thanks. Jess Tauber goldenratio at earthlink.net _______________________________________________ Histling-l mailing list Histling-l at mailman.rice.edu https://mailman.rice.edu/mailman/listinfo/histling-l From claire.bowern at yale.edu Tue Aug 9 16:04:15 2011 From: claire.bowern at yale.edu (Claire Bowern) Date: Tue, 9 Aug 2011 12:04:15 -0400 Subject: updated archives? In-Reply-To: <12639279.1312905084583.JavaMail.root@wamui-haziran.atl.sa.earthlink.net> Message-ID: Hi Jess, I've made the list archives public on the Rice site - the link is https://mailman.rice.edu/pipermail/histling-l/ They date from 2007, when I took over administration of the list. I'll look into what's happened with Linguistlist archiving; my memory was that we had arranged to have them archive the list materials, but clearly that isn't happening. Claire On Tue, Aug 9, 2011 at 11:51 AM, Jess Tauber wrote: > Anyone know if there are HISTLING archives more current than from 2005 or so (the mirror on LINGUISTLIST only goes that far)? The group page redirects to the latter. Thanks. > > Jess Tauber > goldenratio at earthlink.net > _______________________________________________ > Histling-l mailing list > Histling-l at mailman.rice.edu > https://mailman.rice.edu/mailman/listinfo/histling-l > -- ----- Claire Bowern Associate Professor Department of Linguistics Yale University 370 Temple St New Haven, CT 06511 North American Dialects survey: http://pantheon.yale.edu/~clb3/NorthAmericanDialects/ _______________________________________________ Histling-l mailing list Histling-l at mailman.rice.edu https://mailman.rice.edu/mailman/listinfo/histling-l From Edith.Pineda-Bernuy at anu.edu.au Tue Aug 16 08:51:11 2011 From: Edith.Pineda-Bernuy at anu.edu.au (Edith Pineda-Bernuy) Date: Tue, 16 Aug 2011 18:51:11 +1000 Subject: Q: references on diachrony of deretroflexion Message-ID: Dear colleagues, I?m currently looking at possible diachronic processes of deretroflexion of affricates. In particular, I?m interested in the change from [?] (affricate retroflex) to [t] (coronal stop). Is there more evidence supporting the direction from affricate retroflex to stops or the other way around (retroflexion)? Any references on the topic will be welcome, specifically those involving cross-linguistic evidence of these changes. Thanks very much for your assistance. Edith Pineda-Bernuy Australian National University -------------- next part -------------- An HTML attachment was scrubbed... URL: -------------- next part -------------- _______________________________________________ Histling-l mailing list Histling-l at mailman.rice.edu https://mailman.rice.edu/mailman/listinfo/histling-l From honohiiri at yandex.ru Mon Aug 22 10:05:43 2011 From: honohiiri at yandex.ru (Idiatov Dmitry) Date: Mon, 22 Aug 2011 14:05:43 +0400 Subject: Call for Papers (WOCAL7): The history of post-verbal negation in African languages Message-ID: CALL FOR PAPERS FOR A WORKSHOP AT WOCAL7 WORKSHOP: The history of post-verbal negation in African languages CONFERENCE: 7th World Congress of African Linguistics, University of Buea, August 20-24, 2012 (http://www.wocal.rutgers.edu/) ORGANIZERS: Maud Devos (Royal Museum for Central Africa, Tervuren) Dmitry Idiatov (LLACAN-CNRS, Paris) CONTACT: maud.devos at africamuseum.be DEADLINE for abstract submission: December 1, 2011 NOTIFICATION of acceptance: December 20, 2011 Following the general GUIDELINES established FOR THE SUBMISSION OF ABSTRACTS for WOCAL7, abstracts of no more than 500 words should be presented in two pages. The first page must contain the title of the paper, author?s name, affiliation, postal address and email. The second page must be left anonymous, with only the title of the paper and the text of the abstract. Abstracts should be sent to maud.devos at africamuseum.be. DESCRIPTION: Notwithstanding a cross-linguistic tendency for negative markers to occur before the verb (Dryer 1988) there is an area in Africa where post-verbal negative markers abound. Following Dryer (2009:307) this