From q.atkinson at auckland.ac.nz Fri Nov 1 22:59:26 2013 From: q.atkinson at auckland.ac.nz (Quentin Atkinson) Date: Fri, 1 Nov 2013 22:59:26 +0000 Subject: Language Evolution Postdoc at University of Auckland Message-ID: Post Doctoral Research Position Application closing date: 1st December 2013. School of Psychology & Department of Computer Science University of Auckland Salary Range: $77,000-85,000 per annum The Language, Cognition and Culture Lab and the Computational Evolution Group at the University of Auckland seek to appoint a postdoctoral researcher to join our team investigating the evolution of the world’s languages. This research will be led by Dr Quentin Atkinson, Prof Russell Gray, and Dr Remco Bouckaert. Our work over the last decade has pioneered the application of computational modeling techniques from biology to answer questions about human prehistory and the evolution of language and culture. The project’s primary objectives are the collation of linguistic data from around the world and developing new approaches to inferring deep relationships between the world’s languages. This is a full time post for a fixed-term of three years, funded by a Royal Society of New Zealand Marsden Grant. The role will be supported by a part-time research assistant. Applicants should have a PhD or equivalent and a demonstrable research interest in modeling the evolution of language and culture. Programming and database experience and a background in linguistics or evolutionary biology/anthropology is preferred. More information about the research interests of the project leaders is available from our websites:- http://www.fos.auckland.ac.nz/~quentinatkinson/ http://www.psych.auckland.ac.nz/uoa/russell-gray/ http://www.cs.auckland.ac.nz/~remco/ https://www.facebook.com/LCCLab http://compevol.auckland.ac.nz/ Host Institution: The University of Auckland is New Zealand’s leading university. In the 2013 QS survey, the Psychology Department was ranked 22nd in the world and the Computer Science Department ranked 38th. The University of Auckland has a strong international focus and is the only New Zealand member of Universitas 21 and the Association of Pacific Rim Universities – international consortia of research-led universities. Auckland is ranked third out of 221 world cities for quality of living in the 2012 Mercer Quality of Living Survey (see www.mercer.com/qualityofliving). All enquiries should be directed to Dr Quentin Atkinson: q.atkinson at auckland.ac.nz -------------- 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 Johanna.Barddal at ugent.be Wed Nov 20 14:01:18 2013 From: Johanna.Barddal at ugent.be (Johanna Barddal) Date: Wed, 20 Nov 2013 15:01:18 +0100 Subject: ERC-Funded Postdoctoral Research Fellowships in Historical-Comparative Linguistics: Hittite, Tocharian, Old Irish, Classical Armenian and Old Albanian! Message-ID: ERC-Funded Postdoctoral Research Fellowships in Historical-Comparative Linguistics: Hittite, Tocharian, Old Irish, Classical Armenian and Old Albanian! At the Department of Linguistics at Ghent University, five one-year Postdoctoral Research Fellowships are vacant within the ERC starting grant project EVALISA: "The Evolution of Case, Alignment and Argument Structure in Indo-European" (www.evalisa.ugent.be), led by Research Associate Professor Jóhanna Barðdal. The positions are within Historical-Comparative Linguistics with a specialization in one or more of the following languages: Hittite, Tocharian, Old Irish, Classical Armenian and Old Albanian. The positions are vacant from April 1st, 2014, or as soon as possible thereafter. An earlier appointment may also be discussed. The positions entail 100% research within the EVALISA project, demanding qualifications within historical-comparative Indo-European linguistics; the candidates shall work on one or more of the five specializations: Hittite, Tocharian, Old Irish, Classical Armenian and Old Albanian. The ideal candidates will have competence within more than one of these languages, with one postdoctoral year intended for research within each language. The successful candidate shall work on predicates selecting for non-canonical case marking of the subject or the subject-like argument, their semantics and syntax, including further harvesting of relevant data. The candidates shall, together with other team members, build a joint electronic database, and write and contribute records to it. There will be a special focus on syntactic research and syntactic reconstruction. Knowledge of cognitive theories of syntax and Construction Grammar is essential. Experience from the field of case theory and computational methods is an advantage. A full-time Postdoctoral Position comes with a net monthly salary of around 2,000–2,250 EUR p/month, depending on previous work experience. The successful candidate will also benefit from a yearly travel allowance, for presenting work at conferences etc., of up to 5,000 euros. Candidates will be expected to publish at least two peer-reviewed papers per year. They are expected to show good collegiality, be willing to contribute to joint research, such as joint research papers, to participate in all project related activities (workshops, reading groups, etc.), and to provide support for more junior members of the team. Applicants should speak and write fluent English. Applications should be sent to johanna.barddal at ugent.be, no later than January 15th, 2014, and should include a CV, contact and personal details, three (3) academic publications, a letter of motivation, and the contact details of two referees (names, affiliations and phone numbers or e-mail addresses). The successful applicant will be expected to relocate to Ghent University and conform to the regulations that apply to the position. A research plan will be worked out by the successful candidates and the project leader together, before employment begins, and will accompany the work contract. Additional information about the positions is available by application to: Jóhanna Barðdal, Research Associate Professor +32-478-646-775 / johanna.barddal (at) ugent.be =+=+=+=+=+=+=+=+=+=+=+=+=+=+=+=+=+=+=+=+=+=+=+=+=+=+ Jóhanna Barðdal Research Associate Professor Coeditor of the Journal of Historical Linguistics Department of Linguistics Ghent University Blandijnberg 2 BE-9000 Ghent johanna.barddal at ugent.be Phone +32-(0)92643800 (work) Phone +32-(0)478646775 (cell) _______________________________________________ Histling-l mailing list Histling-l at mailman.rice.edu https://mailman.rice.edu/mailman/listinfo/histling-l From kristel.vangoethem at uclouvain.be Fri Nov 22 19:25:40 2013 From: kristel.vangoethem at uclouvain.be (Kristel Van Goethem) Date: Fri, 22 Nov 2013 20:25:40 +0100 Subject: CfP WS Category change from a constructional perspective (ICCG8) Message-ID: Call for papers: Workshop “Category change from a constructional perspective” Call deadline: December 9, 2013 Workshop convenors: * Muriel Norde (Humboldt Universität zu Berlin) : muriel.norde at hu-berlin.de * Kristel Van Goethem (F.R.S.