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<p class="MsoNormal" style="text-align:justify"><b><span style="font-size:14pt;font-family:Calibri;color:black">Call
for abstracts</span></b></p>
<p class="MsoNormal" style="text-align:justify"><font size="4"><b><span style="font-family:Calibri;color:black">Valence orientation in
contact: a cross-linguistic perspective</span></b></font></p><font size="4">
</font><p class="MsoNormal" style="text-align:justify"><b><span style="font-family:Calibri;color:black"><font size="2">Workshop proposal for SLE
2018 (Tallinn, Aug. 29-Sept. 1)</font><span> </span></span></b><span style="font-family:Calibri;color:black">(<a href="http://sle2018.eu/">http://sle2018.eu/</a>)</span><span style="font-family:Calibri"></span></p>
<p class="MsoNormal" style="text-align:justify"><span style="font-size:11pt;font-family:Calibri;color:black">Organizers:
Eitan Grossman, Riho Grünthal, and Johanna Nichols </span><span style="font-size:11pt;font-family:Calibri"></span></p>
<p class="MsoNormal"><span style="font-size:11pt;font-family:Calibri"> </span></p>
<p class="MsoNormal" style="text-align:justify"><span style="font-size:11pt;font-family:Calibri;color:black">Nichols,
Peterson & Barnes (2004) have proposed that a general typological parameter
of languages is their <span style="font-variant:small-caps">valence orientation</span>
– that is, the overall tendency of a language to treat members of
causal-noncausal verb alternations in a particular way. In some languages,
verbs with meanings like <i>seat</i> and <i>scare</i> tend to be formally
derived from verbs meaning <i>sit</i> and <i>fear</i> (e.g., Nanai, Lakhota),
while in other languages, the direction of derivation is the converse (e.g.,
Russian, Maasai). Yet other languages tend to treat both members as derived
(e.g., Ingush, Hausa), or neither member as derived (e.g., Ewe, Ossetic). This
work intersects with Haspelmath (1993, 2017) and Haspelmath et al. (2014),
which show that some members of causal-noncausal pairs tend to be coded as
causatives, while others tend to be coded as anticausatives. All of the above
studies are interested in form-meaning and/or form-frequency correspondences,
as are studies conducted in generative frameworks (e.g., Levin & Rappoport
Hovav 1995 and subsequent literature). </span><span style="font-size:11pt;font-family:Calibri"></span></p>
<p class="MsoNormal"><span style="font-size:11pt;font-family:Calibri"> </span></p>
<p class="MsoNormal" style="text-align:justify"><span style="font-size:11pt;font-family:Calibri;color:black">However,
meaning- or usage-based explanations (called<b> ‘functional theories</b>’ in
Bickel 2015), which appeal to cognitive or communicative biases, may be only
one part of an account of cross-linguistic diversity in basic valence
orientation or, more broadly, in the coding of causal:noncausal verb pairs.
Another possible set of factors is <b>‘event-based’ </b>(Bickel 2015), i.e.,
historical contingencies that have brought speakers of different languages into
contact, potentially leading to convergence, on the one hand, or divergence, on
the other. Therefore it is important to directly target the possibility that
the distribution of valence orientation across languages is influenced by
language contact. Preliminary support for this possibility is found in
Haspelmath (1993), which points to a European preference for anticausatives, or
Nichols et al.’s (2004) finding that basic valence orientation tends to pattern
areally. For example, transitivizing languages, which prefer the formal
derivation of a causal verb from a noncausal verb, are especially prominent in
Northern Asia and in North America, while they are strongly dispreferred in
Africa, Australia, and Europe.</span></p><p class="MsoNormal" style="text-align:justify"><br><span style="font-size:11pt;font-family:Calibri;color:black"></span><span style="font-size:11pt;font-family:Calibri"></span></p>
<p class="MsoNormal" style="text-align:justify"><span style="font-size:11pt;font-family:Calibri;color:black">Such
broad areal distributions are the point of departure for the proposed workshop
on <b>Valence Orientation as a Contact-Influenced Parameter: A Crosslinguistic
Perspective</b>. The hypothesis to be investigated in this workshop is that
valence orientation is prone to contact-induced change. This hypothesis still
remains to be evaluated on the basis of detailed case studies that specifically
target valence orientation in actual contact situations. Indeed, several
studies point to the possibility of convergence in valence orientation in
certain contact situations. </span><span style="font-size:11pt;font-family:Calibri"></span></p>
