LEXICON-IN-CONTACT

[Maria Koptjevskaja Tamm]

Call for papers for the thematic workshop at the SLE (Societas 
Linguistica Europea) 2013 conference in Split, September 18-21 
(http://www.sle2013.eu/)


  LEXICON IN CONTACT: CONTACT-INDUCED STRUCTURAL ISOMORPHISM IN THE LEXICON


    Workshop organizers

Maria Koptjevskaja Tamm (tamm at ling.su.se <mailto:tamm at ling.su.se>), 
Henrik Liljegren (henrik at ling.su.se <mailto:henrik at ling.su.se>), Maarten 
Mous (M.Mous at hum.leidenuniv.nl <mailto:M.Mous at hum.leidenuniv.nl>), 
Matthias Urban (urbanm at staff.uni-marburg.de 
<mailto:urbanm at staff.uni-marburg.de>)


    Topic description

The workshop will focus on different structural outcomes of prolonged 
language contact in the realm of the lexicon. Lexical phenomena have of 
course a long standing record in research on language contact; however, 
the recent developments in areal linguistics and areal typology have, 
with a few exceptions, mainly concerned grammatical phenomena. This is 
not at all surprising given the central place of research on grammar in 
the modern linguistics of all denominations, including typology.
The two traditionally distinguished groups of contact phenomena in the 
lexicon are loanwords and calques, or semantic loans -- the distinction 
paralleled by contact phenomena at other levels ('replication of matter' 
vs. 'pattern replication' in Matras and Sakel 2007). Loanwords have been 
studied from a more systematic cross-linguistic perspective, where the 
core issue has been different borrowability of different words, seen as 
belonging to different parts of speech and/or coming from different 
semantic domains (cf. Haspelmath and Tadmor eds. 2009). These are good 
examples of questions where research on language contact shares common 
interests with lexical typology, by which we mean the cross-linguistic 
and typological branch of lexicology. The interesting research angles 
here, as elsewhere in research on contact phenomena and in 
(areal-)typological research (cf. Koptjevskaja-Tamm 2011), are possible 
outcomes of language contact in the realm of the lexicon, on the one 
hand, and a possibility of using lexical phenomena for reconstructing 
contact, on the other.

But a lexical-typological contribution to contact linguistics has an 
even greater potential when it comes to pattern replication rather than 
to replication of matter. Hayward (1991, 2000, cf. also Treis 2010) 
points out many shared lexicalization patterns in the three Ethiopian 
languages Amharic (Semitic), Oromo (Cushitic) and Gamo (Omotic), which 
add to the cumulative evidence in favour of the Ethiopian linguistic 
area and fall into four categories: (i) shared semantic specializations, 
e.g. 'die without ritual slaughter (of cattle)';  (ii) shared polysemy, 
e.g. 'draw water' -- 'copy'; (iii) shared derivational pathways, e.g. 
'need' = causative of 'want': (iv) shared ideophones and idioms, e.g., 
'I caught a cold' being expressed via 'a cold caught me'. François 
(2011) describes the pervasive "structural isomorphism" in the lexicon 
of the closely related northern Vanuatu languages whereby many words, 
formally not related to each other, "display the same properties across 
languages: the same semantic range (polysemy, polyfunctionality), the 
same combinatorics, and parallel usage in phraseology", and the 
challenge this situation offers for historical linguistics. Enfield 
(2011) suggests that the lexical semantic domain of taste in the 
genetically unrelated SEA languages Lao (Tai) and Kri (Austronesian) 
show striking similarities in their conceptual organization, which might 
perhaps be accounted for by convergence. Matisoff (2004), Vanhove (ed. 
2008), Zalizniak et al. (2012) and Urban (2012) give numerous examples 
of cross-linguistically recurrent patterns of polysemy (e.g., 'eat' --> 
'suffer') and lexical motivation ('wind-faeces' for 'cloud' in New 
Guinea), some of which are clearly areally restricted and witness of 
language contact, whereas others rather reflect universal tendencies.

We invite contributions dealing with different kinds of contact induced 
structural isomorphism in the lexicon, as manifested in the general 
organization of a lexical field, polysemy patterns and lexical 
motivation, collocational patterns etc. We are particularly interested 
in contributions that have a scope of an area or a larger number of 
languages and make an attempt at generalizations, where the major 
concern would be separating contact induced convergence from inheritance 
and/or more universal tendencies. However we also welcome contributions 
dealing with detailed studies of two languages in contact (e.g. if they 
look attentively at a particular lexical field and show how it is 
organized), especially if these are situated within a broader linguistic 
context, such as comparison with other genetically related languages, 
and/or relate to findings in lexical-typological research.