-FNRS, Université catholique de Louvain) : kristel.vangoethem at uclouvain.be Workshop discussant: Graeme Trousdale (University of Edinburgh) Call for papers This is a workshop proposal to be submitted to the 8th International Conference on Construction Grammar (ICCG8), which will be held at the University of Osnabrueck, 3-6 September, 2014. If you are interested in participating in this workshop, please send both of us a title by December 9, 2013, so we can submit our proposal (including a provisional list of participants and titles) to the ICCG8 conference organizers. If our proposal is accepted, participants will be invited to submit a full abstract (400 words) by February 1, 2014. Conference website: http://www.blogs.uni-osnabrueck.de/iccg8/ Workshop description Category change, i.e. the shift from one word class to another or from free categories to bound categories, is inherent to many different types of change, yet it is usually not given much consideration. The aim of this workshop, therefore, will be to bring category change itself to the fore, as a phenomenon worthy of study in its own right. Adopting a rather broad definition of “category”, which includes both single words and multi-word units, we will explore how categories change and why some shifts are more frequent than others. In particular, we want to examine whether a constructional perspective enhances our understanding of category change. In our workshop, focus will be on three topics: (i) types of category change, (ii) degrees of gradualness and context-sensitivity, and (iii) directionality. Types of category change Category change may result from different processes. The first process is commonly termed “non-affixal derivation” or “conversion”, as in the following examples from French (Kerleroux 1996) and English (Denison 2010). (1) calmeA ‘calm’ > calmeN ‘calmness’ (2) dailyA newspaper > dailyN The second process is category change determined by a specific syntactic context, or “distorsion catégorielle” (Kerleroux 1996), as in (3), likewise from French: (3) Elle est d’un courageux! ‘(lit. She is of a brave) She is very brave’ However, there is no strict boundary between the processes exemplified in (1-2) and (3), as suggested by cases such as Elle est d’un calme! ‘lit. She is of a calm; She is very calm’. In this example, the nominal use of calme can be accounted for both as conversion and as context-internal category change. Third, category change can be linked to processes of univerbation with structural change (Denison 2010), e.g. the use of English far from as an adverbial downtoner in (4) (De Smet 2012), or the development of the German pronoun neizwer out of a Middle High German sentence (5) (Haspelmath 1997: 131). (4) The life of a “beauty queen” is far from beautiful. (web) (5) ne weiz wer ‘I don´t know who’ > neizwer ‘somebody’ A fourth type is one in which an item shifts category in the wake of the category shift of another item, e.g. the shift of Swedish adverbs in –vis to adjectives when the head of a VP is nominalized: (6) Samhället förandras gradvisADV. ‘Society changes gradually’ (7) Den gradvisaADJ förändringen av samhället. ‘The gradual change of society’ Finally, category change may be part of a grammaticalization change, i.e. “the change whereby lexical items and constructions come in certain linguistic contexts to serve grammatical functions and, once grammaticalized, continue to develop new grammatical functions” (Hopper & Traugott 2003: 18), such as the grammaticalization of English to be going to from main verb to future auxiliary in (8-9). Such gradual grammaticalization processes may account for synchronic gradience (Traugott & Trousdale 2010). (8) I [am going to]MAIN V the train station. (9) I [am going to]AUX be a star. Degrees of gradualness and context-sensitivity The different types of category shift mentioned above can be arranged on a continuum, from abrupt to gradual and from context-independent to context-sensitive. While the A > N conversions in (1-2) are abrupt and context-independent processes, shifts from N > A are often gradual and determined by the syntactic environment, as in the case of keyN > keyA in English (10a) and French (10b) (Amiot & Van Goethem 2012; Denison 2001, 2010; De Smet 2012; Van Goethem & De Smet (forthc.)). (10)a. This is a really key point. b. Ceci est un point vraiment clé. However, similar developments in related languages may be characterized differently, as suggested by a contrastive case study on the adjectival uses of Dutch top and German spitze ‘top’ (Van Goethem & Hüning 2013). The category change in Dutch (11) seems abrupt, but the German (12) spelling of S/spitze and inflection of the preceding adjective/adverb is suggestive of a gradual development. (11) het was (de) absolute topN / het was absoluut topA ‘lit. it was absolute(ly) top’ (12) das war absolute SpitzeN / das war absolute spitzeN/A / das war absolut SpitzeN/A / das war absolut spitzeA ‘lit. it was absolute(ly) top’ Directionality Whereas in earlier work (e.g. Lehmann 1995 [1982], Haspelmath 2004) the view prevailed that only changes from major to minor categories are possible, research on degrammaticalization (Norde 2009) has shown that changes from minor to major word classes, albeit less frequently attested, are possible as well. In addition, specific items have been shown to change categories more than once in the course of their histories, in alternating stages of grammaticalization and degrammaticalization. One example is degrammaticalization of the Dutch numeral suffix -tig ‘-ty’ into an indefinite quantifier meaning “dozens”, followed by grammaticalization into an intensifier meaning “very” (Norde 2006). Another example is the autonomous (adjectival/adverbial) use of Dutch intensifying prefixoids (Booij 2010: 60-61), such as Dutch reuze ‘giant’, which underwent multiple category changes (Van Goethem & Hiligsmann, forthc.; Norde & Van Goethem, in prep.), first from noun to intensifying affixoid (13) (grammaticalization) and later on into an adjective/adverb (14-15) (degrammaticalization): (13) Verder kunnen we reuzegoed met elkaar opschieten ‘Besides we get along very well (lit. giant-well)’ (COW2012) (14) Ik zou het gewoon weg reuze vinden als je eens langs kwam. ‘I really think it would be great (lit. giant) if you came by once.’ (COW 2012) (15) Reuze bedankt! ‘Thanks a lot’ Finally, category shift may be “non-directional”, in the sense that the input and output categories are of the same level, e.g. in shifts from one major word class to the other (examples (1-2)), or the transference of nominal case markers to verbal tense – aspect markers, such as the shift, in Kala Lagau Ya, from dative marker –pa to (verbal) completive marker (Blake 2001; examples (16-17)). (16) Nuy ay-pa amal-pa he food-dat mother-dat ‘He [went] for food for mother’ (17)Ngoeba uzar-am-pa 1dual.inclusive go-dual.incompletive ‘We two will go (are endeavouring to go)’ The constructional perspective The central aim of the workshop will be to investigate whether category change can be explained more accurately by analyzing it as an instance of “constructionalization” (Bergs & Diewald 2008; Traugott & Trousdale 2013 (forthc.)), which involves “a sequence of changes in the form and meaning poles of a construction, whereby new formal configurations come to serve particular functions, and to encode new meanings” (Trousdale & Norde 2013: 36). In this workshop, we welcome both theoretically and empirically oriented papers that account for category change from a constructional perspective. Research questions include, but are not limited to, the following: 1: What is the status of category change in a diachronic construction grammar framework (e.g. Traugott & Trousdale 2013) and how can the different types outlined above be accounted for? Are categories grammatical primitives, or the epiphenomenal result of constructions in the sense of Croft 2001? 2: How can the notions of gradualness and context-sensitivity be modelled in a constructional framework? Does the gradualness of some category shifts imply that categories synchronically form a “continuous spectrum” (Langacker 1987: 18) or does it merely mean that a given item may belong to two or more categories whereas “the categories in question can nevertheless be clearly delimited” (Aarts 2007: 242)? 3: Is category change a change in form which together with a change in meaning constitutes a constructionalization change and if so, is it the shift itself or changes in morphosyntactic properties (e.g. decategorialization) that are associated with it? 4: How does the distinction between lexical and grammatical constructionalization link in to the different types of category change (abrupt vs gradual, morphological vs syntactic, context-independent vs context-sensitive, word-level vs construction-level)? 5: Which role can be assigned to the notion of “category” in constructional networks? References Aarts, B. 2007. Syntactic Gradience. The Nature of Grammatical Indeterminacy. Oxford: Oxford University Press. Amiot, D. & K. Van Goethem 2012. A constructional account of French -clé 'key' and Dutch sleutel- 'key' as in mot-clé / sleutelwoord 'keyword'. Morphology 22. 347-364. Bergs, A. & G. Diewald (Eds). 2008. Constructions and Language Change. Berlin / New York: Mouton de Gruyter. Booij, G. 2010. Construction Morphology. Oxford: Oxford University Press. Blake, B. J. 2001. Case. Second edition. Cambridge: Cambridge University Press. COW (Corpora from the web) http://hpsg.fu-berlin.de/cow/colibri/ [ Schäfer, R. & F. Bildhauer. 2012. Building large corpora from the web using a new effcient tool chain. In N. Calzolari et al. (eds), Proceedings of the Eight International Conference on Language Resources and Evaluation, Istanbul, ELRA, 486–493.] Croft, W. 2001. Radical Construction Grammar. Syntactic theory in typological perspective. Oxford: Oxford University Press. De Smet, H. 2012. The course of actualization. Language 88.3. 601-633. Denison, D. 2001. Gradience and linguistic change. In L. J. Brinton (ed.), Historical linguistics 1999: Selected papers from the 14th International Conference on Historical Linguistics, Vancouver, 9-13 August 1999 (Current Issues in Linguistic Theory 215), 119-44. Amsterdam / Philadelphia: John Benjamins. Denison, D. 2010. Category change in English with and without structural change. In E.C. Traugott & G. Trousdale (eds), Gradience, gradualness and grammaticalization (Typological Studies in Language 90), 105-128. Amsterdam: John Benjamins. Haspelmath, M. 1997. Indefinite pronouns. Oxford : Oxford University Press. Haspelmath, M. 2004. On directionality in language change with particular reference to grammaticalization. In O. Fischer, M. Norde & H. Perridon (eds) Up and down the cline ¾ the nature of grammaticalization, 17-44. Amsterdam / Philadelphia: John Benjamins. Hopper, P. J. & E. C. Traugott. 2003. Grammaticalization. Second edition. Cambridge: Cambridge University Press. Kerleroux, F. 1996. La coupure invisible. Études de syntaxe et de morphologie. Villeneuve d’Ascq: Presses Universitaires du Septentrion. Langacker, R.W. 1987. Foundations of Cognitive Grammar I : Theoretical Prerequisites. Stanford CA : Stanford University Press. Lehmann, Chr. 1995 [1982]. Thoughts on grammaticalization. Munich: Lincom Europa. Norde, M. 2006. Van suffix tot telwoord tot bijwoord: degrammaticalisering en (re)grammaticalisering van tig. Tabu 35. 33-60. Norde, M. 2009. Degrammaticalization. Oxford: Oxford University Press. Norde, M. & K. Van Goethem. in prep. Emancipatie van affixen en affixoïden: degrammaticalisatie of lexicalisatie? Submitted. Traugott, E.C. & G. Trousdale. 2010. Gradience, Gradualness and Grammaticalization. Amsterdam / Philadelphia: John Benjamins. Traugott, E. C. & G. Trousdale. 