<ul style="margin-top:0in" type="disc"><li class="MsoNormal" style="color:black;text-align:justify;vertical-align:baseline"><span style="font-size:11pt;font-family:Calibri">Kulikov &
Lavidas (2015) point to an areal split within Indo-European, such that
verb lability increased in the western languages (e.g., Romance and
Germanic) and decreased in the eastern languages (e.g., Indo-Aryan and
Armenian).</span></li><li class="MsoNormal" style="color:black;text-align:justify;vertical-align:baseline"><span style="font-size:11pt;font-family:Calibri">Coptic and
Koine Greek, which were in intensive contact in Late Antique Egypt, both
developed an increased tendency to labile verbs (Grossman 2017, Lavidas
2009). </span></li><li class="MsoNormal" style="color:black;text-align:justify;vertical-align:baseline"><span style="font-size:11pt;font-family:Calibri">Russian
Yiddish has moved away from the Germanic profile towards a strong
detransitivizing preference as in Russian, while United States Yiddish has
shifted towards a preference for labile verbs as in English
(Luchina-Sadan, in prep.), as has Pennsylvania German (Goldblatt, in
prep.).</span></li></ul>
<p class="MsoNormal" style="text-align:justify"><span style="font-size:11pt;font-family:Calibri;color:black">We
invite abstracts for 20-minute talks that focus on one of the following (or
similar) topics:</span><span style="font-size:11pt;font-family:Calibri"></span></p>
<ol style="margin-top:0in" start="1" type="1"><li class="MsoNormal" style="color:black;text-align:justify;vertical-align:baseline"><span style="font-size:11pt;font-family:Calibri">case studies
of individual contact situations that provide a detailed discussion of the
valence orientation of the languages in contact, in order to evaluate the
extent to which language contact played a role in shaping valence
orientation;</span></li><li class="MsoNormal" style="color:black;text-align:justify;vertical-align:baseline"><span style="font-size:11pt;font-family:Calibri">areal studies
of valence orientation;</span></li><li class="MsoNormal" style="color:black;text-align:justify;vertical-align:baseline"><span style="font-size:11pt;font-family:Calibri">global
cross-linguistic studies of valence orientation;</span></li><li class="MsoNormal" style="color:black;text-align:justify;vertical-align:baseline"><span style="font-size:11pt;font-family:Calibri">valence
orientation in pidgins, creoles, or mixed languages;</span></li><li class="MsoNormal" style="color:black;text-align:justify;vertical-align:baseline"><span style="font-size:11pt;font-family:Calibri">other aspects
of valence orientation in the context of language contact;</span></li><li class="MsoNormal" style="color:black;text-align:justify;vertical-align:baseline"><span style="font-size:11pt;font-family:Calibri">family biases
(Bickel 2011 and subsequent literature);</span></li><li class="MsoNormal" style="color:black;text-align:justify;vertical-align:baseline"><span style="font-size:11pt;font-family:Calibri">relevant
methodological issues and questions.</span></li></ol>
<p class="MsoNormal" style="text-align:justify"><span style="font-size:11pt;font-family:Calibri;color:black">Wordlist
approaches have been shown to give sensitive and rigorous measures of
cross-linguistic similarity and distance, and we especially welcome abstracts
that base the study of languages in contact on existing standard wordlists,
such as the list of 18 verb-pair meanings provided by Nichols et al. (2004) (revised
in </span><span style="font-size:11pt;font-family:Calibri"><a href="https://www.academia.edu/34318209/Realization_of_the_causative_alternation_Revised_wordlist_and_examples"><span style="color:rgb(17,85,204)">Nichols (2017)</span></a></span><span style="font-size:11pt;font-family:Calibri;color:black">), for
which roughly 200 languages have already been coded; the 31 verb-pair meanings
in Haspelmath (1993) or the 20 verb-pair meanings in Haspelmath et al. (2014);
or the 20-gloss list in Nau & Pakerys (2017/in press); or the 31-pair </span><span style="font-size:11pt;font-family:Calibri"><a href="http://watp.ninjal.ac.jp/en/"><span style="color:rgb(17,85,204)">WATP</span></a></span><span style="font-size:11pt;font-family:Calibri;color:black"> list. We also welcome
contributions that criticize existing wordlists or propose new ones.</span><span style="font-size:11pt;font-family:Calibri"></span></p>
<p class="MsoNormal"><span style="font-size:11pt;font-family:Calibri"> </span></p>
<p class="MsoNormal" style="text-align:justify"><span style="font-size:11pt;font-family:Calibri;color:black">Prospective
contributors should send us a title and short abstract (maximum 300 words;
non-anonymous) by <b>Monday, Nov. 6</b>.
