SLE Workshop on The Argument/Adjunct Distinction Cross-Linguistically (repost)

[Søren Wichmann]

[This apparently did not reach eveone on the Lingtyp mailing list; 
apologies for reposting]

The Leipzig Valency Classes Project (i.e., Andrej Malchukov, Iren 
Hartmann, Martin Haspelmath, Bernard Comrie, and myself, cf. 
http://www.eva.mpg.de/lingua/valency/index.php) is planning to organize 
a workshop on _The Argument/Adjunct Distinction Cross-Linguistically_ 
during the 44th Annual Meeting of the Societas Linguistica Europae, 8-11 
September 2011 in Logroño, Spain (http://sle2011.cilap.es/).

The distinction between arguments and adjuncts has been hotly debated 
since the 1970s (e.g., contributions to Vater (ed.) 1977), yet the issue 
remains largely unresolved. One of the challenges is that some of the 
most reliable tests (such as verb-anaphoric tests, especially popular in 
generative approaches), are not applicable to all languages. Another 
challenge is that the notion of valency is understood both at the levels 
of semantics and syntax (see, e.g., contributions to Herbst (ed.) 2007 
for some complexities involved discussed primarily from lexicographic 
perspective), with some theories introducing still more intermediate 
levels (e.g., in the work by Apresjan and Mel’cuk; e.g., Mel’cuk 1988). 
Yet, this topic is of obvious typological relevance, as it has been 
suggested that the distinction might correlate with other typologically 
significant parameters (such as pro-arg hypothesis by Jelinik 1984, 
Baker 1996 and others predicting that NPs show an adjunct-like behavior 
in radically head-marking (“polysynthetic”) languages).

For the envisaged workshop we invite contributions dealing with the 
following topics:

- the distinctions between arguments and adjuncts in individual languages;
- diagnostics for the argument/adjunct distinction in individual 
languages and across languages;
- cross-linguistic applicability/universality of diagnostics for 
argumenthood;
- the question of whether the distinction between arguments and adjuncts 
is dichotomous or rather gradient (as argued by Croft 2001 ch. 7, 
following Langacker 1987);
- mismatches between semantic and syntactic valency.

Contributions discussing less studied (non-Indo-European) languages are 
particularly welcome, as the present workshop is intended to explore the 
degree of convergence and variation in this domain.

References
Baker, Mark. 1996. The Polysynthesis Parameter. Oxford: Oxford 
University Press.
Croft, William. 2001. Radical Construction Grammar. Oxford: Oxford 
University Press..
Herbst, Thomas & Katrin Götz-Votteler (eds.). 2007. Valency: 
theoretical, descriptive and cognitive issues. Berlin: Mouton.
Jelinek, Eloise. 1984. Empty categories, case, and configurationality. 
Natural Language and Linguistic Theory 2:39–76.
Langacker, Ronald. 1987. Foundations of Cognitive Grammar, Vol. 1: 
Theoretical Prerequisites. Stanford: Stanford University Press.
Mel’cuk, Igor. A. 1988. Dependency Syntax: Theory and practice. Albany, 
NY: SUNY
Vater, Heinz (ed.). 1977. Valence, Semantic Case and Grammatical 
Relations. Amsterdam, John Benjamins.

Towards the organization of the workshop we need preliminary titles and 
mini-abstracts (3-5 sentences) from potentially interested participants. 
The deadline for these is _Thursday, Nov. 11, 2010_. That will allow us 
a little time for preparing the finalized version of the workshop 
proposal before the Nov. 15 deadline. Please note that expressing an 
interest in participating by sending us a title and mini-abstract is not 
binding. Later on (Jan. 15, 2011) there is a deadline for regular abstracts.

Please use this address for sending your title/abstract:
wichmann at eva.mpg.de

Best wishes,

Søren Wichmann
http://email.eva.mpg.de/~wichmann/