2013 (Forthc.). Constructionalization and Constructional Changes. Oxford: Oxford University Press. Trousdale G. & M. Norde. 2013. Degrammaticalization and constructionalization: two case studies. Language Sciences 36. 32-46. Van Goethem, K. & H. De Smet. Forthc. How nouns turn into adjectives. The emergence of new adjectives in French, English and Dutch through debonding processes. Languages in Contrast. Van Goethem, K. & Ph. Hiligsmann. Forthc. When two paths converge: debonding and clipping of Dutch reuze ‘giant; great’. Journal of Germanic Linguistics. Van Goethem, K. & M. Hüning. 2013. Debonding of Dutch and German compounds. Paper presented at the Germanic Sandwich Conference, Leuven, Jan. 2013. Kristel Van Goethem Chercheuse qualifiée F.R.S.-FNRS Université catholique de Louvain Institut Langage et Communication/Pôle Linguistique Collège Erasme Place Blaise Pascal 1, bte L3.03.33 1348 Louvain-la-Neuve bureau c.383 Tél. (0032) 10 47 48 42 kristel.vangoethem at uclouvain.be http://uclouvain.academia.edu/KVanGoethem -------------- next part -------------- An HTML attachment was scrubbed... URL: -------------- next part -------------- A non-text attachment was scrubbed... Name: Call for papers_Workshop Category change from a constructional perspective_Norde and Van Goethem.pdf Type: application/pdf Size: 224120 bytes Desc: not available URL: -------------- next part -------------- _______________________________________________ Histling-l mailing list Histling-l at mailman.rice.edu https://mailman.rice.edu/mailman/listinfo/histling-l From Hubert.Cuyckens at arts.kuleuven.be Sun Nov 24 14:48:04 2013 From: Hubert.Cuyckens at arts.kuleuven.be (Hubert Cuyckens) Date: Sun, 24 Nov 2013 14:48:04 +0000 Subject: CFP: 18th International Conference on English Historical Linguistics (ICEHL-18) -- final call for papers and revised deadline Message-ID: [WITH APOLOGIES FOR CROSS­-POSTINGS] FINAL CALL FOR PAPERS 18th International Conference on English Historical Linguistics Revised deadline for abstracts: 8 December 2013 ICEHL18 takes place in Leuven, Belgium, 14-18 July 2014 (academic programme 14-17 July, social programme 18 July). Conference website: http://www.arts.kuleuven.be/ling/ICEHL18/ Conference email: icehl18 at arts.kuleuven.be Plenary Speakers Charles Boberg, McGill University http://www.mcgill.ca/linguistics/sites/mcgill.ca.linguistics/files/boberg_webpage.pdf Robert Fulk, Indiana University, Bloomington http://www.iub.edu/~engweb/faculty/profile_rFulk.shtml Peter Grund, University of Kansas http://www.english.ku.edu/people/grund-peter-j/index.shtml María José López-Couso, University of Santiago de Compostela http://www.usc-vlcg.es/MXLC.htm Marit Westergaard, University of Tromso http://ansatte.uit.no/marit.westergaard/ Presentation Formats Full papers will be allowed 30 minutes, including 10 minutes for discussion. Posters will be presented in a special session and remain on display during the conference. Submission of Abstracts Papers on any aspect of the history of the English language are welcome, including phonetics, phonology, morphology, syntax, semantics, pragmatics, sociolinguistics, language acquisition, language contact, language change, stylistics, metrics, English language and culture, and English language in society. Papers on any period are welcome: Old English, Middle English, Early Modern English, Late Modern English, and present-day English. Abstracts for papers and posters can be submitted from 1 May to 8 December 2013 through the EasyAbs abstract submission facility at http://linguistlist.org/confservices/ICEHL18. Notifications of acceptance of all abstracts will be sent out by 15 February 2014. Abstracts should not exceed 400 words (exclusive of references) and should clearly state research questions, approach, method, data and (expected) results. Abstracts should also list up to five keywords. Abstracts will not be edited for typing, spelling, or grammatical errors after submission. Therefore, abstracts should comply with the following layout requirements: - Abstracts must be single-spaced and fully justified. The standard font will be Calibri, size 11. The margins will be 2,54 top/bottom and 1,91 left/right (Moderate in MS Word). - References will have a hanging indent of 1,27 cm. - Submit the abstract as a .doc, .docx or .odt document. If it contains special characters, please send a PDF version to icehl18 at arts.kuleuven.be. Multiple Papers: One person may submit a single-authored abstract, a single-authored abstract and a co-authored one (not as first author) or two co-authored abstracts (only one as first author). Note that keynote papers within workshops count as ordinary papers. Presentations will be 20 minutes plus 10 minutes question time. Evaluation: Abstracts submitted to the general session and to the poster session will be evaluated by two members of the Scientific Committee. Workshop papers receive two evaluations by Scientific Committee members and one by the workshop convenors. Travel and Accommodation Information to follow. Please check the conference website for updates. Registration Registration for the conference opens on 15 February 2014. Organizing committee Hubert Cuyckens Hendrik De Smet Liesbet Heyvaert Peter Petré Frauke D'hoedt Lauren Fonteyn Charlotte Maekelberghe Nikki van de Pol -------------- 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 patrick.honeybone at ed.ac.uk Fri Nov 29 16:28:50 2013 From: patrick.honeybone at ed.ac.uk (Patrick Honeybone) Date: Fri, 29 Nov 2013 16:28:50 +0000 Subject: Symposium on Historical Phonology, Edinburgh, January 13-14 2014 Message-ID: We are delighted to announce that the final programme for the Symposium on Historical Phonology, to be held at the University of Edinburgh in January, is now available on the symposium's website: http://www.lel.ed.ac.uk/symposium-on-historical-phonology/ All are welcome to attend. If you would like to come, the booking details details are on the website. -- The University of Edinburgh is a charitable body, registered in Scotland, with registration number SC005336. _______________________________________________ Histling-l mailing list Histling-l at mailman.rice.edu https://mailman.rice.edu/mailman/listinfo/histling-l