area ?stretches from Nigeria across to the Central African Republic and down into the northern Democratic Republic of the Congo?. This region overlaps with the ?hotbed? of a large linguistic area referred to by G?ldemann (2008) as the Macro-Sudan belt. The proposed workshop aims at a better understanding of the typologically unusual phenomenon of post-verbal negative markers and its history in the African context. We invite papers that take a closer look at post-verbal negative markers in African languages (within and beyond the area described above) and contribute to one of the following topics (or another topic relevant to post-verbal negation): 1. The position of the post-verbal negative marker: In the area identified by Dryer the post-verbal negative markers typically occur ?at the end of the clause, following any adverbs or adjunct phrases? (Dryer 2009:307). Outside the area the position of the post-verbal negative marker shows more variation. Data, mostly from Bantu languages, show that the post-verbal negative marker may also occur immediately after the verb (Devos et al. 2010), or that (pragmatically motivated) variation is possible (Odden 1996, Philippson & Nurse 2000). 2. The etymology of the post-verbal negative marker: What is the source of the post-verbal negative marker and especially are non-negative source meanings as suggested for Metta (Grassfields Bantu, Mihas 2009), Senufo (Gur, Carlson 1994), Ma (Adamawa-Ubangi, Tucker and Bryan 1966) and a number of Bantu languages (Devos & van der Auwera forthcoming) a recurrent phenomenon? 3. Post-verbal negative markers and ?Jespersen Cycles?: For Bantu languages it has been suggested that post-verbal negative markers were originally used to reinforce negation and a fair number of Bantu languages display double, even triple negation. How valid is the Jespersen Cycle as a historical explanation for post-verbal negative markers in Africa and how recurrent is triple negation (involving post-verbal negative markers)? 4. Post-verbal negative markers and language contact: Following G?ldemann (2008) post-verbal negation, more precisely the V-O-Neg word order pattern, is one of the linguistic features relevant for the Macro-Sudan belt. How does such a pattern diffuse? Nurse (2008:180) notes that some of the post-verbal negative markers in Bantu languages are Wanderw?rter; they are easily transferred from one language to another. Do we find clear cases of borrowed post-verbal negative markers or is contact-induced grammaticalization (Beyer 2009) a more plausible scenario? 5. Stability of post-verbal negative markers: Can post-verbal negative markers be reconstructed for any significant time-depth, such as the level of a proto-family or a major branch of a family? References: Beyer, Klaus. 2009. Double negation-marking: a case of contact-induced grammaticalization in West Africa? In Norbert Cyffer, Erwin Ebermann & Georg Ziegelmeyer (eds.), Negation patterns in West African languages and beyond, 205-222. Amsterdam: John Benjamins. Carlson, R. J. 1994. A grammar of Supyire. Berlin: Mouton de Gruyter. Cyffer, Norbert, Erwin Ebermann & Georg Ziegelmeyer (eds.). 2009. Negation patterns in West African languages and beyond. Amsterdam: John Benjamins. G?ldemann, Tom. 2008. The Macro-Sudan belt: towards identifying a linguistic area in northern sub-Saharan Africa. In Bernd Heine & Derek Nurse (eds.), A linguistic geography of Africa, 151-185. Cambridge: Cambridge University Press. Devos, Maud, Michael Tshibanda Kasombo & Johan van der Auwera. 2010. Jespersen cycles in Kanincin: double, triple and maybe even quadruple negation. Africana Linguistica XVI, 155-181. Devos, Maud & Johan van der Auwera. forthcoming. Jespersen Cycles in Bantu: double and triple negation. Dryer, Matthew S. 1988. Universals of negative position. In Michael Hammond, Edith Moravcsik & Jessica Wirth (eds.), Studies in Syntactic Typology, 93-124. Amsterdam: John Benjamins. Dryer, Matthew S. 2009. Verb-object-negative order in Central Africa. In Norbert Cyffer, Erwin Ebermann & Georg Ziegelmeyer (eds.), Negation patterns in West African languages and beyond, 307-362. Amsterdam: John Benjamins. Mihas, E. 2009. Negation in Metta. Rice Working Papers in Linguistics 1: 197-222. Nurse, Derek. 