30.3720, Calls: General Linguistics/Portugal
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LINGUIST List: Vol-30-3720. Thu Oct 03 2019. ISSN: 1069 - 4875.
Subject: 30.3720, Calls: General Linguistics/Portugal
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Date: Thu, 03 Oct 2019 00:49:25
From: Pilar Barbosa [pbarbosa at ilch.uminho.pt]
Subject: Null Objects from a Crosslinguistic and Developmental Perspective
Full Title: Null Objects from a Crosslinguistic and Developmental Perspective
Date: 18-Jun-2020 - 19-Jun-2020
Location: Braga, Portugal
Contact Person: Pilar Barbosa
Meeting Email: pbarbosa at ilch.uminho.pt
Web Site: http://cehum.ilch.uminho.pt/null
Linguistic Field(s): General Linguistics
Call Deadline: 08-Jan-2020
Meeting Description:
While null subjects have been reasonably well studied in Principles and
Parameters theory, null objects have received considerably less attention.
Different languages impose different restrictions on the use of missing
objects. While unspecified object drop is a widely attested phenomenon,
definite/anaphoric object drop is more restricted. Yet, it can be found in
typologically different languages ranging from those that lack agreement
inflection altogether, such as the Asian radical pro-drop languages (Huang,
1984) to those that have agreement inflection, but lack agreement with the
object, such as Finnish, Hebrew, Portuguese, the Slavic languages, etc. At the
same time, data from language acquisition have been taken to suggest that the
nonrealization of an object is an option widely available in early stages of
language development, even when the adult language severely restricts object
drop (Pérez-Leroux, Pirvulescu, & Roberge, 2008; Pérez-Leroux, Pirvulescu,
Roberge, & Castilla, 2013). Thus, investigating what features of the grammar
contribute to restricting or favoring object drop in particular languages is
fundamental to an adequate theory of missing arguments.
This meeting aims to provide a forum for discussion of aspects pertaining to
the issue of the licensing of null objects not only from a cross-linguistic
perspective but also in language development.
Call for Papers:
Currently, there are essentially two main approaches to object drop: the
argument ellipsis analysis, which claims that the null object is an elided
full-fledged nominal projection (Oku, 1998; Saito, 2004, 2007; Sato, 2012;
Takahashi, 2014 on Japanese and (Landau, 2018) on Hebrew), and null-anaphora
analyses, which posit that the null argument is a base-generated minimally
specified silent nominal, the meaning of which is pragmatically retrieved
(Cyrino, 2001; Erteschik-Shir, Ibnbari, & Taube, 2013; Li, 2014; Tomioka,
2003).
Raposo (1998) explores the possibility that null objects in EP are cases of NP
ellipsis under a null D, a hypothesis that has a lot in common with Tomioka's
(2003) claim that null NP anaphora/ellipsis is at the heart of argument drop
in Japanese. In this perspective, investigating null objects amounts to
investigating the conditions under which D is null or altogether absent. In
effect, Ruda's (2017) cross-linguistic study on English, Polish and Hungarian
concludes that the variation observed ''follows, first and foremost, from the
association of heads in the extended nominal phrases with phonemic features
and from the system of interpretation of nominal phrases in a language''
(Ruda, 2017, p. 4).
We welcome submissions that contribute to the discussion at hand both from a
theoretical perspective and from the perspective of research on monolingual
and bilingual language acquisition. Talks will be 40 minutes long (30 minutes
for presentation and 10 minutes for discussion). Topics may include, but are
not limited to the following questions:
a) Is there a relation between the contexts licensing object drop, and the
contexts licensing bare nominals in argument position? How does this relate to
the internal make-up of nominal projections in the language and Spell-out
conditions?
b) How does null object syntax relate to systems of interpretation of nominal
phrases in the language? What is the role of type-shifting processes in the
range of readings available for null objects? What is the role of LF-copying
rules?
c) In Portuguese and Hebrew, null objects are subject to an animacy
restriction (Cyrino, 2001; Erteschik-Shir et al., 2013). No such restriction
is attested in Russian. Why is there such a difference? Does the animacy
restriction relate to Differential Object marking, as argued by Schwenter
(2014)?
d) If children start with a generalized null object stage, what triggers the
acquisition of the relevant grammar in the domain of object expression?
e) Do children acquiring different null object languages show similar
syntactic and pragmatic constraints on the use of direct objects?
f) When does children's sensibility to animacy effects emerge in different
languages?
For abstract submission details, please visit the webpage:
http://cehum.ilch.uminho.pt/null
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