From q.atkinson at auckland.ac.nz Fri Nov 1 22:59:26 2013 From: q.atkinson at auckland.ac.nz (Quentin Atkinson) Date: Fri, 1 Nov 2013 22:59:26 +0000 Subject: Language Evolution Postdoc at University of Auckland Message-ID: Post Doctoral Research Position Application closing date: 1st December 2013. School of Psychology & Department of Computer Science University of Auckland Salary Range: $77,000-85,000 per annum The Language, Cognition and Culture Lab and the Computational Evolution Group at the University of Auckland seek to appoint a postdoctoral researcher to join our team investigating the evolution of the world?s languages. This research will be led by Dr Quentin Atkinson, Prof Russell Gray, and Dr Remco Bouckaert. Our work over the last decade has pioneered the application of computational modeling techniques from biology to answer questions about human prehistory and the evolution of language and culture. The project?s primary objectives are the collation of linguistic data from around the world and developing new approaches to inferring deep relationships between the world?s languages. This is a full time post for a fixed-term of three years, funded by a Royal Society of New Zealand Marsden Grant. The role will be supported by a part-time research assistant. Applicants should have a PhD or equivalent and a demonstrable research interest in modeling the evolution of language and culture. Programming and database experience and a background in linguistics or evolutionary biology/anthropology is preferred. More information about the research interests of the project leaders is available from our websites:- http://www.fos.auckland.ac.nz/~quentinatkinson/ http://www.psych.auckland.ac.nz/uoa/russell-gray/ http://www.cs.auckland.ac.nz/~remco/ https://www.facebook.com/LCCLab http://compevol.auckland.ac.nz/ Host Institution: The University of Auckland is New Zealand?s leading university. In the 2013 QS survey, the Psychology Department was ranked 22nd in the world and the Computer Science Department ranked 38th. The University of Auckland has a strong international focus and is the only New Zealand member of Universitas 21 and the Association of Pacific Rim Universities ? international consortia of research-led universities. Auckland is ranked third out of 221 world cities for quality of living in the 2012 Mercer Quality of Living Survey (see www.mercer.com/qualityofliving). All enquiries should be directed to Dr Quentin Atkinson: q.atkinson at auckland.ac.nz -------------- 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 Johanna.Barddal at ugent.be Wed Nov 20 14:01:18 2013 From: Johanna.Barddal at ugent.be (Johanna Barddal) Date: Wed, 20 Nov 2013 15:01:18 +0100 Subject: ERC-Funded Postdoctoral Research Fellowships in Historical-Comparative Linguistics: Hittite, Tocharian, Old Irish, Classical Armenian and Old Albanian! Message-ID: ERC-Funded Postdoctoral Research Fellowships in Historical-Comparative Linguistics: Hittite, Tocharian, Old Irish, Classical Armenian and Old Albanian! At the Department of Linguistics at Ghent University, five one-year Postdoctoral Research Fellowships are vacant within the ERC starting grant project EVALISA: "The Evolution of Case, Alignment and Argument Structure in Indo-European" (www.evalisa.ugent.be), led by Research Associate Professor J?hanna Bar?dal. The positions are within Historical-Comparative Linguistics with a specialization in one or more of the following languages: Hittite, Tocharian, Old Irish, Classical Armenian and Old Albanian. The positions are vacant from April 1st, 2014, or as soon as possible thereafter. An earlier appointment may also be discussed. The positions entail 100% research within the EVALISA project, demanding qualifications within historical-comparative Indo-European linguistics; the candidates shall work on one or more of the five specializations: Hittite, Tocharian, Old Irish, Classical Armenian and Old Albanian. The ideal candidates will have competence within more than one of these languages, with one postdoctoral year intended for research within each language. The successful candidate shall work on predicates selecting for non-canonical case marking of the subject or the subject-like argument, their semantics and syntax, including further harvesting of relevant data. The candidates shall, together with other team members, build a joint electronic database, and write and contribute records to it. There will be a special focus on syntactic research and syntactic reconstruction. Knowledge of cognitive theories of syntax and Construction Grammar is essential. Experience from the field of case theory and computational methods is an advantage. A full-time Postdoctoral Position comes with a net monthly salary of around 2,000?2,250 EUR p/month, depending on previous work experience. The successful candidate will also benefit from a yearly travel allowance, for presenting work at conferences etc., of up to 5,000 euros. Candidates will be expected to publish at least two peer-reviewed papers per year. They are expected to show good collegiality, be willing to contribute to joint research, such as joint research papers, to participate in all project related activities (workshops, reading groups, etc.), and to provide support for more junior members of the team. Applicants should speak and write fluent English. Applications should be sent to johanna.barddal at ugent.be, no later than January 15th, 2014, and should include a CV, contact and personal details, three (3) academic publications, a letter of motivation, and the contact details of two referees (names, affiliations and phone numbers or e-mail addresses). The successful applicant will be expected to relocate to Ghent University and conform to the regulations that apply to the position. A research plan will be worked out by the successful candidates and the project leader together, before employment begins, and will accompany the work contract. Additional information about the positions is available by application to: J?hanna Bar?dal, Research Associate Professor +32-478-646-775 / johanna.barddal (at) ugent.be =+=+=+=+=+=+=+=+=+=+=+=+=+=+=+=+=+=+=+=+=+=+=+=+=+=+ J?hanna Bar?dal Research Associate Professor Coeditor of the Journal of Historical Linguistics Department of Linguistics Ghent University Blandijnberg 2 BE-9000 Ghent johanna.barddal at ugent.be Phone +32-(0)92643800 (work) Phone +32-(0)478646775 (cell) _______________________________________________ Histling-l mailing list Histling-l at mailman.rice.edu https://mailman.rice.edu/mailman/listinfo/histling-l From kristel.vangoethem at uclouvain.be Fri Nov 22 19:25:40 2013 From: kristel.vangoethem at uclouvain.be (Kristel Van Goethem) Date: Fri, 22 Nov 2013 20:25:40 +0100 Subject: CfP WS Category change from a constructional perspective (ICCG8) Message-ID: Call for papers: Workshop ?Category change from a constructional perspective? Call deadline: December 9, 2013 Workshop convenors: * Muriel Norde (Humboldt Universit?t zu Berlin) : muriel.norde at hu-berlin.de * Kristel Van Goethem (F.R.S.