28.4251, Calls: Historical Linguistics, Syntax, Typology/Estonia

[The LINGUIST List]

LINGUIST List: Vol-28-4251. Mon Oct 16 2017. ISSN: 1069 - 4875.

Subject: 28.4251, Calls: Historical Linguistics, Syntax, Typology/Estonia

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Date: Mon, 16 Oct 2017 15:04:47
From: Johanna Nichols [johanna at berkeley.edu]
Subject: Valence Orientation in Contact: a Cross-Linguistic Perspective

 
Full Title: Valence Orientation in Contact: a Cross-Linguistic Perspective 

Date: 29-Aug-2018 - 01-Sep-2018
Location: Tallinn, Estonia 
Contact Person: Johanna Nichols
Meeting Email: johanna at berkeley.edu
Web Site: http://sle2018.eu/ 

Linguistic Field(s): Historical Linguistics; Syntax; Typology 

Call Deadline: 15-Nov-2017 

Meeting Description:

Organizers: Eitan Grossman, Riho Grünthal, and Johanna Nichols 

Nichols, Peterson & Barnes (2004) have proposed that a general typological
parameter of languages is their VALENCE ORIENTATION – that is, the overall
tendency of a language to treat members of causal-noncausal verb alternations
in a particular way. In some languages, verbs with meanings like seat and
scare tend to be formally derived from verbs meaning sit and fear (e.g.,
Nanai, Lakhota), while in other languages, the direction of derivation is the
converse (e.g., Russian, Maasai). Yet other languages tend to treat both
members as derived (e.g., Ingush, Hausa), or neither member as derived (e.g.,
Ewe, Ossetic). This work intersects with Haspelmath (1993, 2017) and
Haspelmath et al. (2014), which show that some members of causal-noncausal
pairs tend to be coded as causatives, while others tend to be coded as
anticausatives. All of the above studies are interested in form-meaning and/or
form-frequency correspondences, as are studies conducted in generative
frameworks (e.g., Levin & Rappoport Hovav 1995 and subsequent literature). 

However, meaning- or usage-based explanations (called ‘functional theories’ in
Bickel 2015), which appeal to cognitive or communicative biases, may be only
one part of an account of cross-linguistic diversity in basic valence
orientation or, more broadly, in the coding of causal:noncausal verb pairs.
Another possible set of factors is ‘event-based’ (Bickel 2015), i.e.,
historical contingencies that have brought speakers of different languages
into contact, potentially leading to convergence, on the one hand, or
divergence, on the other. Therefore it is important to directly target the
possibility that the distribution of valence orientation across languages is
influenced by language contact. Preliminary support for this possibility is
found in Haspelmath (1993), which points to a European preference for
anticausatives, or Nichols et al.’s (2004) finding that basic valence
orientation tends to pattern areally. For example, transitivizing languages,
which prefer the formal derivation of a causal verb from a noncausal verb, are
especially prominent in Northern Asia and in North America, while they are
strongly dispreferred in Africa, Australia, and Europe.

Such broad areal distributions are the point of departure for the proposed
workshop on Valence Orientation as a Contact-Influenced Parameter: A
Crosslinguistic Perspective. The hypothesis to be investigated in this
workshop is that valence orientation is prone to contact-induced change. This
hypothesis still remains to be evaluated on the basis of detailed case studies
that specifically target valence orientation in actual contact situations.
Indeed, several studies point to the possibility of convergence in valence
orientation in certain contact situations. 

- Kulikov & Lavidas (2015) point to an areal split within Indo-European, such
that verb lability increased in the western languages (e.g., Romance and
Germanic) and decreased in the eastern languages (e.g., Indo-Aryan and
Armenian).
- Coptic and Koine Greek, which were in intensive contact in Late Antique
Egypt, both developed an increased tendency to labile verbs (Grossman 2017,
Lavidas 2009). 
- Russian Yiddish has moved away from the Germanic profile towards a strong
detransitivizing preference as in Russian, while United States Yiddish has
shifted towards a preference for labile verbs as in English (Luchina-Sadan, in
prep.), as has Pennsylvania German (Goldblatt, in prep.).


Call for Papers:

We invite abstracts for 20-minute talks that focus on one of the following (or
similar) topics:

1. Case studies of individual contact situations that provide a detailed
discussion of the valence orientation of the languages in contact, in order to
evaluate the extent to which language contact played a role in shaping valence
orientation
2. Areal studies of valence orientation
3. Global cross-linguistic studies of valence orientation
4. Valence orientation in pidgins, creoles, or mixed languages
5. Other aspects of valence orientation in the context of language contact
6. Family biases (Bickel 2011 and subsequent literature)
7. Relevant methodological issues and questions.

Wordlist approaches have been shown to give sensitive and rigorous measures of
cross-linguistic similarity and distance, and we especially welcome abstracts
that base the study of languages in contact on existing standard wordlists,
such as the list of 18 verb-pair meanings provided by Nichols et al. (2004)
(revised in Nichols (2017)), for which roughly 200 languages have already been
coded; the 31 verb-pair meanings in Haspelmath (1993) or the 20 verb-pair
meanings in Haspelmath et al. (2014); or the 20-gloss list in Nau & Pakerys
(2017/in press); or the 31-pair WATP list.  We also welcome contributions that
criticize existing wordlists or propose new ones.

Prospective contributors should send us a title and short abstract (maximum
300 words; non-anonymous) by Monday, Nov. 6.  Earlier inquiries are welcome. 
Proposals will be reviewed and we will have notification by Nov. 15.  If the
proposal is successful all participants will need to send in a full abstract
by the regular SLE conference deadline of Jan. 15, 2018.




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