        References

Ameka, F. & D. Wilkins 1996. Semantics. In Goebl, H., P. Nelde, Z. Starý 
& W. Wölck (eds.), /Contact linguistics/ (HSK). Berlin / New York: 
Walter de Gruyter, 130-138.

Enfield, N. 2011, Taste in two tongues: a Southeast Asian study of 
semantic convergence. In Majid, A. & S. Levinson (eds.), The senses in 
language and culture, a spec. issue of /The senses & Society/, 06, 01, 
30--37.

François, Alexandre. 2011. Social ecology and language history in the 
northern Vanuatu linkage: A tale of divergence and convergence. /Journal 
of Historical Linguistics/ 1 (2), 175-246. Nov 2011.

Haspelmath, M. & U. Tadmor (eds.) 2009. /Loanwords in the World's 
Languages: A Comparative Handbook. /Berlin://Mouton de Gruyter.

Hayward Richard J. 2000. Is There a Metric for Convergence." In Renfrew, 
C., A. McMahon and L. Trask (eds.), /Time Depth in Historical 
Linguistics Vol 2 (Papers in the Prehistory of Languages)/, 621-640. 
Cambrdige: The McDonald Institute for Archaeological Research.

Hayward, Richard J. 1991. A propos patterns of lexicalization in the 
Ethiopian Language Area. In Mendel, D. and U. Claudi (eds.), /Ägypten im 
afroorientalischen Kontext./ /Special issue of Afrikanistische 
Arbeitspapiere./ Cologne: Institute of African Studies, pp. 139-56.

Koptjevskaja-Tamm, M. 2011. Linguistic typology and language contact. In 
Song, J.J. (ed.), /The Oxford/ /Handbook of Linguistic Typology/. 
Oxford: OUP, 568--590.

Matisoff, James A. 2004. Areal semantics: is there such a thing? In: 
Saxena, A. (ed.): Himalayan languages, past and present, 347-393. 
Berlin: De Gruyter.

Matras, Y., and Sakel, J. 2007. 'Investigating the mechanisms of pattern 
replication in language convergence', /Studies in Language, /31, 829--865/./

Treis, Yvonne. 2010. Perception verbs and taste adjectives in Kambaata 
and beyond. In Anne Storch, (ed.), /Perception of the Invisible. 
Religion, Historical Semantics and the Role of Perceptive Verbs/ (SUGIA 
- Sprache und Geschichte in Afrika, 21) Cologne: Köppe. Pp. 313-346.

Urban, Matthias 2012. /Analyzability and semantic associations in 
referring expressions/. PhD diss., Leiden university.

Vanhove, M. (ed.). 2008. /From polysemy to semantic change/. Amsterdam & 
Philadelphia: John Benjamins.

Zalizniak, A., M. Bulakh, D. Ganenkov, I. Gruntov, T. Maisak & M. Russo 
2012. The catalogue of semantic shifts as a database for lexical 
semantic typology. In Koptjevskaja-Tamm, M. & M. Vanhove (eds.), /New 
directions in lexical/ /typology/. A special issue of /Linguistics, 50, 
3/: 633 -- 669.



GUIDELINES FOR SUBMISSION

- For all abstracts the deadline of submission is January 15th 2013. 
Authors are requested to register and upload their abstract individually 
via the conference website www.sle2013.eu 
<http://www.sle2013.eu>. Please mention the name of the workshop (or 
some parts of it) next to the title of your paper.

- The abstracts should be (1) anonymous and (2) contain between 400 and 
500 words (exclusive of references). (3) They should state research 
questions, approach, method, data and (expected) results;

- The abstracts will receive three scores, two by two members of the SLE 
2013 scientific committee and one by the workshop convenor(s).

- Workshop papers and general session papers will be selected according 
to the same treshold. Last year the treshold was the average score of 
all abstracts.

- Participants are allowed to present only one single-authored paper at 
SLE 2013. In addition they may either have a joint paper (without being 
the first author) or be a discussant in a workshop. Two co-authored 
papers are also allowed.

- Workshop slots last 30 minutes. Slots may be combined to have a 
session of an hour (cf. keynote speakers). The general schedule of the 
conference may not be altered, however. For example, no slots of 20 or 
40 minutes are allowed; no workshop will continue during the plenary 
lectures or the poster session.

- Being part of the programme will be reserved for SLE members. Those 
colleagues who are not a member yet, will be requested to become one at 
the moment of registration (which will open in May 2013).


-- 
Maria Koptjevskaja Tamm
Office: Dept. of linguistics, Stockholm university, 106 91, Stockholm, Sweden
Home: Västerled 166, 167 72, Bromma, Sweden
tamm at ling.su.se,http://www.ling.su.se/tamm
tel.: +46-8-16 26 20 (office), +46-8-26 90 91 (home)

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