31.2728, Calls: Hist Ling, Ling Theories, Morphology, Syntax, Typology/Germany

Fri Sep 4 01:39:47 UTC 2020

LINGUIST List: Vol-31-2728. Thu Sep 03 2020. ISSN: 1069 - 4875.

Subject: 31.2728, Calls: Hist Ling, Ling Theories, Morphology, Syntax, Typology/Germany

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Date: Thu, 03 Sep 2020 21:38:30
From: Thomas Strobel [th.strobel at lingua.uni-frankfurt.de]
Subject: Grammatical gaps: Definition, typology and theory

Full Title: Grammatical gaps: Definition, typology and theory 
Short Title: GrammGaps at DGfS43 

Date: 24-Feb-2021 - 26-Feb-2021
Location: Freiburg, Germany 
Contact Person: Thomas Strobel
Meeting Email: th.strobel at lingua.uni-frankfurt.de

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

Call Deadline: 20-Sep-2020 

Meeting Description:

Workshop organizers: Thomas Strobel and Helmut Weiß (Goethe University
Frankfurt)

Invited speakers (confirmed): Marga Reis (University of Tübingen) and Andrea
Sims (The Ohio State University)

Every language’s grammar exhibits systematic gaps and rule conflicts, i.e.
grammars do not fully and/or consistently determine all logically possible
constellations (or in Sapir’s famous words: ''Unfortunately, or luckily, no
language is tyrannically consistent. All grammars leak''). This fact has to be
taken into consideration by ''realistic'' grammar theories (Reis 2017).

In this exploratory workshop, we want to address the topic of structural gaps
or defectiveness from a definitional, descriptive-typological and
explanative-theoretical perspective (Strobel & Weiß 2019):

- Despite some delimitation problems, the concept of morphological, especially
paradigmatic gaps or inflectional defectiveness (Sims 2015) seems to be quite
clear, referring to expected (and often predictable) but non-existent forms of
certain lexemes. For syntax, though, it is far less obvious what should be
understood as a gap in this sense and if this should be determined
contrastively by language comparison (e.g. the absence of relative clauses in
some languages) or purely system-inherently (verb agreement with complex or
coordinated subject noun phrases).

- Which cross-linguistic generalizations can be drawn with respect to common
areas of defectiveness, which parts of grammar, e.g. syntactic categories, are
affected (most), and which areas seem to be immune instead?

- (Semantically) expected gaps (e.g. the lack of plural forms for mass nouns)
can be distinguished from arbitrary gaps. By which (non-general) principles
can the latter be explained historically and/or systematically
(phonological/phonotactic, morphological, syntactic, pragmatic causes)?

- Which mechanisms are used to (potentially) fill synchronic gaps or eliminate
defectiveness (suppletion, periphrases, borrowing etc.), which ones instead
operate on system-immanent and thus irremediable conflicts (in syntax e.g.
syncretisms, leading to 'grammatical illusions')?

- Can the concept of gradience in grammar (gradient/relative grammaticality,
vague grammaticality judgments etc.) be taken over to gradient defectiveness?

Second Call for Papers: 

We invite submissions for 20-minute oral presentations (+ 10 minutes
discussion) in English or German. We are equally interested in theoretical and
empirical contributions with evidence from all languages or dialects as well
as from all morphological and syntactic frameworks. Contributions on related
topics such as Ineffability, grammatical doubts or uncertainties (which, among
others, can be explained by gaps or conflicts) and grammatical illusions are
also warmly welcome. 

Abstracts should clearly state the research question(s), the methodological
approach as well as the (expected) results and should not exceed 1 page length
(A4, Times New Roman, 12 point, single-spaced), excluding references. The
(extended) deadline for submission is 20 September 2020. Please submit your
abstract anonymously to: https://easychair.org/cfp/GrammGaps-DGfS43.

A limited number of travel grants of up to 500 Euro are available for accepted
contributions by DGfS members without or with low income. Please note that the
regulations of the DGfS do not allow that workshop participants present two or
more papers in different workshops.

References:
Reis, Marga. 2017. Grammatische Variation und realistische Grammatik. In Marek
Konopka & Angelika Wöllstein (eds.), Grammatische Variation. Empirische
Zugänge und theore¬tische Modellierung, 255-282. Berlin & Boston: de Gruyter.
Sims, Andrea D. 2015. Inflectional Defectiveness. Cambridge: Cambridge
University Press.
Strobel, Thomas & Helmut Weiß. 2019. Von sprachlichen und nicht-sprachlichen
Lücken. In Gerrit Kentner, Frank Kügler, Beata Moskal & Stavros Skopeteas
(eds.), Tweets ‘n greets for Caroline Féry on the occasion of her farewell
from Goethe-University Frankfurt, 111-117. URL:
https://www.linguistik-in-frankfurt.de/blog/wp-content/uploads/2019/09/Tweet-n
-greets_CarolineFery.pdf.

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