Balkan Sprachbund conference

[Wayles Browne]

CALL FOR PAPERS

CONFERENCE ON THE BALKAN SPRACHBUND PROPERTIES
within the framework of the Spinoza Project, http://www.let.leidenuniv.nl/spls
June 8-9 2001, University of Leiden, the Netherlands
The Balkan languages share sets of typological properties which have
contributed to the shaping of a uniform areal typological profile,
referred to as "Balkan language union" or "Balkan Sprachbund". A
typological language property is assumed to be areal if (a) shared by
at least three languages of the area, at least two of which belong to
different genetic families, but (b) not present in all the languages
of the genetic family to which the language of the area belongs (if
it belongs to a language family, at all). Since the amount, the
extent and the limit of areal typological properties necessary for
granting membership into the Balkan Sprachbund, has not and cannot be
assessed independently, linguistic discussion on Balkan Sprachbund
membership has centered around specific properties.
Different analyses single out different arrays of Balkan Sprachbund
properties, though most of them agree on one phonological property -
the presence of the schwa phoneme - and six grammatical properties:
(1) substitution of the synthetic declension markers by analytic
ones; (2) grammaticalization of the category of definiteness through
postpositive definite articles; (3) pronominal doubling of objects;
(4) analytic expression of futurity; (5) analytic Perfect with an
auxiliary verb corresponding to have; (6) loss of the infinitive and
its substitution by subjunctive clauses. Two Balkan Slavic languages
- Macedonian and Bulgarian, two Balkan Romance languages - Aromanian
and Megleno-Romanian, as well as Albanian have been said to qualify
for full membership; Romanian, Modern Greek, Balkan Romani and a
group of Serbo-Croatian, or rather Serbian dialects - the Torlak ones
- have been treated as peripheral members; Standard Serbo-Croatian
has been very marginally included; while Turkish has been treated as
a "donor" language.
Papers within any framework on any Balkan Sprachbund property,
involving any of the Balkan languages, as well as languages outside
the Balkans which exhibit areal properties encountered on the Balkans
(e.g. the languages of the Caucasus or the Volga area) invited.
Papers dealing with more than one language are strongly preferred.
Please send abstracts of no more than 500 words as attachments to an
e-mail message to o.tomic at let.leidenuniv.nl. Deadline March 15.
Notification of acceptance by May 1.


[forwarded at the request of the organizer; write to her for
information, not to
me: W.Browne]

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