2008. Tense and Aspect in Bantu. Oxford: Oxford University Press. Odden, D. 1996. The Phonology and Morphology of Kimatuumbi. Oxford: Clarendon Press. Philippson, G?rard & Derek Nurse. 2000. Gweno, a little known Bantu language of Northern Tanzania. In Kitore Kahigi & Maarten Mous (eds.), Lugha za Tanzania / Languages of Tanzania, 233-84. Leiden: CNWS. Tucker, A.N. & M. A., Bryan.1966. Linguistic analyses. The non-Bantu languages of North-eastern Africa. Oxford: Oxford University Press. _______________________________________________ Histling-l mailing list Histling-l at mailman.rice.edu https://mailman.rice.edu/mailman/listinfo/histling-l From johanna.barddal at uib.no Tue Aug 30 21:16:01 2011 From: johanna.barddal at uib.no (johanna.barddal at uib.no) Date: Tue, 30 Aug 2011 23:16:01 +0200 Subject: CfP: Non-Canonically Case-Marked Subjects within and across Languages and Language Families: Stability, Variation and Change Message-ID: In collaboration with the Institute of Linguistics at the University of Iceland, the IECASTP/NonCanCase project at the University of Bergen is organizing a conference on "Non-Canonically Case-Marked Subjects within and across Languages and Language Families: Stability, Variation and Change" Invited Speakers: - Miriam Butt (University of Constance) - Th?rhallur Eyth?rsson (University of Iceland) - Julie Ann Legate (University of Pennsylvania) - Andrej Malchukov (Max Planck Institute, Leipzig) Date: 4.-8. June 2012 Location: Reykjav?k and H?tel Hekla (near Eyjafjallaj?kull) Website 1: http://vefir.hi.is/SubjectCase (under construction) website 2: http://org.uib.no/iecastp/IECASTP/SubjectCase.htm Contact Person: Tonya Kim Dewey (University of Bergen) Official Email: SubjectCase @ gmail.com Call for papers: Oblique, "quirky", or non-canonically case-marked subjects have been the focus of enormous interest and massive research ever since Andrews (1976) and Masica (1976). Early on, research in this area was mainly carried out within the generative tradition, but by now interest in oblique subjects has spread to all other frameworks (cf. papers in Aikhenvald, Dixon & Onishi 2001, Bhaskararao & Subbarao 2004, and Malchukov & Spencer 2009). The attention has generally been on the syntactic behavior of oblique subjects, such as their ability to be left unexpressed in conjoined clauses and control infinitives, their ability to figure in object and subject raising, and to control reflexives, as well as on their word order properties (e.g. Sigur?sson 1991). Nevertheless, the validity of certain tests for subjecthood remains controversial, especially in diachronic studies (e.g. Eyth?rsson & Bar?dal 2005). Recent research has increasingly turned to the semantics of oblique subjects, both within individual languages and within language families. Bar?dal et. al (2011), for instance, show that there is a host of lexical-semantic verb classes associated with oblique subjects in several of the ancient/archaic Indo-European languages, ranging from experiencer, cognition, perception, and attitudinal predicates, to all kinds of happenstance predicates and predicates denoting purely relational and ontological states. Oblique subjects may also denote possession, modality and evidentiality, as well as featuring in the intransitive variant of causative pairs (anticausatives) in some Indo-European languages (e.g. Cennamo, Eyth?rsson & Bar?dal 2011). In a wider typological perspective, it remains to be established which semantic features are language-family-specific and which are generally found cross-linguistically. Given the central role that Icelandic has played in research on oblique subjects (witness the classic paper by Zaenen, Maling & Thr?insson 1985), Iceland is the obvious location for this conference. The