Call for Papers: LP '96

[George Fowler]

Greetings!
     I am posting this at the request of someone who doesn't subscribe to
SEELangs; please reply to the address in the Call for Papers, not to me!
     George Fowler

         The Department of Linguistics and Finno-Ugric Studies
                                and
                  The Institute of Phonetic Studies
                    Faculty of Philosophy and Arts
             Charles University, Prague (Czech Republic)

                       announce a conference

   LP'96: Typology: prototypes, items orderings and universals

                         August 20-22 1996

   This is the third LP (Linguistics and Phonetics) conference of the
   two departments within the space of six years. The first was held in
   1990, the second in 1994 (Proceedings of LP'90 are still available on
   request from Charles University Press - Karolinum (Ovocny trh 5,
   Prague 1, 11636) or from the Department of Linguistics and Finno-
   Ugric Studies, Proceedings of LP'94 will be available in July 1995).

   The term item-order was the central term discussed at the LP'94
   Conference.The term "item" was used in the sense of any linguistic
   unit such as phoneme, morpheme, syllable, word, word-form, phrase,
   clause, sentence. The primary aim of LP'96 is to contribute to the
   clarification of the role of item-order in typology and to its
   interrelationship with other language means in typology.

   Topics will focus among other on following questions:

   1) What does a possible type of natural language entail? What
   parameters differentiate language from other phenomena? The topic
   includes among other: Biological, genetic and philosophical aspects
   of linguistic universals; function-form approach to typology; the
   role of comparison of acoustic and perception phenomena in both
   natural and synthetic speech signals; internal and external phonetic
   values; kinds of iconicity/ isomorphism/ economy at individual levels
   of linguistis analysis; markedness of item-orderings (e.g. is it
   meaningful to differentiate fixed and free word-order according to
   the dichotomy unmarked-marked?)

   2) Which factors are relevant for classification as such and for
   classification of languages in particular? The topic includes among
   other: the processses of reduction and clustering of linguistic
   phenomena; substruction of linguistic properties; the concept of type
   of languages.

   3) What is the foundation of typology as a linguistic discipline? The
   topic includes among other: kinds of typology: traditional typologies
   (morphological, syntactic, semantic), cognitive typology
   (configurational vs non-configurational languages, Baker's
   incorporation, mirror principles, kinds of raising, etc.),
   classification of typologies (parameters).

   4) Is linguistic typology only the subject of theoretical discussions
   or has it consequences for linguistic applications? The topic
   includes: consequences for language teaching, for linguistic
   databases,  for development of text-editors, for multilingual
   communication and multimedia in www in contrast with monolingual
   communication, etc.

   Organizing Committee:

   Frantisek Danes (Czech Academy of Sciences)
   Osamu Fujimura (The Ohio-State University)
   Laura A. Janda (The University of North Carolina at Chapell Hill)
   Premysl Janota (Charles University, Prague)
   Helena Kurzova (Czech Academy of Sciences)
   Jiri V. Neustupny (Osaka University)
   Pavel Novak (Charles University, Prague)
   Bohumil Palek (Charles University, Prague) - chairman
   Ewa Willim (Jagellonian University, Poland)

   Preliminary application for LP'96 and short abstract (half page)
   should be sent not later by September 30, 1995.

                       Premiminary Application Form

   Name:

   Affiliation:

   University:

   phone

   mail adress

   fax

   e-mail

   Preliminary title of submitted paper:

   Note: If you plan to request financial support from various
   funds, please feel free to contact me as to the topic of your
   paper at any time.

   Updated information on LP96 will be available at:
   http://www.cuni.cz/lp96

   Contact address:
   e-mail: palek at ruk.cuni.cz or
           palek at ff.cuni/cz
   or by mail:
   Bohumil Palek
   Department of Linguistics and Finno-Ugric Studies
   2, Jan Palach Sq., 116 38 Prague 1, Czech Republic
   phone: (xx422) 24491 524