-FNRS, Universit? catholique de Louvain) : kristel.vangoethem at uclouvain.be Workshop discussant: Graeme Trousdale (University of Edinburgh) Call for papers This is a workshop proposal to be submitted to the 8th International Conference on Construction Grammar (ICCG8), which will be held at the University of Osnabrueck, 3-6 September, 2014. If you are interested in participating in this workshop, please send both of us a title by December 9, 2013, so we can submit our proposal (including a provisional list of participants and titles) to the ICCG8 conference organizers. If our proposal is accepted, participants will be invited to submit a full abstract (400 words) by February 1, 2014. Conference website: http://www.blogs.uni-osnabrueck.de/iccg8/ Workshop description Category change, i.e. the shift from one word class to another or from free categories to bound categories, is inherent to many different types of change, yet it is usually not given much consideration. The aim of this workshop, therefore, will be to bring category change itself to the fore, as a phenomenon worthy of study in its own right. Adopting a rather broad definition of ?category?, which includes both single words and multi-word units, we will explore how categories change and why some shifts are more frequent than others. In particular, we want to examine whether a constructional perspective enhances our understanding of category change. In our workshop, focus will be on three topics: (i) types of category change, (ii) degrees of gradualness and context-sensitivity, and (iii) directionality. Types of category change Category change may result from different processes. The first process is commonly termed ?non-affixal derivation? or ?conversion?, as in the following examples from French (Kerleroux 1996) and English (Denison 2010). (1) calmeA ?calm? > calmeN ?calmness? (2) dailyA newspaper > dailyN The second process is category change determined by a specific syntactic context, or ?distorsion cat?gorielle? (Kerleroux 1996), as in (3), likewise from French: (3) Elle est d?un courageux! ?(lit. She is of a brave) She is very brave? However, there is no strict boundary between the processes exemplified in (1-2) and (3), as suggested by cases such as Elle est d?un calme! ?lit. She is of a calm; She is very calm?. In this example, the nominal use of calme can be accounted for both as conversion and as context-internal category change. Third, category change can be linked to processes of univerbation with structural change (Denison 2010), e.g. the use of English far from as an adverbial downtoner in (4) (De Smet 2012), or the development of the German pronoun neizwer out of a Middle High German sentence (5) (Haspelmath 1997: 131). (4) The life of a ?beauty queen? is far from beautiful. (web) (5) ne weiz wer ?I don?t know who? > neizwer ?somebody? A fourth type is one in which an item shifts category in the wake of the category shift of another item, e.g. the shift of Swedish adverbs in ?vis to adjectives when the head of a VP is nominalized: (6) Samh?llet f?randras gradvisADV. ?Society changes gradually? (7) Den gradvisaADJ f?r?ndringen av samh?llet. ?The gradual change of society? Finally, category change may be part of a grammaticalization change, i.e. ?the change whereby lexical items and constructions come in certain linguistic contexts to serve grammatical functions and, once grammaticalized, continue to develop new grammatical functions? (Hopper & Traugott 2003: 18), such as the grammaticalization of English to be going to from main verb to future auxiliary in (8-9). Such gradual grammaticalization processes may account for synchronic gradience (Traugott & Trousdale 2010). (8) I [am going to]MAIN V the train station. (9) I [am going to]AUX be a star. Degrees of gradualness and context-sensitivity The different types of category shift mentioned above can be arranged on a continuum, from abrupt to gradual and from context-independent to context-sensitive. While the A > N conversions in (1-2) are abrupt and context-independent processes, shifts from N > A are often gradual and determined by the syntactic environment, as in the case of keyN > keyA in English (10a) and French (10b) (Amiot & Van Goethem 2012; Denison 2001, 2010; De Smet 2012; Van Goethem & De Smet (forthc.)). (10)a. This is a really key point. b. Ceci est un point vraiment cl?. However, similar developments in related languages may be characterized differently, as suggested by a contrastive case study on the adjectival uses of Dutch top and German spitze ?top? (Van Goethem & H?ning 2013). The category change in Dutch (11) seems abrupt, but the German (12) spelling of S/spitze and inflection of the preceding adjective/adverb is suggestive of a gradual development. (11) het was (de) absolute topN / het was absoluut topA ?lit. it was absolute(ly) top? (12) das war absolute SpitzeN / das war absolute spitzeN/A / das war absolut SpitzeN/A / das war absolut spitzeA ?lit. it was absolute(ly) top? Directionality Whereas in earlier work (e.g. Lehmann 1995 [1982], Haspelmath 2004) the view prevailed that only changes from major to minor categories are possible, research on degrammaticalization (Norde 2009) has shown that changes from minor to major word classes, albeit less frequently attested, are possible as well. In addition, specific items have been shown to change categories more than once in the course of their histories, in alternating stages of grammaticalization and degrammaticalization. One example is degrammaticalization of the Dutch numeral suffix -tig ?