conference will start in Reykjav?k, followed by a one-day tour in Southern Iceland, visiting Thingvellir, Geysir, Gullfoss and other places of great natural beauty and historical interest. The concluding part of the conference will take place at H?tel Hekla, a charming country hotel about 70 km east of the capital, Reykjav?k, with a marvelous view of (in)famous volcanoes such as Hekla and Eyjafjallaj?kull. We welcome contributions focusing on a specific language, language family or cross-linguistic comparison, from different theoretical frameworks, on all aspects of oblique subjects, synchronic, diachronic and typological, including the following: - The semantics of the oblique subject construction, for instance in terms of lexical semantics, within a single language, or in a comparative or a typological perspective - The syntactic behavior of oblique subjects within a language, a language family, or across languages - The validity of particular tests for subjecthood, both in modern languages as well as corpus languages (e.g. the older Indo-European languages). - The dichotomy between oblique subjects and subject-like obliques which pass some, but perhaps not all, of the subject tests, and its practical and theoretical implications - The origin and emergence of non-canonical subject case marking The potential role of oblique anticausatives in the emergence of oblique subjects - The syntax and semantics of oblique subjects in non-Indo-European languages Please submit your abstracts of 500 words or less through http://www.easychair.org/conferences/?conf=subjectcase2012, no later than November 15th, 2011. A response on abstracts will be sent out on December 15th, 2011. References: Aikhenvald, Alexandra Y., R.M.W. Dixon & M. Onishi (eds.). 2001. Non-Canonical Marking of Subjects and Objects. Amsterdam: John Benjamins. Andrews, Avery D. 1976. The VP complement analysis in Modern Icelandic. North Eastern Linguistic Society 6: 1-21. Bar?dal, J?hanna, Valger?ur Bjarnad?ttir, Eystein Dahl, Gard B. Jenset & Thomas Smitherman. 2011. Reconstructing Constructional Semantics: The Dative Subject Construction in Old Norse-Icelandic, Latin, Ancient Greek, Old Russian and Lithuanian. Submitted to a thematic volume in Studies in Language, entitled "Theory and Data in Cognitive Linguistics", Nikolas Gisborne & Willem Hollmann (eds). Bhaskararao, Peri & K. V. Subbarao (eds.) 2004. Non-Nominative Subjects. (2 vols.) (Typological studies in language 60-61.) Amsterdam: John Benjamins. Cennamo, Michela, Th?rhallur Eyth?rsson & J?hanna Bar?dal. 2011. The Rise and Fall of Anticausative Constructions in Indo-European: The Context of Latin and Germanic. Submitted to a thematic volume in Linguistics, entitled ?Typology of Labile Verbs: Focus on Diachrony?, Leonid Kulikov & Nikolaos Lavidas (eds). Eyth?rsson, Th?rhallur & J?hanna Bar?dal. 2005. Oblique Subjects: A Common Germanic Inheritance. Language 81(4): 824-881. Malchukov, Andrej & Andrew Spencer (eds.). 2009. In The Oxford Handbook of Case. Oxford: Oxford University Press. Masica, Colin P. 1976. Defining a Linguistic Area: South Asia. Chicago: University of Chicago Press. Sigur?sson, Halld?r ?rmann. 1991. Icelandic Case-Marked PRO and the Licensing of Lexical Arguments. Natural Language and Linguistic Theory 9: 327-362. Zaenen, Annie, Joan Maling & H?skuldur Thr?insson. 1985. Case and Grammatical Functions: The Icelandic Passive. Natural Language and Linguistic Theory 3: 441-483. -- =+=+=+=+=+=+=+=+=+=+=+=+=+=+=+=+=+=+=+=+=+=+=+=+=+=+ J?hanna Bar?dal Research Associate Professor Coeditor of the Journal of Historical Linguistics Department of Linguistic, Literary and Aesthetic Studies University of Bergen P.O. box 7805 NO-5020 Bergen Norway johanna.barddal at uib.no Phone +47-55582438 (work) Phone +47-55201117 (home) Fax +47-55589660 (work) http://org.uib.no/iecastp/barddal _______________________________________________ Histling-l mailing list Histling-l at mailman.rice.edu https://mailman.rice.edu/mailman/listinfo/histling-l