28.3001, Calls: Lang Acquisition, Morphology, Semantics, Syntax, Typology/United Kingdom

[The LINGUIST List]

LINGUIST List: Vol-28-3001. Tue Jul 11 2017. ISSN: 1069 - 4875.

Subject: 28.3001, Calls: Lang Acquisition, Morphology, Semantics, Syntax, Typology/United Kingdom

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Date: Tue, 11 Jul 2017 12:08:14
From: Maria J Arche [m.j.arche at greenwich.ac.uk]
Subject: Tenselessness

 
Full Title: Tenselessness 

Date: 05-Oct-2017 - 06-Oct-2017
Location: London, United Kingdom 
Contact Person: Maria J. Arche
Meeting Email: m.j.arche at greenwich.ac.uk
Web Site: https://www.gre.ac.uk/ach/events/tenselessness/home 

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

Call Deadline: 20-Jul-2017 

Meeting Description:

Meeting Title: Workshop on Tenselessness
Venue: University of Greenwich, London (UK)

This workshop is about the syntax and semantics of verbal forms that lack
morphological tense marking. Its aim is to bring together researchers working
on tenseless languages and uninflected clauses together to discuss the
following questions concerning tenselessness.

Tense locates the situation we speak about in time, which is crucial for
adequate comprehension. Can a clause or a language be tenseless, then?
Infinitives and many languages in the world lack tense indication (e.g.,
Mandarin Chinese, Salishan Lillooet, Halkomelem, in British Columbia,
Algonquian Blackfoot in Alberta, Kalaallisut in Greenland, Guaraní and Ayoreo
in Paraguay, Yucatec Maya in Mexico, Navajo in Southern US, or Hausa in West
Africa). However, to discern whether such absence is a case of phonologically
null morphemes or absence of Tense altogether is intricate. While Matthewson
(2006) defends that tense content cannot be ruled out for Blackfoot, Ritter &
Wiltschko (2014) argue that person and location constitute the substance of
Inflection. In the absence of tense, other categories, e.g., Mood (in
Kalaallisut, Bittner 2014 or Hausa, Mucha 2015) or Aspect (Lin 2012 for
Chinese) are said to establish temporal interpretation. However, this
formalisation and whether these are mere tendencies is debated (Klein et al
2000). Finally, what light can uninflected forms (e.g., infinitives) shed onto
the issue? Some authors (Wurmbrand 2014) argue all are tenseless, while others
(Stowell 1982) defend only certain types are with aspect being the temporal
provider too (Stowell 2007; Zwart 2014).

AIM of the workshop: to bring together researchers working on tenseless
languages and uninflected clauses together to discuss tenselessness:

- What counts as evidence of a null but present Tense or no Tense at all? 
- How are subject licensing phenomena (e.g., Nominative case) accounted for in
the absence of Tense?
- How is temporal interpretation obtained and acquired in the absence of
explicit cues? 
- How does temporal interpretation work in uninflected cases in tensed
languages?
 
Invited speakers: 

- Professor Lisa Matthewson, University of British Columbia 
- Professor Wolfgang Klein, Max Planck Institute for Psycholinguistics 
- Professor Tim Stowell, University of California Los Angeles
- Professor Jan-Wouter Zwart, University of Groningen


Call for Papers:

We welcome abstracts for 30-minute papers (plus 10 min for discussion)
addressing one or more issues about the syntax and semantics of Tense and its
morphological null expression and its acquisition. 
- The language of the workshop is English. 
- Abstracts exclusively containing the title of the presentation should be
submitted to the conference address at m.j.arche at greenwich.ac.uk in pdf
format. 
- Abstracts should be no longer than two pages, including examples and
references, with 2.5 cm margins in 12-point Times, single-spaced. 
- Submissions are limited to one individual and one joint abstract per author.




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