28.4250, Calls: Syntax, Semantics/Estonia

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LINGUIST List: Vol-28-4250. Mon Oct 16 2017. ISSN: 1069 - 4875.

Subject: 28.4250, Calls: Syntax, Semantics/Estonia

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Date: Mon, 16 Oct 2017 15:03:59
From: Werner Abraham [werner.abraham at lmu.de]
Subject: Thetic- vs. Categorical: Distinctions and Commonalities

 
Full Title: Thetic- vs. Categorical: Distinctions and Commonalities 

Date: 29-Aug-2018 - 01-Sep-2018
Location: Tallinn, Estonia 
Contact Person: Werner Abraham
Meeting Email: werner.abraham at lmu.de
Web Site: http://www.societaslinguistica.eu/ 

Linguistic Field(s): Semantics; Syntax 

Call Deadline: 05-Nov-2017 

Meeting Description:

The workshop aims at closely investigating thetic vs. categorical sentence
types and their relation between meaning and form well as their distributional
behavior in sundry languages. The thetic-categorical distinction relates to
the notions of simple and double judgment introduced by the 19th century
logicians Brentano and Marty. Simple and double judgment play a role in
predication logic. Pertinent sentence types have occasionally been in the
center of attention by linguists trying to relate them to modern and better
studied notions (analytic vs. synthetic, individual vs. stage level, habitual,
generic, a.s by Sasse, Ladusaw, Kuroda, Maienborn, Leiss, among others).
Respective sentence types like German Es sind/gibt/hat KÜHE im Gar­ten ‘There
are cows in the garden’ – AUF­tritt MAC­BETH (with stage location) ‘Enters
Macbeth’ have in common that they are used as text starters. By common
definition, true text starters are sentences that do not presuppose a
precontext, nor are they part of coherent dialogues (Harweg 1968). In more
syntactic terms, the sentential prefield (SpecCP) hosting topical material
remains empty. By contrast, the very same sentences lose their text-incipient
status as soon as, e.g. in German and Dutch, a modal discourse particle/MP
(or, more generally, an attitudinal operator) is selected. See the stage
direction AUFtritt ebenMP MACBETH. A major constraint for thetic sentences is
that in German (and Dutch), MPs as well as other origo indexations cannot
appear. Compare [COMMON GROUND/ TOPIC ABOUT Es sind eben Kühe auf unserem
Rasen ‘There are cows on our lawn right now/as you know’ as opposed to
[EXCLANATIVE Es sind (*eben) Kühe auf unserem Rasen] ‘There are cows on our
lawn, surprise/dismay’. Notice the latter with its non-at issue mirative
speech act status.


Call for Papers:

The recent decades are marked with a considerable reticence with respect to
the study of the encoding of theticity. In languages such as German and
Japanese, a sentence with attitudinal adverbials and similar modal and speech
act/origo indexations cannot be used as a stage direction for a drama script
since the German modal particle eben entails a common discourse ground with a
topic(-about) that the communicators had reached before. The two types of
sentences, those with and without a precontext, run under the terminology of
categorical sentence (with a topic) vs. thetic sentence (no topic, true text
starters). As to these, Kuroda has claimed that Japanese has morphological
means to unambiguously distinguish thetic from categorical sentences: thetics
are marked by the suf­fix –ga for indefinite nominative DP, whereas the suffix
for categorical status is –wa, which is also used to mark topicality (in the
sense of the discourse opposition thema-rhema). German, in contrast to
Japanese, has no morphological means to signal discourse status or theticity.

Other sentential types, however, seem to be subject to similar constraints,
and relations to the thetic-categorical distinction have been drawn, among
which with similar oppositional pairs. The WS pursues the following issues,
among others: 

1. Following Ladusaw, Milsark, Carlson, Maienborn, and others, it is tempting
to compare the categor­ical-thetic distinction with concepts such as
thema-rhema, individual level-stage level predicates, synthetic-analytic,
weak-strong quantization, mereological homogeneity-inhomogeneity and other
relations. However, it is far from clear to what extent these categories cover
the range and distributional sensitivity of thetics vs. categoricals. 
2. It seems that, given the discursive distinction in the following sentences,
Kuroda’s topicality generalization has to be replaced by a common ground
criterion. A striking example appears in the following context: Father tries
to decide which of his two kids, Kai and Momo, did wrong. A:  Kai-ga warui
gives no room for further discussion. Father has come to the conclusion that
Kai did wrong. B: Kai-wa warui, however, signals that the decision has not
been taken yet there being room for further negotiation. In modern
conceptualizations, the common ground for A, which collects speak­er’s and
addressee’s know­ledge-about, the topic under discussion has led to a definite
result, whereas that for B has not yet reached a result and is in need of
further checking out motivations and details of informa­tion. Notice that the
Japanese nominative suffix -ga allows for thetic implementation, while -wa
excludes thetic status as it presupposes a topic-about and a common ground
status still to be negotiated. 

Our call for papers is directed to those who pursue the topic along lines of
the WS goals as sketched above. Empirical material covering non-European
languages is highly welcome. Please approach the organizer or anyone of the
program committee and, preferably, send along a (preliminary version of your)
short abstract describing your contribution.

Organizer:
 
Werner Abraham (Vienna University, Ludwig Maximilian University Munich)
werner.abraham at lmu.de)

Program committee:

Werner Abraham (Vienna, Munich), Elisabeth Leiss (Munich), Shin Tanaka
(Tokyo), Yasuhiro Fujinawa (Tokyo)

Calender:

November 5, 2017: Deadline for the submission of the short abstract. Abstracts
will be evaluated by the convenors, and selected abstracts will accompany the
workshop proposal. We will notify you of inclusion in the workshop proposal
when we submit it on November 15. 




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