34.1798, Confs: Syntax at the vP edge in African languages

Tue Jun 6 02:05:04 UTC 2023

LINGUIST List: Vol-34-1798. Tue Jun 06 2023. ISSN: 1069 - 4875.

Subject: 34.1798, Confs: Syntax at the vP edge in African languages

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Date: 05-Jun-2023
From: Anke Himmelreich [himmelreich at lingua.uni-frankfurt.de]
Subject: Syntax at the vP edge in African languages

Syntax at the vP edge in African languages
Short Title: SASAL III

Date: 29-Jun-2023 - 30-Jun-2023
Location: Frankfurt Main, Germany
Contact: Johannes Mursell
Contact Email: j.mursell at lingua.uni-frankfurt.de
Meeting URL: https://mabia-vp.com/tiki-index.php?page=Workshop:-The-sy
ntax-at-the-vP-edge-in-African-languages

Linguistic Field(s): Linguistic Theories; Morphology; Syntax

Meeting Description:

Recent years have seen a heightened interest in research into
previously undocumented and understudied languages, particularly on
the African continent. The SASAL (Syntax and Semantics of African
Languages) workshop series is intended to continue this line of
research and to provide a forum for linguists working on these
languages to exchange ideas and theoretical approaches to a wide range
of phenomena.

As part of our DFG-funded project “The VP-periphery in Mabia
languages”, we are happy to announce the third installment in this
workshop series, SASAL III, which will focus on the syntactic
processes taking place at the vP edge. For example, it has become
clear that information-structural notions like focus do not only
impact movement to the clausal left periphery (see Amaechi 2020 for
Igbo (Volta-Niger), Issah 2020 for Dagbani (Mabia), a.o.) but that
they also play a role for the vP edge, in triggering the (sometimes
obligatory) presence of certain particles. Take, for example, the
sentence pair in (1) from Gurene (Mabia), where the post-verbal
particle 'la' is obligatory in cases of in-situ focus, including cases
of in-situ wh-questions.

(1) (a)
Adam korege-ri *(la) beni?
Adam slaughter-IPFV LA what
'What is Adam slaughtering.'
(b)
Adam korege-ri *(la) nua.
Adam slaughter-IPFV LA fowl
'Adam is slaughtering fowl.'

In addition to information-structural marking, the area around the vP
edge, i.e. the positions immediately above and below it, is of course
the area of the clause where most of the tense, aspect, mood (TAM),
and negation marking takes place, as well as the encoding of the
conjoint/disjoint alternation (for Bantu cf. van der Wal & Hyman
2017). Frequently, all these processes interact with each other, very
often in non-trivial ways. But possible interactions are not limited
to these elements, as it has been argued that even A'-movement out of
the vP phase can have an observable impact in this area if the clause.

References:
- Amaechi, Mary Chimaobi (2020): A′-movement dependencies and their
reflexes in Igbo. Ph. D. thesis. University of Potsdam
- Issah, Samuel Alhassan (2020): On the structure of A-bar
constructions in Dagbani: Perspectives of ''wh''-questions and
fragment answers.Berlin: Peter Lang
- Van der Wal, Jenneke and Hyman, Larry M. (2017): The
conjoint/disjoint alternation in Bantu. Trends in Linguistics. Studies
and Monographs [TiLSM], 301. Berlin: De Gruyter Mouton

Invited Speakers:
Maria Kouneli (Leipzig)
t.b.a.
(see WEBSITE for updates)

Program:

We are happy to announce the workshop "The syntax at the vP edge in
African languages" as the third installment of the series "The syntax
and semantics of African languages (SASAL III). The workshop will take
place in a hybrid fashion on June 29-30, 2023. Part of the talks will
be at the conference venue at the Campus Westend of the Goethe
University in Frankfurt, Germany, other talks will take place over
Zoom.

Visit the workshop's website for the program and more information:
https://mabia-vp.com/tiki-index.php?page=Workshop:-The-syntax-at-the-v
P-edge-in-African-languages

If you want to participate (in person or via Zoom), please register
beforehand. The link for registration can be found on the workshop's
website.

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