Aspect and discourse in African languages

Tue Oct 16 00:54:03 UTC 2012

秀金和家俊参考。


2012/10/16 Shahar Shirtz <shaharzilla at gmail.com>:
> --- apologies for cross posting ---
>
> Dear all,
>
> We would like to propose a workshop on “Aspect and Discourse in African
> Languages” for the 46th SLE (Societas Linguistica Europaea) Meeting, to be
> held September 18-21, 2013, in Split, Croatia. Workshops at the SLE are
> usually composed of from 8 to 13 papers, selected by the workshop
> organizers, and by the SLE organizing committee. The deadline for the
> workshop proposal plus short (300-word) abstracts is November 15, 2012.
>
> We invite you to submit an abstract for this workshop by November 7, 2012,
> sent as both PDF and either Word or Open Office documents, to
> shahars at uoregon.edu. Please state “SLE 2013” in the subject line.
>
> Please forward this to anyone you think may be interested. Thank you for
> your collaboration!
>
> Proposed SLE 2013 Workshop onː
>
> Aspect and Discourse in African Languages
>
> Workshop Organizers: Shahar Shirtz (shahars at uoregon.edu), Doris Payne
> (dlpayne at uoregon.edu), and Lutz Marten (lm5 at soas.ac.uk)
>
> The correlation between discourse / narrative function and aspect has been
> noted in many studies (e.g., Fleischmann 1990 for Romance, Sawicki 2008 for
> Polish). Roughly, a correlation is found between perfective forms and main
> story line (or foreground) clauses and imperfective forms and non-main story
> line or background clauses (Labov & Waletzky 1967, Bybee, Perkins & Pagliuca
> 1994, inter alia).
>
> In many African languages one finds constructions (either clausal
> constructions or specialized verb forms) which are used primarily (but
> almost never solely) to convey events on the main narrative / plot line.
> Such constructions are found in West African languages (Robert 1991, 2012,
> Carlson 1992), Nilotic (Tucker & Mpaayei 1955, Dimmendaal 1983, König 1993)
> Afro-Asiatic (e.g., Jaggar 2006) and Bantu (Doke 1954, Hopper 1979, Nurse
> 2008) among other phyla and groups of African languages. Such constructions
> differ in the degree to which they are “dedicated” to narrative usage and
> the other usages they are found in, the morphosyntax of the constructions,
> their pragmatic implications, their diachronic sources and many other
> parameters. They may also vary in the degree in which the “narrative” form
> is an aspect or even TAM form.
>
> Thus, the typological and genealogical variety of African languages,
> together with the frequency of so called “narrative” forms, raise ample
> questions and problems of analysis and description. In turn, these forms
> provide opportunities for many lines of research including the diachrony of
> these forms or their grammaticalization pathways (e.g., Bybee, Perkins &
> Pagliuca 1994), the functional range of these forms in different discourse
> types (e.g., Robert 2012) their morpho-syntactic and functional typology,
> and the potential genesis of aspect categories under discourse pressures,
> among many others.
>
> This workshop is aimed at bringing together scholars interested in the
> different linguistic phyla and areas of Africa in order to address questions
> of aspect and discourse and narrative usage. The topics and questions we
> wish to address include, but are by no means limited to, the following:
>
> 1.    Many African languages have been claimed to have specialized
> “narrative” constructions. However these constructions may also be used in
> non-narrative texts or in non-plot / non-main event line contexts. What is
> the functional range or distribution of these so called “narrative” forms?
>
> 2.      What is the relation between aspect and “narrative” forms? Are
> “narrative” forms always perfective? If no, are there other signals of
> perfectivity in the clausal construction for?
>
> 3.     Do forms used to advance the main even line carry special
> implicatures? Do they carry an implicature of a finished event? An
> implicature that the preceding event has finished? Is there an implication /
> implicature of telicity in “narrative” forms
>
> 4.      What are the attested diachronic sources and pathways of the so
