21.459, Calls: Ling Theories, Morphology, Syntax, Semantics, Psycholing/Austria

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LINGUIST List: Vol-21-459. Thu Jan 28 2010. ISSN: 1068 - 4875.

Subject: 21.459, Calls: Ling Theories, Morphology, Syntax, Semantics, Psycholing/Austria

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1)
Date: 27-Jan-2010
From: Dalina Kallulli < voice2010.linguistics at univie.ac.at >
Subject: Morphological Voice and its Grammatical Interfaces
 

	
-------------------------Message 1 ---------------------------------- 
Date: Thu, 28 Jan 2010 13:31:37
From: Dalina Kallulli [voice2010.linguistics at univie.ac.at]
Subject: Morphological Voice and its Grammatical Interfaces

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Full Title: Morphological Voice and its Grammatical Interfaces 
Short Title: Voice2010 

Date: 25-Jun-2010 - 27-Jun-2010
Location: Vienna, Austria 
Contact Person: Dalina Kallulli
Meeting Email: voice2010.linguistics at univie.ac.at
Web Site: http://homepage.univie.ac.at/dalina.kallulli/voice2010/voice2010.htm 

Linguistic Field(s): Linguistic Theories; Morphology; Psycholinguistics;
Semantics; Syntax 

Call Deadline: 15-Mar-2010 

Meeting Description:

The Department of Linguistics at the University of Vienna will host a workshop
on 'Morphological Voice and its Grammatical Interfaces: Theoretic Modelling and
Psycholinguistic Validation', to be held from 25 to 27 June 2010. 

Call for Papers

The Department of Linguistics at the University of Vienna will host a workshop
on "Morphological Voice and its Grammatical Interfaces: Theoretic Modelling and
Psycholinguistic Validation", to be held from 25 to 27 June 2010.

Invited Guest Speakers:
- Heidi Harley (Arizona)
- Paul Kiparsky (Stanford)
- Jason Merchant (Chicago)
- Ianthi Tsimpli (Thessaloniki)

We hereby invite abstracts for 45-minutes oral presentation, including
discussion, on any aspect of the morpho-syntax, semantics, pragmatics and
acquisition of Voice across languages. Abstracts should be anonymous and no
longer than two pages, including references and examples, with margins of at
least 1 inch, in 12-point Times New Roman, single-spaced. 

Submissions are limited to a maximum of one individual and one joint abstract
per author. Anonymous abstracts should be submitted via email to:
voice2010.linguistics at univie.ac.at

The deadline for submission of abstracts is Monday 15 March 2010.
Notification of acceptance will be by Thursday 1 April 2010.

Topics include but are not limited to: voice syncretisms, voice gaps (including
the synthetic/analytic dimension), variance of morphological realization of
voice paradigms within and across languages, interaction of voice with other
elements (e.g. tense, aspect, mood), voice and ellipsis, the role of voice in
argument expression and interpretation (e.g. transitivity alternations,
so-called "non-selected" arguments, etc.). Among others, the following are
potential issues that could be considered by contributors.

1. Voice syncretisms:
It is well-known that verbs appearing in different syntactic constructions such
as the passive, reflexive, middle, unaccusative, etc. can share identical
voice(-related) morphology, which can involve a pronoun (e.g. German), a clitic
(e.g. Romance), or a verbal inflection (e.g. Albanian, Greek, Japanese, Latin).
Such syncretisms remain a central topic in the research on verb alternations and
the relationship between syntax and morphology. E.g. Embick (1997) argues that
voice morphology does not bring about syntactic changes, but instead reflects
syntactic configurations. 

In contrast, Reinhart & Siloni (2005) argue that syncretism between
unaccusatives and reflexives is due to a morphological reduction applying to
reflexives, taking place either in the lexicon or in the syntax, depending on
the language. More generally, various competing linguistic theories are based on
different methodological assumptions with respect to whether morphology reflects
or affects syntactic structure. For instance, in Head-Driven Phrase Structure
Grammar and Lexical Functional Grammar morphology in the lexicon actively
affects syntax, in contrast for instance to Distributed Morphology in which
morphology simply realizes syntax. Furthermore, even when the conception of
morphology affecting syntactic structure is not directly assumed, e.g. syntactic
derivation by phase as in Chomsky (2001), a morpheme in
one phase can influence syntactic structure in the next phase.