Earlier inquiries are welcome. Proposals will be reviewed and we
will have notification by Nov. 15.<span> </span>If
the proposal is successful all participants will need to send in a full
abstract by the regular SLE conference deadline of Jan. 15, 2018.</span><span style="font-size:11pt;font-family:Calibri"></span></p>
<p class="MsoNormal"><span style="font-size:11pt;font-family:Calibri"> </span></p><p class="MsoNormal"><span style="font-size:11pt;font-family:Calibri">References:</span></p><p class="MsoNormal"><span style="font-size:11pt;font-family:Calibri"><br></span></p>
<p class="MsoNormal" style="margin-left:27pt"><span style="font-size:11pt;font-family:Calibri;color:black"><span> </span>Bickel, Balthasar. 2013 . Distributional
biases in language families. In: Balthasar Bickel, Lenore A. Grenoble, David A.
Peterson & Alan Timberlake (eds.), <i>Language typology and historical
contingency</i>, 415-444. Amsterdam: Benjamins</span><span style="font-size:11pt;font-family:Calibri"></span></p>
<p class="MsoNormal" style="margin-left:27pt"><span style="font-size:11pt;font-family:Calibri;color:black">Bickel,
Balthasar. 2015. </span><span style="font-size:11pt;font-family:Calibri"><a href="http://www.zora.uzh.ch/109110/"><span style="color:rgb(17,85,204)">Distributional typology:
statistical inquiries into the dynamics of linguistic diversity.</span></a></span><span style="font-size:11pt;font-family:Calibri;color:black"> In
Bernd Heine & Heiko Narrog (eds.), <i>The Oxford Handbook of Linguistic
Analysis, 2nd edition,</i> Oxford: Oxford University Press.</span><span style="font-size:11pt;font-family:Calibri"></span></p>
<p class="MsoNormal" style="margin-left:27pt"><span style="font-size:11pt;font-family:Calibri;color:black">Goldblatt,
Noa. In prep. Coding of causal-noncausal verb pairs in German speech islands: a
micro-typology. Unpublished manuscript.</span><span style="font-size:11pt;font-family:Calibri"></span></p>
<p class="MsoNormal" style="margin-left:27pt"><span style="font-size:11pt;font-family:Calibri;color:black">Grossman,
Eitan. 2017. Language-specific transitivities in contact: the case of Coptic.
Forthcoming in <i>Journal of Language Contact</i>.</span><span style="font-size:11pt;font-family:Calibri"></span></p>
<p class="MsoNormal" style="margin-left:27pt"><span style="font-size:11pt;font-family:Calibri;color:black">Haspelmath,
Martin. 1993. </span><span style="font-size:11pt;font-family:Calibri"><a href="https://www.academia.edu/3452966/More_on_the_typology_of_inchoative_causative_verb_alternations"><span style="color:rgb(17,85,204)">More on the typology of
inchoative/causative verb alternations.</span></a></span><span style="font-size:11pt;font-family:Calibri;color:black"> In</span><span style="font-size:11pt;font-family:Calibri"> </span><span style="font-size:11pt;font-family:Calibri;color:black">Bernard
Comrie & Maria Polinsky (eds.), Causatives and transitivity, 87–120.
Amsterdam: John Benjamins.</span><span style="font-size:11pt;font-family:Calibri"></span></p>
<p class="MsoNormal" style="margin-left:27pt"><span style="font-size:11pt;font-family:Calibri;color:black">Haspelmath,
Martin. 2017. Universals of causative and anticausative verb formation</span><span style="font-size:11pt;font-family:Calibri"> </span><span style="font-size:11pt;font-family:Calibri;color:black">and
the spontaneity scale. </span><span style="font-size:11pt;font-family:Calibri"></span></p>
<p class="MsoNormal" style="margin-left:27pt"><span style="font-size:11pt;font-family:Calibri;color:black">Haspelmath,
Martin, Andreea Calude, Michael Spagnol, Heiko Narrog & Elif Bamyaci. 2014.
