29.3772, Calls: Historical Ling, Ling Theories, Psycholing, Syntax, Typology/Germany

[The LINGUIST List]

LINGUIST List: Vol-29-3772. Mon Oct 01 2018. ISSN: 1069 - 4875.

Subject: 29.3772, Calls: Historical Ling, Ling Theories, Psycholing, Syntax, Typology/Germany

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Date: Mon, 01 Oct 2018 15:54:11
From: Maia Duguine [maia.duguine at iker.cnrs.fr]
Subject: V2 Effects in the World’s Languages

 
Full Title: V2 Effects in the World’s Languages 

Date: 21-Aug-2019 - 24-Aug-2019
Location: Leipzig, Germany 
Contact Person: Maia Duguine
Meeting Email: maia.duguine at iker.cnrs.fr

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

Call Deadline: 09-Nov-2018 

Meeting Description:

(Session of 52nd Annual Meeting of the Societas Linguistica Europaea)

Workshop convenors: Maia Duguine, Michael Zimmermann

Germanic languages, with the major exception of Modern English, are
characterized by the regular occurrence of the finite verb in second position
in main clauses, particularly declaratives, a property widely known as ‘verb
second’ (V2). In the classical formal approach this configuration is assumed
to result from the attraction of the finite verb to the highest clausal head
(C) along with the appearance of an element in its outer edge (Thiersch 1978,
den Besten 1983). 
 
Old Romance languages, even though they display V>2 orders quite robustly,
have been characterized as obeying a similar constraint: the occurrence of the
finite verb in at least second position (cf. Jouitteau 2009). While some
researchers assume that Old Romance languages have a non-V2 system with V2
configurations following from stylistic, pragmatic or information-structural
factors (e.g. Kaiser 1999, 2002, Sitaridou 2011, Elsig 2012, Varga 2017 for
Old Romance; Haeberli 2005 for Old English), others propose to conceive of
Germanic V2 as part of a wider set of V2 effects obtaining in other languages
(e.g. Old English (Pintzuk 1993), Old Romance (e.g. Benincà 2013, Salvi 2012,
Wolfe 2015)).

Modern English and Modern Romance languages likewise display V2 effects in
specific contexts, in particular main wh-interrogatives:

(1) Which battery type would you recommend? [English] 
(2) Quel livre a-t-elle acheté ? [French]
which book has-she  bought 
Which book did she buy?

These languages have been labelled ‘residual’ V2 (Rizzi 1996), the
implications being that the V2 effects are the residue of an earlier V2
grammar, and that, in these constructions, the finite verb moves to C to enter
into a Spec-Head relation with the fronted wh-phrase. However, these languages
also deviate to various degrees from V2 order in the contexts at issue, a
state of affairs that challenges the classical V2 approach (e.g. Suñer 1994,
Barbosa 2001, Goodall 2004). A case in point is the order of the subject and
the finite verb in e.g. Brazilian Portuguese, in which the former regularly
precedes the latter (e.g. Ambar 2008, Kato 2012):

(3) Que  livro  a   Maria comprou? [Brazilian Portuguese]
which book  DET Mary  bought
Which book did Mary buy?

Among the many other languages that exhibit similar V2 effects is Basque, an
SOV language that, for centuries, has been in close contact with Romance. In
Basque, the wh-phrase as well as the focal-phrase occur immediately
left-adjacent to the verbal cluster (e.g. Ortiz de Urbina 1989, 1995, Irurtzun
2007):

(4) Nork eman dio Mireni   liburua? [Basque]
 who  give AUX Miren.to book
 Who gave the book to Miren?

These adjacency effects have been associated with a general ban on verb-first
(or tense-first) sentences (*V1) (Ortiz de Urbina 1989, 1994, Uriagereka 1999,
Elordieta & Haddican 2017):

(5) a.*Dator Miren. [Basque]
come.3sg Miren  
Miren comes. 
b. Miren dator.
Miren come.3sg

They have also led to the classification of Basque, along with numerous other
SOV languages, as a wh-in-situ language (e.g. Richards 2010, Dryer 2012).
Alternative accounts argue for a ‘residual V2’ analysis, involving the
leftward movement of the wh-phrase and the verb (Ortiz de Urbina 1989, 1995),
and are hereby able to concomitantly tackle the fact that, in the context of
long-distance movement, the wh-phrase appears left-adjacent to the matrix verb
(Irurtzun 2007, 2008):

(6)Nork uste  duzu [esan duela    Jonek _ erosi duela   liburua]?
who  think AUX   say  AUX.that Jon     buy   AUX.that book
Lit. Who do you think that Jon said bought the book?

The notion of V2 thus possibly constitutes a lens through which to explore the
question of wh-in-situ in SOV languages.


Call for Papers:

The aim of this workshop is to bring together scholars working within a
variety of theoretical frameworks and adopting either a diachronic or modern
synchronic perspective to shed light on V2 effects in languages that are not
commonly considered to have a strict V2 grammar. In particular, the typology
of V2 effects is to be explored cross-linguistically to determine whether
there is a common syntactic basis as well as, more generally, to gain deeper
insights into the structure of the left periphery of the clause.
 
We invite abstracts that bear on V2 effects from theoretical and experimental
angles, addressing the issue in any pertinent language. In particular,
questions that the workshop seeks to address include – but are not limited to
– the following:

- What languages, beyond the Germanic ones, are relevant to the V2 typology?
- How do ‘at least V2’ languages as well as ‘*V1 languages’ fit into this
typology?
- What is to be made of ‘residual V2 languages’, in which V2 effects are
confined to particular syntactic contexts?
- Do V2 effects constitute a uniform phenomenon cross-linguistically or, at
least, in particular language groups/families (e.g. Modern Romance)?
- How can the tendency, noted in the typological literature, for wh-phrases
and foci to surface in a position adjacent to the verb in SOV languages be
theoretically conceived of? 
- Does language contact play a role in V2 effects being an areal phenomenon in
e.g. Europe?
- What do changes in word order in the history of particular languages teach
us on the nature of V2 as well as its typology?

Please send a provisional abstract (.doc & .pdf) of max. 300 words (without
references) for a 20-minute presentation to v2worldslanguages at gmail.com by no
later than November 9, 2018 for possible inclusion into the workshop proposal
to be submitted to SLE 2019 organisers.

Meeting email: v2worldslanguages at gmail.com




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