-ty? into an indefinite quantifier meaning ?dozens?, followed by grammaticalization into an intensifier meaning ?very? (Norde 2006). Another example is the autonomous (adjectival/adverbial) use of Dutch intensifying prefixoids (Booij 2010: 60-61), such as Dutch reuze ?giant?, which underwent multiple category changes (Van Goethem & Hiligsmann, forthc.; Norde & Van Goethem, in prep.), first from noun to intensifying affixoid (13) (grammaticalization) and later on into an adjective/adverb (14-15) (degrammaticalization): (13) Verder kunnen we reuzegoed met elkaar opschieten ?Besides we get along very well (lit. giant-well)? (COW2012) (14) Ik zou het gewoon weg reuze vinden als je eens langs kwam. ?I really think it would be great (lit. giant) if you came by once.? (COW 2012) (15) Reuze bedankt! ?Thanks a lot? Finally, category shift may be ?non-directional?, in the sense that the input and output categories are of the same level, e.g. in shifts from one major word class to the other (examples (1-2)), or the transference of nominal case markers to verbal tense ? aspect markers, such as the shift, in Kala Lagau Ya, from dative marker ?pa to (verbal) completive marker (Blake 2001; examples (16-17)). (16) Nuy ay-pa amal-pa he food-dat mother-dat ?He [went] for food for mother? (17)Ngoeba uzar-am-pa 1dual.inclusive go-dual.incompletive ?We two will go (are endeavouring to go)? The constructional perspective The central aim of the workshop will be to investigate whether category change can be explained more accurately by analyzing it as an instance of ?constructionalization? (Bergs & Diewald 2008; Traugott & Trousdale 2013 (forthc.)), which involves ?a sequence of changes in the form and meaning poles of a construction, whereby new formal configurations come to serve particular functions, and to encode new meanings? (Trousdale & Norde 2013: 36). In this workshop, we welcome both theoretically and empirically oriented papers that account for category change from a constructional perspective. Research questions include, but are not limited to, the following: 1: What is the status of category change in a diachronic construction grammar framework (e.g. Traugott & Trousdale 2013) and how can the different types outlined above be accounted for? Are categories grammatical primitives, or the epiphenomenal result of constructions in the sense of Croft 2001? 2: How can the notions of gradualness and context-sensitivity be modelled in a constructional framework? Does the gradualness of some category shifts imply that categories synchronically form a ?continuous spectrum? (Langacker 1987: 18) or does it merely mean that a given item may belong to two or more categories whereas ?the categories in question can nevertheless be clearly delimited? (Aarts 2007: 242)? 3: Is category change a change in form which together with a change in meaning constitutes a constructionalization change and if so, is it the shift itself or changes in morphosyntactic properties (e.g. decategorialization) that are associated with it? 4: How does the distinction between lexical and grammatical constructionalization link in to the different types of category change (abrupt vs gradual, morphological vs syntactic, context-independent vs context-sensitive, word-level vs construction-level)? 5: Which role can be assigned to the notion of ?category? in constructional networks? References Aarts, B. 2007. Syntactic Gradience. The Nature of Grammatical Indeterminacy. Oxford: Oxford University Press. Amiot, D. & K. Van Goethem 2012. A constructional account of French -cl? 'key' and Dutch sleutel- 'key' as in mot-cl? / sleutelwoord 'keyword'. Morphology 22. 347-364. Bergs, A. & G. Diewald (Eds). 2008. Constructions and Language Change. Berlin / New York: Mouton de Gruyter. Booij, G. 2010. Construction Morphology. Oxford: Oxford University Press. Blake, B. J. 2001. Case. Second edition. Cambridge: Cambridge University Press. COW (Corpora from the web) http://hpsg.fu-berlin.de/cow/colibri/ [ Sch?fer, R. & F. Bildhauer. 2012. Building large corpora from the web using a new effcient tool chain. In N. Calzolari et al. (eds), Proceedings of the Eight International Conference on Language Resources and Evaluation, Istanbul, ELRA, 486?493.] Croft, W. 2001. Radical Construction Grammar. Syntactic theory in typological perspective. Oxford: Oxford University Press. De Smet, H. 2012. The course of actualization. Language 88.3. 601-633. Denison, D. 2001. Gradience and linguistic change. In L. J. Brinton (ed.), Historical linguistics 1999: Selected papers from the 14th International Conference on Historical Linguistics, Vancouver, 9-13 August 1999 (Current Issues in Linguistic Theory 215), 119-44. Amsterdam / Philadelphia: John Benjamins. Denison, D. 2010. Category change in English with and without structural change. In E.C. Traugott & G. Trousdale (eds), Gradience, gradualness and grammaticalization (Typological Studies in Language 90), 105-128. Amsterdam: John Benjamins. Haspelmath, M. 1997. Indefinite pronouns. Oxford : Oxford University Press. Haspelmath, M. 2004. On directionality in language change with particular reference to grammaticalization. In O. Fischer, M. Norde & H. Perridon (eds) Up and down the cline ? the nature of grammaticalization, 17-44. Amsterdam / Philadelphia: John Benjamins. Hopper, P. J. & E. C. Traugott. 2003. Grammaticalization. Second edition. Cambridge: Cambridge University Press. Kerleroux, F. 1996. La coupure invisible. ?tudes de syntaxe et de morphologie. Villeneuve d?Ascq: Presses Universitaires du Septentrion. Langacker, R.W. 1987. Foundations of Cognitive Grammar I : Theoretical Prerequisites. Stanford CA : Stanford University Press. Lehmann, Chr. 1995 [1982]. Thoughts on grammaticalization. Munich: Lincom Europa. Norde, M. 2006. Van suffix tot telwoord tot bijwoord: degrammaticalisering en (re)grammaticalisering van tig. Tabu 35. 33-60. Norde, M. 2009. Degrammaticalization. Oxford: Oxford University Press. Norde, M. & K. Van Goethem. in prep. Emancipatie van affixen en affixo?den: degrammaticalisatie of lexicalisatie? Submitted. Traugott, E.C. & G. Trousdale. 2010. Gradience, Gradualness and Grammaticalization. Amsterdam / Philadelphia: John Benjamins. Traugott, E. C. & G. Trousdale. 