32.4058, Calls: Historical Linguistics, Typology/Romania

Thu Dec 30 06:00:09 UTC 2021

LINGUIST List: Vol-32-4058. Thu Dec 30 2021. ISSN: 1069 - 4875.

Subject: 32.4058, Calls: Historical Linguistics, Typology/Romania

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Date: Thu, 30 Dec 2021 00:59:06
From: Iker Salaberri [ikersalaberri at gmail.com]
Subject: Subordination and Language Change: New Cross-linguistic Approaches and Perspectives

Full Title: Subordination and Language Change: New Cross-linguistic Approaches and Perspectives 

Date: 24-Aug-2022 - 27-Aug-2022
Location: Bucharest, Romania 
Contact Person: Iker Salaberri
Meeting Email: ikersalaberri at gmail.com
Web Site: https://zenodo.org/record/5483871#.YTeKI9-xU2w 

Linguistic Field(s): Historical Linguistics; Typology 

Call Deadline: 15-Jan-2022 

Meeting Description:

A recurrent claim in the literature on language change concerns the
conservativeness of subordinate clauses, i.e., the tendency for innovations to
arise in main clauses and only later, if at all, extend to embedded contexts
(Lightfoot 1982: 154, Bybee et al. 1994: 230‒231, Crowley & Bowern 2010: 231).
A number of cross-linguistic grammatical asymmetries mapped along different
clause types have been accounted for by this view, concerning, for instance,
word order in Biblical Hebrew (Givón 1977: 191‒234), Chadic (Frajzyngier 1996:
165‒173), Germanic (Hock 1991: 330‒336) and Niger-Congo (Givón 1979: 259‒261).
The emergence of innovative morphology in main clauses vs. preservation of
obsolete morphology in subordinate clauses in Basque (Aldai 2000: 48), Cairene
Arabic (Mitchell 1956: 83‒85) and Tokyo Japanese (Matsuda 1993) has been
explained in the same terms. Matsuda (1998) and Bybee (2002) provide an
extensive overview of the reasons for this contrast between clause types.

There are, however, several issues with the view that subordinate clauses
preserve old features in the face of language change. First of all, some
scholars argue for the exact contrary, namely that innovative patterns emerge
in embedded contexts and only later extend to root clauses; this point has
been made in studies on reanalysis (Campbell 1991: 285‒299), word order change
(Stockwell & Minkova 1991: 399‒400) and the loss of null referential pronouns
in languages such as Old High German (Axel 2007: 307‒314), Middle French
(Vance 1997: 294‒321, Ledgeway 2021 among others) and Old Russian (Luraghi &
Pinelli 2015). Second, other contributions state that language change ensues
at equal rates in all contexts affected by the change (Kroch 1989: 206).
Third, comparative research on this topic is hampered by the fact that the
concepts clause and subordination have, despite their frequent use in the
literature, numerous definitions that vary depending on the conception of
grammar. As a result, there is a lack of comprehensive cross-linguistic
studies on the diachronic behavior of different clause types. This is despite
the fact that the increasing availability of grammatical descriptions and
access to digital corpora would enable such comparative research.

The aim of this workshop is to bring together scholars from different
theoretical persuasions working on historical linguistics, both in languages
with a well-documented history and languages for which less diachronic
evidence is available, but which can nonetheless provide valuable data on the
basis of comparative analysis. We welcome abstracts dealing with specific
languages as well as those which adopt a more general cross-linguistic
perspective. The following is a non-exhaustive list of possible topics:

- What evidence is there that specific clause (sub)types are more
innovative/conservative in the face of language change?
- To what extent do divergent conceptions of clause and subordination
condition our understanding of language change in different clause types?
- What are the causes for the divergent diachronic behavior of different
clause types?
- Does the diachronic behavior of different clause types vary depending on the
language, language stage, linguistic family or area under discussion?
- Does contact between languages influence the way in which change ensues in
different kinds of clause?
- How do frequency effects affect language change in different clause types?
- How can different statistic analyses help model the diachronic behavior of
various kinds of clauses?

2nd Call for Papers:

Dear Colleagues,

We are glad to let you know that our workshop “Subordination and language
change: new cross-linguistic approaches and perspectives” has been accepted
for the upcoming 55th Annual Meeting of the Societas Linguistica Europaea
(Bucharest, Romania, August 24-27, 2022).

For an updated version of the workshop, please see:
https://zenodo.org/record/5795050#.YcGNBVko-5c.

We now welcome 500 word-abstracts to be submitted via Easychair:
https://easychair.org/conferences/?conf=sle2022. When submitting, please
choose “WS12: Subordination and language change: new cross-linguistic
approaches and perspectives”.

The deadline for submission is January 15th, 2022.

Please note that submitters must be SLE members. Moreover, one person may be
the first author of only one submission of any kind (workshop paper, general
session paper, poster, or workshop proposal).

Practical information on how to submit abstracts:
https://societaslinguistica.eu/sle2022/abstract-submission/.
Guidelines about what long abstracts should contain:
https://societaslinguistica.eu/sle2022/third-call-for-papers/.
Link for joining the SLE: https://societaslinguistica.eu/membership/.

Best,

Iker Salaberri
Annemarie Verkerk
Anne Wolfsgruber

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