> called “narrative forms”?
>
> 5.    What types of changes in Tense Aspect Mood (TAM) marking are found
> when shifting between main plot line to other discourse modes (e.g.,
> description, explanation)? Or when shifting from one episode to another
> (i.e., from one narrative sequence to another)?
>
> 6.     How clear is the relation between imperfectivity and background / non
> main event line clauses? What types of imperfectivity are found in such
> clauses? Do certain functions attract certain types of imperfectivity?
>
> 7.      Perfectivity is seldom divided into subtypes (Comrie 1976). Can one,
> given the central role of perfectivity in discourse (Fleischmann 1990),
> identify distinct semantic (sub-)types of the perfective in African
> languages?
>
> 8.     Some African languages have subtypes of perfects, or of “anteriors”
> (cf. Drolc 1992, 2000). Via what different diachronic paths might these have
> arisen? What roles do they play in discourse; e.g., is there a relation
> between perfect and background / non main event line clauses? Do certain
> discourse functions attract certain types of perfect (cf. Comrie
> 1976:56-65)?
>
> 9.      Besides perfects or anteriors (Nurse 2008), are there other aspects
> or aspect-like categories or constructions which refer to two time points,
> e.g. situative (‘while’), persistive (‘still’), alterative (‘now but not
> before’)? How are these used in narrative discourse?
>
> 10.  Contrastive focus and information focus constructions are thought of as
> incompatible with main event line function(s) (but see Jagger 2006). Is
> there a relation between contrastive / information focus constructions and
> particular aspects?
>
> REFERENCES
>
> Bybee, J., R. Perkins, & W. Pagliuca. 1994. The evolution of grammar: tense,
> aspect and      modality in the languages of the world. Chicago and London:
> University of Chicago Press.
>
> Carlson, Robert. 1992. Narrative, subjunctive and finiteness. Journal
> ofAfrican Languages and Linguistics. 13: 59-85
>
> Comrie, B. 1976. Aspect. Cambridgeː Cambridge University Press.
>
> Doke, C.M. 1954. The Southern Bantu languages. Oxford: Oxford University
> Press.
>
> Drolc, U. 1992. On the perfect in Swahili. Afrikanistische Arbeitspapiere
> 29: 63-87.
>
> Drolc, U. 2000. Zur Typologie des Perfekts (am Beispiel des Swahili). W.
> Breu (ed.), Probleme der interaktion von Lexik und Aspekt (ILA). 91-112.
> Tübingen: Max Niemeyer.
>
> Fleischmann, S. 1990. Tense and narrativityː From medieval performance to
> modern fiction. Austinː University of Texas Press.
>
> Hopper, P. 1979. Aspect and foregrounding in discourse. T. Givón (ed.),
> Syntax and Semantics, 12ː Discourse and Syntax. 213-241. New York, Academic
> Press.
>
> Jaggar, P.H, 2006, The Hausa perfective tense-aspect used in WH-/Focus
> constructions and historical narratives: A unified account. In: Hyman, Larry
> M. and Newman, Paul, (eds.), West African Linguistics: Descriptive,
> Comparative, and Historical Studies in Honor of Russell G. Schuh. 100-133.
> Studies in African Linguistics.
>
> König, C. 1993. Aspekt im Maa. Köln: Institüt für Afrikanistik,
> Universitat zu Köln.
>
> Labov, W. & J. Waletzky. 1967. Narrative analysisː oral versions of personal
> experience. J. Helm (ed.), Essays on the verbal and visual arts, 12-42.
> (Proceedings of the 1966 Annual Spring Meeting of the American Ethnological
> Society.) Seattleː University of Washington Press.
>
> Newman, P. 2000. The Hausa language: An encyclopedic reference grammar.
> New-Haven and London: Yale University Press.
>
> Nurse, D. 2008. Tense and aspect in Bantu. Oxfordː Oxford University Press.
>
> Robert, S. 1991. Approche énonciative du système verbalː le cas du Wolof.
> Parisː Éditions du CNRS.
>
> Robert, S. 2012. From temporal vagueness to syntactic and pragmatic
> dependencyː the case of null tense (or aorist). Paper presented at the SLE
> 45th  meeting, Stockholm.
>
> Sawicki, L. 2008. Towards a narrative grammar of Polish. Warsaw: Warsaw
> University Press.
>
> Tucker, A. N. & J. Ole-Mpaayei. 1955. Maasai grammar, with vocabulary.
> Londonː Longman, Green & Co.
>
>


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