2013 (Forthc.). Constructionalization and Constructional Changes. Oxford: Oxford University Press. Trousdale G. & M. Norde. 2013. Degrammaticalization and constructionalization: two case studies. Language Sciences 36. 32-46. Van Goethem, K. & H. De Smet. Forthc. How nouns turn into adjectives. The emergence of new adjectives in French, English and Dutch through debonding processes. Languages in Contrast. Van Goethem, K. & Ph. Hiligsmann. Forthc. When two paths converge: debonding and clipping of Dutch reuze ?giant; great?. Journal of Germanic Linguistics. Van Goethem, K. & M. H?ning. 2013. Debonding of Dutch and German compounds. Paper presented at the Germanic Sandwich Conference, Leuven, Jan. 2013. Kristel Van Goethem Chercheuse qualifi?e F.R.S.-FNRS Universit? catholique de Louvain Institut Langage et Communication/P?le Linguistique Coll?ge Erasme Place Blaise Pascal 1, bte L3.03.33 1348 Louvain-la-Neuve bureau c.383 T?l. (0032) 10 47 48 42 kristel.vangoethem at uclouvain.be http://uclouvain.academia.edu/KVanGoethem -------------- next part -------------- An HTML attachment was scrubbed... URL: -------------- next part -------------- A non-text attachment was scrubbed... Name: Call for papers_Workshop Category change from a constructional perspective_Norde and Van Goethem.pdf Type: application/pdf Size: 224120 bytes Desc: not available URL: -------------- next part -------------- _______________________________________________ Histling-l mailing list Histling-l at mailman.rice.edu https://mailman.rice.edu/mailman/listinfo/histling-l From Hubert.Cuyckens at arts.kuleuven.be Sun Nov 24 14:48:04 2013 From: Hubert.Cuyckens at arts.kuleuven.be (Hubert Cuyckens) Date: Sun, 24 Nov 2013 14:48:04 +0000 Subject: CFP: 18th International Conference on English Historical Linguistics (ICEHL-18) -- final call for papers and revised deadline Message-ID: [WITH APOLOGIES FOR CROSS?-POSTINGS] FINAL CALL FOR PAPERS 18th International Conference on English Historical Linguistics Revised deadline for abstracts: 8 December 2013 ICEHL18 takes place in Leuven, Belgium, 14-18 July 2014 (academic programme 14-17 July, social programme 18 July). Conference website: http://www.arts.kuleuven.be/ling/ICEHL18/ Conference email: icehl18 at arts.kuleuven.be Plenary Speakers Charles Boberg, McGill University http://www.mcgill.ca/linguistics/sites/mcgill.ca.linguistics/files/boberg_webpage.pdf Robert Fulk, Indiana University, Bloomington http://www.iub.edu/~engweb/faculty/profile_rFulk.shtml Peter Grund, University of Kansas http://www.english.ku.edu/people/grund-peter-j/index.shtml Mar?a Jos? L?pez-Couso, University of Santiago de Compostela http://www.usc-vlcg.es/MXLC.htm Marit Westergaard, University of Tromso http://ansatte.uit.no/marit.westergaard/ Presentation Formats Full papers will be allowed 30 minutes, including 10 minutes for discussion. Posters will be presented in a special session and remain on display during the conference. Submission of Abstracts Papers on any aspect of the history of the English language are welcome, including phonetics, phonology, morphology, syntax, semantics, pragmatics, sociolinguistics, language acquisition, language contact, language change, stylistics, metrics, English language and culture, and English language in society. Papers on any period are welcome: Old English, Middle English, Early Modern English, Late Modern English, and present-day English. Abstracts for papers and posters can be submitted from 1 May to 8 December 2013 through the EasyAbs abstract submission facility at http://linguistlist.org/confservices/ICEHL18. Notifications of acceptance of all abstracts will be sent out by 15 February 2014. Abstracts should not exceed 400 words (exclusive of references) and should clearly state research questions, approach, method, data and (expected) results. Abstracts should also list up to five keywords. Abstracts will not be edited for typing, spelling, or grammatical errors after submission. Therefore, abstracts should comply with the following layout requirements: - Abstracts must be single-spaced and fully justified. The standard font will be Calibri, size 11. The margins will be 2,54 top/bottom and 1,91 left/right (Moderate in MS Word). - References will have a hanging indent of 1,27 cm. - Submit the abstract as a .doc, .docx or .odt document. If it contains special characters, please send a PDF version to icehl18 at arts.kuleuven.be. Multiple Papers: One person may submit a single-authored abstract, a single-authored abstract and a co-authored one (not as first author) or two co-authored abstracts (only one as first author). Note that keynote papers within workshops count as ordinary papers. Presentations will be 20 minutes plus 10 minutes question time. Evaluation: Abstracts submitted to the general session and to the poster session will be evaluated by two members of the Scientific Committee. Workshop papers receive two evaluations by Scientific Committee members and one by the workshop convenors. Travel and Accommodation Information to follow. Please check the conference website for updates. Registration Registration for the conference opens on 15 February 2014. Organizing committee Hubert Cuyckens Hendrik De Smet Liesbet Heyvaert Peter Petr? Frauke D'hoedt Lauren Fonteyn Charlotte Maekelberghe Nikki van de Pol -------------- 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 patrick.honeybone at ed.ac.uk Fri Nov 29 16:28:50 2013 From: patrick.honeybone at ed.ac.uk (Patrick Honeybone) Date: Fri, 29 Nov 2013 16:28:50 +0000 Subject: Symposium on Historical Phonology, Edinburgh, January 13-14 2014 Message-ID: We are delighted to announce that the final programme for the Symposium on Historical Phonology, to be held at the University of Edinburgh in January, is now available on the symposium's website: http://www.lel.ed.ac.uk/symposium-on-historical-phonology/ All are welcome to attend. If you would like to come, the booking details details are on the website. -- The University of Edinburgh is a charitable body, registered in Scotland, with registration number SC005336. _______________________________________________ Histling-l mailing list Histling-l at mailman.rice.edu https://mailman.rice.edu/mailman/listinfo/histling-l