27.4141, Calls: Gen Ling, Historical Ling, Syntax, Text/Corpus Ling/Switzerland

Sat Oct 15 01:47:22 UTC 2016

LINGUIST List: Vol-27-4141. Fri Oct 14 2016. ISSN: 1069 - 4875.

Subject: 27.4141, Calls: Gen Ling, Historical Ling, Syntax, Text/Corpus Ling/Switzerland

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Date: Fri, 14 Oct 2016 21:46:17
From: Eva Zehentner [eva.zehentner at univie.ac.at]
Subject: Ditransitives in Germanic Languages

Full Title: Ditransitives in Germanic Languages 
Short Title: DinG 

Date: 10-Sep-2017 - 13-Sep-2017
Location: Zurich, Switzerland 
Contact Person: Eva Zehentner
Meeting Email: ditransitives2017 at gmail.com

Linguistic Field(s): General Linguistics; Historical Linguistics; Syntax; Text/Corpus Linguistics 

Call Deadline: 20-Nov-2016 

Meeting Description:

This workshop aims to showcase and bring together research on ditransitive
constructions in West-Germanic languages and their dialects past and present. 

Most basically, ditransitives can be defined as verbs involving three semantic
roles, namely an agent, a recipient-like argument, and a theme. As exemplified
in the following sentences, in Germanic languages these verbs typically occur
in (or alternate between) nominal and prepositional patterns, although the
association between these patterns is not equally systematic and pervasive in
all languages.

(1) English:

a. The man sent his brother a book.
b. The man sent a book to his brother.

(2) Dutch:

a. De man heeft zijn broer een boek gestuurd.
b. De man heeft een boek aan zijn broer gestuurd.

(3) German:

a. Der Mann schickte seinem Bruder ein Buch.
b. Der Mann schickte ein Buch (zu) seinem Bruder.

In English, ditransitives are among the most extensively researched syntactic
constructions, with the 'dative alternation' exemplified in (1) having
received a great deal of attention across all theoretical frameworks (see e.g.
Green 1974; Barss & Lasnik 1986, Pinker 1989; Goldberg 1995, 2006; Croft 2003;
Levin & Rappaport Hovav 2005; Mukherjee 2005; Gerwin 2014; Perek 2015).
However, even within English, studies have mainly focused on synchronic
descriptions of ditransitives, while interest in diachronic aspects of
ditransitives has only rather recently been sparked (e.g. Colleman & De Clerck
2011; De Cuypere 2015; Yáñez-Bouza & Denison 2015; Zehentner 2016). The last
decades have also seen a growing interest in ditransitives in other Germanic
languages (e.g. Barðdal 2008; Colleman 2009), and in the typology of
ditransitives in general (Malchukov, Haspelmath & Comrie 2010).

Despite the broad coverage in the literature, we still know little about the
cross-linguistic pervasiveness of ditransitive constructions (be they
historical or synchronic), the variability of factors that drive the choice of
dative variant, and the cognitive reality of these factors. It is the aim of
this panel to tackle and, if possible, bridge these gaps. More specifically,
the research questions that this panel would like to address may include but
are not restricted to:

1) To what extent do language-external factors, such as time, register or
region, influence the ordering of constituents in ditransitives?
2) How does the diachronic development of ditransitives in one Germanic
language relate to another? What differences or similarities can be found and
how can we explain them?
3) To what extent do psycholinguistic processes (e.g. processing) offer
explanations for regional or historical differences in ditransitives?
4) How are ditransitives (and alternation relationships) cognitively
represented, and are these cognitive representations cross-linguistically
robust? 
5) How can we account for idiosyncratic or rare patterns, as well as
unexpected constraints and biases in the use of ditransitives?
6) Are ditransitives socially malleable and if so, to what extent? 

Workshop Convenors:

Timothy Collemann (Ghent University)
Melanie Röthlisberger (KU Leuven)
Eva Zehentner (University of Vienna)

Call for Papers:

Against this background, we invite abstracts of empirical studies
(experimental or corpus-based) related to one or more of the questions above.
We especially welcome studies that bring together different theoretical
frameworks, research methodologies or languages.

We invite researchers to submit an anonymised abstract of 300 words (excluding
references) to DITRANSITIVES2017 at gmail.com by November 20, 2016. Talks will be
20 minutes each, with 5 minutes for discussion and 5 minutes for speaker
change. The workshop will start with an introduction by the organisers, who
will summarise previous research, the research questions addressed in the
workshop and the scope of the papers to be presented. The workshop will be
concluded with a final discussion. 

The workshop proposal to be submitted to the SLE organisers will include all
participants’ abstracts. Notification of acceptance/rejection of the workshop
proposal by the SLE will be given by 25 December 2016. If our workshop
proposal has been accepted, we will invite all preliminary workshop
participants to submit their full abstracts by 15 January 2017 to the general
call for papers for review.

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