</span><span style="font-size:11pt;font-family:Calibri"><a href="https://www.academia.edu/3853528/Coding_causal-noncausal_verb_alternations_a_form-frequency_correspondence_explanation"><span style="color:rgb(17,85,204)">Coding causal–noncausal verb
alternations: A form–frequency correspondence explanation</span></a></span><span style="font-size:11pt;font-family:Calibri;color:black">. <i>Journal
of Linguistics</i> 50(3): 587 - 625.</span><span style="font-size:11pt;font-family:Calibri"></span></p>
<p class="MsoNormal" style="margin-left:27pt"><span style="font-size:11pt;font-family:Calibri;color:black">Kulikov,
Leonid & Nikolaos Lavidas. 2015. Reconstructing voice and passive in
Proto-Indo-European. In: Leonid Kulikov & Nikolaos Lavidas (eds.)
Proto-Indo-European syntax and its development, 101-124. Amsterdam: John
Benjamins. </span><span style="font-size:11pt;font-family:Calibri"></span></p>
<p class="MsoNormal" style="margin-left:27pt"><span style="font-size:11pt;font-family:Calibri;color:black">Lavidas,
Nikolaos. 2009. Transitivity alternations in diachrony: changes in argument
structure and voice morphology. Cambridge: Cambridge Scholars.</span></p><p class="MsoNormal" style="margin-left:27pt">Levin, Beth, and Malka Rappaport Hovav. 1995. Unaccusativity: At the syntax-lexical semantics interface. Cambridge, MA: MIT Press.<br></p><p class="MsoNormal" style="margin-left:27pt"><span style="font-size:11pt;font-family:Calibri;color:black"></span><span style="font-size:11pt;font-family:Calibri"></span></p>
<p class="MsoNormal" style="margin-left:27pt"><span style="font-size:11pt;font-family:Calibri;color:black">Luchina-Sadan,
Elena. In prep. Causal-noncausal verb alternations in Yiddish in comparison
with Russian and German. Unpublished manuscript.</span><span style="font-size:11pt;font-family:Calibri"></span></p>
<p class="MsoNormal" style="margin-left:27pt"><span style="font-size:11pt;font-family:Calibri;color:black">Nau,
Nicole & Jurgis Pakerys. In press. Transitivity pairs in Baltic –
between Finnic and Slavic? In Katarzyna Janić and Nicole Nau, eds., <i>Correlations
of Valence-changing Operations Within and Across Languages. </i>Thematic issue
of<i> Linguistica Posnaniensis</i> 58:2. Poznań: Adam Mickiewicz
University and De Gruyter Open.</span><span style="font-size:11pt;font-family:Calibri"></span></p>
<p class="MsoNormal" style="margin-left:27pt"><span style="font-size:11pt;font-family:Calibri;color:black">Nichols,
Johanna, David A. Peterson & Jonathan Barnes. 2004. Transitivizing and
detransitivizing languages. <i>Linguistic Typology</i> 8: 149–211.</span><span style="font-size:11pt;font-family:Calibri"></span></p>
<p class="MsoNormal" style="margin-left:27pt"><span style="font-size:11pt;font-family:Calibri;color:black">Nichols,
Johanna. 2017. </span><span style="font-size:11pt;font-family:Calibri"><a href="https://www.academia.edu/28861776/Causative_alternation_wordlist"><span style="color:rgb(17,85,204)">Realization of the causative
alternation: Revised wordlist and examples.</span></a></span><span style="font-size:11pt;font-family:Calibri;color:black"> </span><span style="font-size:11pt;font-family:Calibri"></span></p>
<p class="MsoNormal" style="margin-left:27pt"><span style="font-size:11pt;font-family:Calibri;color:black">WATP.
The World Atlas of Transitivity Pairs (2014). Tokyo: National Institute
for Japanese Language and Linguistics. (Available online at: </span><span style="font-size:11pt;font-family:Calibri"><a href="http://watp.ninjal.ac.jp/en/"><span style="color:rgb(17,85,204)">http://watp.ninjal.ac.jp/en/</span></a></span><span style="font-size:11pt;font-family:Calibri;color:black"> )</span><span style="font-size:11pt;font-family:Calibri"></span></p>
<p class="MsoNormal"> </p>
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