21.2960, Calls: General Ling, Ling Theories/Belgium

Sat Jul 17 19:57:16 UTC 2010

LINGUIST List: Vol-21-2960. Sat Jul 17 2010. ISSN: 1068 - 4875.

Subject: 21.2960, Calls: General Ling, Ling Theories/Belgium

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1)
Date: 16-Jul-2010
From: Jeroen van Craenenbroeck < jeroen.vancraenenbroeck at hubrussel.be >
Subject: BCGL5: Case at the interfaces

-------------------------Message 1 ---------------------------------- 
Date: Sat, 17 Jul 2010 15:54:41
From: Jeroen van Craenenbroeck [jeroen.vancraenenbroeck at hubrussel.be]
Subject: BCGL5: Case at the interfaces

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Full Title: BCGL5: Case at the interfaces 

Date: 02-Dec-2010 - 03-Dec-2010
Location: Brussels, Belgium 
Contact Person: Jeroen van Craenenbroeck
Meeting Email: bcgl at crissp.be
Web Site: http://http://www.crissp.be/events/bcgl5.html 

Linguistic Field(s): General Linguistics; Linguistic Theories 

Call Deadline: 05-Sep-2010 

Meeting Description:

GIST (Ghent) and CRISSP are proud to present the fifth installment of the 
Brussels Conference on Generative Linguistics (BCGL5): Case at the 
interfaces, to be held in Brussels on December 2-3, 2010.

We are pleased to announce that the following invited speakers have 
agreed to give a talk at BCGL5:David Pesetsky (MIT), Mark Baker (Rutgers 
University), and Halldór Sigurðsson (Lund University). 

Call For Papers

Theme description

Ever since Vergnaud's famous letter to Chomsky and Lasnik in 1976 
(recently published as Vergnaud 2006), C/case has been at the center of 
attention of generative theorizing. In the early GB-days, the focus on case 
was mostly due to the fact that the Case Filter led to a number of significant 
theoretical advances and to a much higher degree of unification (see 
Bobaljik & Wurmbrand 2008). In particular, not only did it result in the 
abandonment of the non-explanatory, descriptive *NP-to-VP-filter (Chomsky 
& Lasnik 1977), it also--in conjunction with Burzio's generalization--made 
possible a unified, construction-neutral analysis of passives, unaccusatives 
and raising constructions (Burzio 1986), and led to a deeper understanding 
of word order differences between nominal and clausal complements 
(Stowell 1981). Moreover, the relation between a case-assigning verb and 
its accusative object or between a preposition and its complement, termed 
government, was soon to become one of the most crucial theoretical 
primitives in the then developing framework, its effects extending well 
beyond case theory proper.

With the advent of the Minimalist Program came a radical reduction of the 
number of theoretical primitives--including the abandonment of government-
-as well as a heightened focus on the interaction between the syntactic 
module on the one hand and the articulatory- perceptual (A-P) 
andconceptual-intentional (C-I) interfaces on the other. Once again, case 
took center stage, but this time mainly because it refused to be 
straightforwardly assimilated into the new theoretical perspective. On the C-
I-side, case seems to be a feature that is uninterpretable both on the Probe 
and on the Goal, and as such it differs from other formal features such as 
[phi] or [wh]. This has prompted Chomsky (1995ff) to propose that case 
valuation is a side effect of the [phi]-Agree-relation between T/v on the one 
hand and the subject/object on the other. Bo?kovi? (2005) on the other 
hand takes the radical uninterpretability of case to be the driving force 
behind the word order alternations traditionally ascribed to the EPP. Others 
have taken a different perspective and have argued that case morphology 
is the spell-out of syntactic features that have an interpretable counterpart. 
The precise identification of these features differs and ranges from Tense 
(Pesetsky & Torrego 2001, 2004), to Aspect (Kratzer 2004, Svenonius 
2001, 2002, 2006, 2007), to categorial features (Pesetsky 2009).

At the A-P-interface case is the topic of a division-of-labor-debate between 
morphology and syntax. Based on Zaenen, Maling and Thráinsson's (1985) 
seminal paper on Icelandic, Marantz (1991) concluded that the distribution 
of case affixes was determined entirely in a post-syntactic morphological 
module, and that the syntactic effects of case might be reducible to 
independent, non-case related principles such as the EPP. Marantz's work 
has been further developed by among others Bobaljik & Wurmbrand 
(2008), Bobaljik (2008), Schütze (1997), McFadden (2004), and Sigurðsson 
(2006, 2009). At the same time, however, there is a substantial body of 
work arguing that case checking/valuation forms part and parcel of syntax 
proper (see a.o. Pesetsky 2009, Pesetsky & Torrego 2001, 2004, Bo?kovi? 
2005), while others argue for a more mixed approach (Legate 2008, Baker 
& Vinokurova 2008, Caha 2009).

For the fifth Brussels Conference on Generative Linguistics we welcome 
papers on any topic related to the issues raised above. In particular, 
questions that the conference seeks to address include--but are not limited 
to--the following:
- Is case a strictly formal licensing mechanism (''the formal feature par 
excellence'' Chomsky 1995:278-9) or is it connected to semantic content?
- Is structural case the (uninterpretable) manifestation on a DP of features 
which are semantically interpretable only on verbal projections?
- How closely connected are (the conditions on) case assignment and the 
assignment of theta-roles?
- How closely connected are (the conditions on) case assignment and the 
characterization of event structure?
- Do PPs bear case? Is case assignment associated with argument-hood or 
DP-hood? 
- Which level of the (decomposed) verbal structure is relevant for the 
determination of case?
- What is the relation between finiteness and nominative? 
- Is genitive case a reflection of an underlying predication structure? 
- Is case assigned by one head or is it made available by the combination of 
two/several heads? 
- Should (inherent and/or structural) case be represented as a head, e.g. a 
K-head? Does case morphology project? What is the empirical evidence for 
this/these head(s)? What is its/their semantic/syntacticfunction/contribution? 
- Should structural case and inherent (idiosyncratic/lexical and semantic) 
case be distinguished from each other, or can these notions be collapsed? 
- Should morphological case be distinguished from syntactic or abstract 
case? If so, how should syntactic/abstract case be defined? What is its 
relation to overt case manifestations? Does variation in morphological case 
endings have syntactic relevance? 
- What is the evidence in favor of assuming case features in the syntax? If 
such features exist, can/must they be further decomposed into more basic 
syntactic features? 
- Can dependent/non-dependent case systems exist side by side with 
Agree(ment)-based systems or are they mutually exclusive? 
- Do we need a notion of default case? If so, how does it come about and 
what determines which case is default in which language?

Invited Speakers:
We are pleased to announce that the following invited speakers have 
agreed to give a talk at BCGL5:David Pesetsky (MIT), Mark Baker (Rutgers 
University), and Halldór Sigurðsson (Lund University)

Abstract Guidelines:
Abstracts should not exceed two pages, including data, references and 
diagrams. Abstracts should be typed in at least 11-point font, with one-inch 
margins (letter-size; 8'' 1/2 by 11'' or A4) and a maximum of 50 lines of text 
per page. Abstracts must be anonymous and submissions are limited to 2 
per author, at least one of which is co-authored.

Only electronic submissions will be accepted. Please submit your abstract 
using the EasyAbs link for BCGL5: http://linguistlist.org/confcustom/bcgl5

Important dates:
First call for papers: July 16, 2010 
Second call for papers: August 16, 2010 
Abstract submission deadline: September 5, 2010 
Notification of acceptance: October 15, 2009 
Conference: December 2-3, 2010

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