2. Voice gaps:
While much research has focused on voice syncretisms, to date no theory accounts
for what may be referred to as voice gaps, defined either along the
synthetic/analytic dimension, or as cases where 'marked' voice morphology, e.g.
non-active, fails to appear. Voice gaps are as highly relevant for morpho-syntax
and hence grammatical theory as are voice syncretisms. Such gaps are familiar
from better studied languages such as German or Italian (Grewendorf 1989,
Steinbach 2002, for German, Sorace 2004), which despite lacking full voice
paradigms, exhibit voice-related marking. Research on languages with full voice
paradigms mentions such gaps but without full analyses (Haspelmath 1993, Embick
1997, Alexiadou & Anagnostopoulou 2004 for Greek; Gianollo 2000 for Latin).

Basically, while passive verbs cannot appear in active voice, both alternating
and non-alternating unaccusatives, sometimes within one language can, for given
sets of verbs, either: (i) be exclusively non-active; (ii) exclusively active;
(iii) (optionally) non-active or active; or (iv) have different paradigms for
different tenses. In other words, voice gaps across languages appear to arise
only with unaccusatives. This situation challenges even the most basic claims
about non-active voice. For instance, the correlation between non-active voice
and lack of an external argument is at best an imperfect one. What feature then
distinguishes non-active morphology from active voice?

3. (Non-)Blocking forms in the voice system:
A long-standing idea is that a morphological component does not tolerate
doublets for a given slot in a paradigm, a generalization that is usually
modeled in terms of so-called blocking, whereby a more specific/marked form
blocks the use of a less specific/less-marked form (Kiparsky 1973). Yet, the
co-existence in anticausatives of both 'marked' and 'non-marked' forms for
given verbs constitutes at first sight an instance of non-blocking.

Alternatively, the different forms are competing for a certain meaning or
paradigm slot. This kind of variation raises questions for any theories of voice
and/or blocking. Which factors govern distributions of competing forms? Which
factors determine the winner?

4. Variance of morphological realization:
Alternations of inflections with clitics and periphrastic constructions have
become increasingly important for models of the morpho-syntax of voice. What
grammatical factors regulate this morphological variation? How do such marks for
voice interact with Tense, Aspect, Mood and/or other morpho-syntactic elements?
What is the role of economy constraints for such data? Do periphrastic forms
only realize restricted feature combinations (Kiparsky 2005)? Can they be
epiphenomenal and arise from the absence of features?

5. Deponents:
Deponent verbs (i.e. non-active/passive verbs lacking active counterparts)
continue to be a major challenge for a theory of voice and voice alternations,
especially in view of recent observations, such as the fact that V-V compounds
in Greek are not attested with deponents while they are with transitives
(Kiparsky 2009), or that deponents are largely denominal or deadjectival (Xu,
Aronoff & Anshen 2007 for Latin). As this seems to be a one-way correlation,
questions arise about the role of the nominal or adjectival source.

6. 'Non-selected' datives:
Much recent research has highlighted the existence of 'marked' voice(-related)
morphology in constructions with so-called "non-selected" datives across a range
of languages (Kallulli 1999, Rivero 2004, Maru?i? & ?aucer 2006, Schäfer 2008).
However, the question what exactly the role of voice morphology is in such
constructions remains an issue of debate, as do questions of implementation
(e.g. flavors of v, applicative heads, etc.).

7. Psycholinguistic aspects:
The passive construction develops late in many languages (Borer & Wexler 1987,
Fox & Grodzinsky 1998, Terzi & Wexler 2002, i.a.). Given frequent passive /
unaccusative syncretism in certain languages and their close relation in
production (Kim 2007), unaccusatives should also develop relatively late
(Babyonyshev, Ganger, Pesetsky & Wexler 2001). Nonetheless, Mauner & Koenig
(2000) find asymmetries in adult processing of passives and anticausatives.
Questions pertinent to the workshop concern the alleged difference in the
processing among unaccusatives, adjectival passives and verbal passives both in
typical and atypical populations, e.g. in different types of aphasia (Piñango
1999, Grodzinsky 2000). And if some or all adjectival passives are syntactically
composed (Kratzer 1996, Emonds 2003), re-evaluation of processing differences
between adjectival and verbal passives is in order. Finally, Foutiadou & Tsimpli
(2009) find that developing L1 grammar shows evidence for multiple ambiguities
in the interpretation of non-active and active morphology on the same verb,
while the adult data show more unambiguous interpretations.

