Workshop on the Semantic and Pragmatic Properties of (Non-)Restrictivity, Stuttgart, 03.2012

[Fabienne Martin]

Semantic and Pragmatic Properties of (Non-)Restrictivity

Date: 19-Mar-2012 - 20-Mar-2012
Location: Stuttgart, Germany
Meeting Email: restrictivity at ims.uni-stuttgart.de
Web Site: http://www.ims.uni-stuttgart.de/~arndt/restrictivity.html

Call Deadline: 06-Jan-2012

Meeting Description:

Workshop on the Semantic and Pragmatic Properties of (Non-)Restrictivity

Invited Speakers:

Artemis Alexiadou (Universität Stuttgart)
Cathrine Fabricius-Hansen (Universitetet i Oslo)
Jutta Hartmann (Eberhard-Karls-Universität Tübingen)
Magdalena Kaufmann (Georg-August-Universität Göttingen)
Christopher Piñon (Université de Lille 3)
Carla Umbach (Universität Osnabrück)

Workshop Description:

Restrictivity - and its counterpart non-restrictivity - understood as
properties of natural language modifiers such as relative clauses,
adjectives, adverbials, PP- or nominal adjuncts, are fundamental
concepts in linguistic theory.

The question whether the modifier of a head is restrictive or not
depends on and has an influence on various linguistic levels. It is
reflected in syntax (pre- vs. postnominal modifier, attachment) and
prosody (accent placement, prosodic phrasing), and it is constrained
by semantic and pragmatic factors (concept type, information status,
information structure, entailment properties, projective meaning).

Despite the omnipresence of modification in natural discourse and
various attempts at defining (non-)restrictivity, there is still no
consensual definition which unites all structural and meaning-related
aspects, and which is robust enough to be used, for instance, in
corpus annotation.

Specific Questions:

i. Does the notion of (non-)restrictivity apply to modifiers in
indefinites in the same way as in definites? Why is it often difficult
to decide whether the modifier of an indefinite is restrictive or not?

ii. What difficulties arise when (non-)restrictivity applies in the
non-nominal domain, as with adverbials that modify events or states?
What is common and different between (non-)restrictive modifiers in
the verbal and the nominal domain?

iii. Restricting the denotation of a noun intuitively only makes sense
if its extension comprises more than one individual. Therefore,
restriction creates a set of alternatives. Is there an intrinsic
connection between restrictivity and focus?

iv. (Non-)restrictivity is often correlated with structural
(syntactic) differences. Is this generally the case or is it possible
that sometimes restrictive and non-restrictive phrases share the same
structure?

v. What does information structure theory tell us about the prosody of
(non-)restrictive phrases?

vi. What are the connections and the differences between the
restrictivity of (in-)definite expressions and the restrictivity of
other quantifiers?

vii. It has been proposed that evaluative modifiers are less easily
used as restrictive modifiers than non-evaluative ones. Do modifiers
more generally display a lexical bias for either a restrictive or a
non-restrictive reading, and if yes, what are the properties
responsible for those kinds of bias?

Call for Papers:

We invite anonymous submissions for 30-minute presentations. Abstracts
should be 1-2 pages in length, with a font size not smaller than 12pt
and margins of at least 2.5cm. Details for submission via easychair
will be given on the workshop webpage.

Important Dates:

Submission deadline: 6 January 2012
Notification: 27 January 2012
Workshop: 19-20 March 2012

For more information, contact: restrictivity at ims.uni-stuttgart.de

Workshop organized by Fabienne Martin (Institut für
Linguistik/Romanistik, SFB Project B5, "Polysemy in a Conceptual
System") and Arndt Riester (Institut für Maschinelle
Sprachverarbeitung, SFB Project A1, "Incremental Specification of
Focus and Givenness in a Discourse Context")

Hosted by the SFB 732 "Incremental Specification in Context" at the
University of Stuttgart.
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