27.4062, Calls: Gen Ling, Lang Acquisition, Semantics, Syntax, Typology/Switzerland

Tue Oct 11 17:13:55 UTC 2016

LINGUIST List: Vol-27-4062. Tue Oct 11 2016. ISSN: 1069 - 4875.

Subject: 27.4062, Calls: Gen Ling, Lang Acquisition, Semantics, Syntax, Typology/Switzerland

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Date: Tue, 11 Oct 2016 13:13:41
From: Silvio Cruschina [silvio.cruschina at univie.ac.at]
Subject: Non-canonical Postverbal Subjects

Full Title: Non-canonical Postverbal Subjects 

Date: 10-Sep-2017 - 13-Sep-2017
Location: Zurich, Switzerland 
Contact Person: Silvio Cruschina
Meeting Email: silvio.cruschina at univie.ac.at

Linguistic Field(s): General Linguistics; Language Acquisition; Semantics; Syntax; Typology 

Call Deadline: 05-Nov-2016 

Meeting Description:

In the last two decades, a great deal of progress in the understanding of the
notion subject has been made by investigating non-canonical subjects, namely,
predicate arguments of a given language that share some - but not all -
patterns of grammatical coding and behaviour with the subject of that language
(Aikhenvald et al. 2001, Barðdal & Eythórsson 2003, 2009, Bhaskararao &
Subbarao 2004, Cennamo 2011, Seržant & Kulikov 2013). The narrowing down of
the investigation to non-canonical subjects has led to the development of a
number of useful criteria and tests for subjecthood.

Following this line of investigation, in this workshop we aim to bring
together linguists working on a specific subclass of non-canonical subjects,
namely postverbal ones. The goals of the workshop embrace the investigation of
semantic, pragmatic and morpho-syntactic properties of postverbal subjects.
Ultimately, we aim to contribute to the understanding of the notion subject,
its cross-linguistic extent and its limitations.

The following questions will be addressed in the workshop:

- Which morpho-syntactic properties characterize clauses with non-canonical
postverbal subjects?

A typologically-adequate theory of the relative significance of the variables
influencing V-S agreement (e.g. presence of an expletive, definiteness of the
postverbal DP, semantics of the predicate) is still a desideratum. The
relationship between the postverbal DP and a non-nominative constituent in a
preverbal subject position (e.g. the mechanisms that guarantee case marking)
are also debated.

- Are there any general semantic and pragmatic constraints on postverbal
subjects?

Preverbal subjects correlate with the discourse role of topic, whereas
postverbal subjects are typically foci. Definiteness constraints and the
semantics of the predicate also play a crucial role, as is evidenced by the
investigation of unaccusativity and, more generally, of avalent and
low-agentivity predicates.

- Does the postverbal DP of constructions that disallow preverbal subjects
exhibit the same properties as non-canonical postverbal subjects?

Subject inversion is typical of sentence types that require a specific word
order (e.g. interrogative sentences). Preverbal subjects are also disallowed
in specific constructions such as existentials, or locative and negative
inversion. The question of whether the postverbal DP of these constructions
shares the same properties as postverbal subjects elsewhere is worth
investigating. 

- Does the acquisition of non-canonical postverbal subjects differ from that
of preverbal subjects?

Several studies have suggested that certain subject properties are acquired
earlier than others. More recently, the comparison between languages with
rigid and flexible word order has led to the design of experiments targeting
the production and interpretation of postverbal subjects in acquisition.
Further work on the acquisition of non-canonical postverbal subjects is
desirable.

- Is the non-canonicality of posteverbal subjects limited to languages with
predominant SVO order?

A broader issue is whether the morphosyntactic, semantic and pragmatic
properties are at all shared by postverbal subjects in languages with
word-order typologies other than SVO, as well as by the postverbal argument in
intransitive constructions of languages which offer little or no evidence for
the subject.

Organizers:

Delia Bentley (The University of Manchester)
Silvio Cruschina (University of Vienna)

Call for Papers:

We invite submissions that contribute to the description, discussion, and
analysis of the issues concerning non-canonical postverbal subjects (see
Workshop Description), both from an Indo-European and a non-Indo-European
perspective. We welcome contributions from all frameworks and approaches,
including synchronic, diachronic, data-driven, corpora, discourse,
typological, and theoretical analyses. Preliminary abstracts (300 words,
excluding references, as DOC and/or PDF file) should be sent to both workshop
organizers (delia.bentley at manchester.ac.uk, silvio.cruschina at univie.ac.at) by
5 November 2016. The selected abstracts will be included in the workshop
proposal to be submitted to the 50th Annual Meeting of the Societas
Linguistica Europea (SLE), which will be held at the University of Zurich,
10-13 September 2017.

Important Dates:

5 November 2016: Deadline for submission of 300-word abstracts to organizers
20 November 2016: Notification of acceptance by the workshop organizers
25 November 2016: Submission of the workshop proposals to SLE
25 December 2016: Notification of acceptance of workshop proposals from SLE
15 January 2017: Deadline for submission of all abstracts to SLE for review
31 March 2017: Notification of paper acceptance
10–13 September 2017: SLE conference

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