References Cited:
Alexiadou, A. & E. Anagnostopoulou (2004) Voice morphology in the
causative-inchoative alternation: evidence for a non-unified structural analysis
of unaccusatives. In A. Alexiadou et al. (eds.) The Unaccusativity Puzzle
114-136. Oxford: OUP.

Babyonyshev, M., J. Ganger, D. Pesetsky & K. Wexler (2001) The maturation of
grammatical principles: Evidence from Russian unaccusatives. Linguistic Inquiry
32:1-44.

Borer, H. & K. Wexler (1987) The maturation of syntax. In T. Roeper & E.
Williams (eds.) Parameter Setting 23-172.  Dordrecht: Reidel.

Chomsky, N. (2001) Derivation by phase. In M. Kenstowicz (ed.) Ken Hale: A life
in language. 1-52. Cambridge, Mass.: MIT Press.

Embick, D. (1997) Voice and the Interfaces of Syntax. Doctoral Dissertation.
University of Pennsylvania.

Fotiadou, G. & I. Tsimpli (2009) On the L1 acquisition of passives and
reflexives in Greek: Does frequency count? (To appear in Lingua)

Gianollo, C. (2000) Il medio in latino e il fenomeno dell'intransitività scissa.
Master Thesis. University of Pisa.

Grewendorf, G. (1989) Ergativity in German. Dordrecht: Foris.

Grodzinsky, Y. (2000) The neurology of syntax: language use without Broca's
area. Behavioral and Brain Sciences 23 (1): 47-117.

Haspelmath, M. (1993) More on the typology of inchoative/causative verb
alternations. In B. Comrie & M. Polinsky (eds.) Causatives and Transitivity.
Amsterdam: John Benjamins.

Kallulli, D. (1999) Non-active morphology in Albanian and event (de)composition.
In I. Kenesei (ed.) Crossing Boundaries 263-292. Amsterdam: Benjamins.

Kim, C. (2007) Structural priming and non-surface representations. Proceedings
of NELS 37. Amherst: GLSA.

Kiparsky, P. (1973) "Elsewhere" in Phonology. In S. Anderson & P. Kiparsky (eds)
A Festschrift for Morris Halle 93-106. New York: Holt, Rinehart and Winston.

Kiparsky, P. (2005) Blocking and periphrasis in inflectional paradigms. Yearbook
of Morphology 2004:113-35.

Kiparsky, P. (2009) Verbal co-compounds and subcompounds in Greek. MIT Working
Papers in Linguistics 57.

Kratzer, A. (1996) Severing the external argument from its verb. In J. Rooryck &
L. Zaring (eds.) Phrase Structure and the Lexicon.

Maru?i?, F. & R. ?aucer (2006) On the Intensional Feel-Like Construction in
Slovenian: A Case of a Phonologically Null Verb. Natural Language and Linguistic
Theory 24(4): 1093-1159.

Mauner, G. & J-P. Koenig (2000) Linguistic vs. conceptual sources of implicit
agents in sentence comprehenstion. Journal of Memory and Language 43:110-134.

Piñango, M. (1999) Syntactic displacement in Broca' s aphasia comprehension. In
Y. Grodzinsky & R. Bastiaanse (eds.) Grammatical Disorders in Aphasia: A
Neurolinguistic Perspective 75-87. London: Whurr.

Reinhart, T. & T. Siloni (2005) The lexicon-syntax parameter: reflexivization
and other arity operations. Linguistic Inquiry 36(3): 389-436.

Rivero, M-L. (2004) Datives and the non-active voice/reflexive clitic in Balkan
languages. In O. Tomic (ed.) Balkan Syntax and Semantics 237-267. Amsterdam:
Benjamins.

Schäfer, F. (2008) The Syntax of (Anti-)Causatives. Amsterdam: Benjamins.

Sorace, A. (2004) Gradience at the lexicon-syntax interface: Evidence from
auxiliary selection. In Alexiadou et al. (eds.), The Unaccusativity Puzzle
243-268. Oxford: OUP.

Steinbach, M. (2002) Middle Voice. Amsterdam: John Benjamins.

Xu, Zh, M. Aronoff & F. Anshen (2007) Deponency in Latin. In Baerman et al.
(eds.) Deponency and Morphological Mismatches 127 - 144. Oxford: OUP.





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