30.4189, Calls: Gen Ling, Psycholing, Syntax, Text/Corpus Ling, Typology/Romania

[The LINGUIST List]

LINGUIST List: Vol-30-4189. Wed Nov 06 2019. ISSN: 1069 - 4875.

Subject: 30.4189, Calls: Gen Ling, Psycholing, Syntax, Text/Corpus Ling, Typology/Romania

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Date: Wed, 06 Nov 2019 07:14:24
From: Savithry Namboodiripad [savithry at umich.edu]
Subject: SLE 2020 Workshop: New Perspectives on Word Order Flexibility

 
Full Title: SLE 2020 Workshop: New Perspectives on Word Order Flexibility 

Date: 26-Aug-2020 - 29-Aug-2020
Location: University of Bucharest, Romania 
Contact Person: Savithry Namboodiripad
Meeting Email: savithry at umich.edu

Linguistic Field(s): General Linguistics; Psycholinguistics; Syntax; Text/Corpus Linguistics; Typology 

Call Deadline: 15-Nov-2019 

Meeting Description:

As a wider set of empirical tools is applied to persistent questions in
syntactic typology, distinctions which were previously treated as categorical
have been revisited. Recent work using corpus-based entropy metrics (Levshina
2019) and acceptability judgment experiments (Namboodiripad 2017, 2019) has
argued for a gradient approach to word/constituent order, moving beyond
categorical definitions such as “free” or “rigid.” This approach aims to
describe order data more precisely, avoiding data reduction and a bias towards
bimodally distributed preferred word order patterns (cf. Wälchli 2009). It
also enables us to model correlations between word/constituent order and other
language-internal and language-external variables, and to understand
functional pressures that are responsible for the emergence of probabilistic
constraints.

In this workshop, we seek to bring together novel research on variation in
word and constituent order, asking about the range of cross-linguistic
variation, the sources of this variation, and the methods that might be most
appropriate to capture it.


Call for Papers:

This is a call for abstracts for a workshop proposal for SLE 2020 in
Bucharest, Romania. 26-29 August 2020. We seek 300 word abstracts which
investigate variation in word/constituent order from a variety of
perspectives.

The questions that we would like to address include, but are not limited to,
the following:

What are the advantages and disadvantages of using different types of data
when describing word order flexibility? 
What are the areas of convergence and divergence of different methods?
What is the appropriate level of lexical and syntactic granularity for
measuring word order flexibility?
How can word order flexibility be explained by communicative and cognitive
constraints?
What changes to theoretical approaches are necessary in order to capture
flexibility?
What is the relationship between flexibility and processing/production
pressures?
What might explain individual or group-level differences in word order
flexibility?
Are there discernable patterns in how flexibility changes due to language
contact?
How might a more granular approach to flexibility help explain historical
change in word/constituent order? 

If approved, the workshop will be part of the 53rd Annual Meeting of the
Societas Linguistica Europaea (SLE) in Bucharest, August 26 - 29. We are
soliciting abstracts of 300 words which consider variation in word order or
constituent order, with a special interest in comparative or typological
approaches and work which includes understudied languages or varieties. 

We encourage contributions from students and junior scholars.  

300-word abstracts (excluding references) should be emailed to
savithry at umich.edu, natalevs at gmail.com, or arkram at umich.edu by November 15 in
pdf format. The organizers will contact the authors of the chosen abstracts by
November 19, which will then be submitted as part of the workshop proposal. If
approved, the authors must submit revised 500-word abstracts according to the
SLE guidelines before January 15, 2020.




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