28.3113, Calls: Lang Documentation, Ling Theories, Morphology, Syntax, Typology/South Africa

Tue Jul 18 16:53:18 UTC 2017

LINGUIST List: Vol-28-3113. Tue Jul 18 2017. ISSN: 1069 - 4875.

Subject: 28.3113, Calls: Lang Documentation, Ling Theories, Morphology, Syntax, Typology/South Africa

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Date: Tue, 18 Jul 2017 12:53:12
From: Ken Safir [safir at linguistics.rutgers.edu]
Subject: The Syntax of Agreement in African Languages

Full Title: The Syntax of Agreement in African Languages 

Date: 02-Jul-2018 - 06-Jul-2018
Location: Cape Town, Western Cape, South Africa 
Contact Person: Ken Safir
Meeting Email: safir at linguistics.rutgers.edu

Linguistic Field(s): Language Documentation; Linguistic Theories; Morphology; Syntax; Typology 

Call Deadline: 31-Aug-2017 

Meeting Description:

This ICL Workshop explores the syntax of agreement in African languages. While
not every language has agreement of one form or another, most have exponents
of agreement, even if it is only antecedent agreement (such as a reflexive
form agreeing with its antecedent). Some syntactic theories, such as Chomsky’s
minimalism, regard agreement as a fundamental primitive relation underlying
the structure of all languages, even those where agreement exponents are
scarce. Agreement relations are fundamentally syntactic since there are very
few linear effects, that is, proximity between exponent and associate depends
on syntactic relations, often relations at a distance, yet bounded by a
syntactically-defined localit domain. For example, minimalist theorists
propose that the same syntactic configurations that license overt agreement in
some languages, also license other syntactic relations, such as displacement
and constituent chunking, and do so even in languages with scarce agreement
exponents. This panel focuses on agreement relations in African languages
where agreement morphology is rich and/or atypical as a window into the
syntactic relations that must be possible given attested morphology, setting
boundary conditions on what any theory of agreement must be able to account
for.

A very wide range of syntactic agreement relations are found in African
languages. Subject-verb agreement must always identify the syntactic subject,
not just the closest noun, even in cases of single conjunct agreement, or when
the thematic subject is in a non-canonical position and still agrees.
Non-adjacent agreement effects are widespread, such as agreement between
complement clause complementizers and matrix subjects e.g., Kawasha (2007),
logophoric agreement with operators and anaphors (e.g., Adesola, 2005), and
forms of extraction leave agreement residues in the clauses they pass through,
as in Dinka Bor (van Urk and Richards, 2015) or in Zulu raising out of finite
clauses (Halpert, 2012) or hyper-agreement (e.g. Carstens, 2011), where main
verbs and auxiliaries both agree with the subject. Agreement relations also
include verb-object agreement (e.g. Marten and Kula, 2008, a. o., on Bantu),
wh-question-operator-C agreement and anti-agreement (e.g., Schneider-Zioga,
2007, for Kinande), C and lower subject, adjectives internal to nominals, and
adverbs agreeing with arguments (e.g., Carstens and Diercks, 2013 on Lubukusu)
and contexts of default agreement. The features of agreement are most commonly
for noun class, number and person, but agreement for animacy, humanness,
tense, reciprocity and even voice (Letsholo and Safir, 2017). Differences in
what is agreed for can distinguish the syntax of one form of agreement from
another (e.g., Baker, 2008 on noun class and number vs. person). Papers on any
other exponent-associate relation where syntactic relations require
corresponding morphology are welcome as well as typological work that reveals
the organization of agreement exponents (e.g., Corbett, 1991, Kramer, 2015).

Successful abstracts will be those that contribute to our understanding of the
syntax of agreement, either by presenting empirical patterns, language
internally or across African languages, that specifically bear on the boundary
conditions that any successful general theory of agreement must address, or
that reveal generalizations about the morphological organization of agreement
exponents (paradigms, syncretisms, the role of idioms in agreement), or by
presenting theoretical approaches that enhance our understanding of agreement
patterns in African languages.

Call for Papers:

Successful abstracts will be those that contribute to our understanding of the
syntax of agreement, either by presenting empirical patterns, language
internally or across African languages, that specifically bear on the boundary
conditions that any successful general theory of agreement must address, or
that reveal generalizations about the morphological organization of agreement
exponents (paradigms, syncretisms, the role of idioms in agreement), or by
presenting theoretical approaches that enhance our understanding of agreement
patterns in African languages.

Please select the workshop name when submitting your abstract via the ICL
portal: http://www.icl20capetown.com/index.php/2016-06-20-10-33-33/abstracts

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