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<TITLE>Workshop on Sign Linguistics, February 2004</TITLE>
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<P ALIGN=CENTER><SPAN LANG="en-us"><B><FONT SIZE=4 FACE="Times New Roman">Call for abstracts</FONT></B></SPAN></P>
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<P><SPAN LANG="en-gb"><FONT FACE="Times New Roman">We hereby invite the submission of abstracts for a workshop on</FONT></SPAN>
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<P ALIGN=CENTER><SPAN LANG="en-gb"><B><FONT FACE="Times New Roman">“Sign Languages: A cross-linguistic perspective”</FONT></B></SPAN></P>
<P><SPAN LANG="en-gb"><FONT FACE="Times New Roman">to be held at the Annual Meeting of the German Linguistic Society (DGfS) 2004.</FONT></SPAN>
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<P><SPAN LANG="en-gb"><FONT FACE="Times New Roman">Location: Mainz (Germany)</FONT></SPAN>
<BR><SPAN LANG="en-gb"><FONT FACE="Times New Roman">Date: February 25-27, 2004.</FONT></SPAN>
<BR><SPAN LANG="en-gb"><FONT FACE="Times New Roman">Organizers: Pamela Perniss (MPI Nijmegen)</FONT></SPAN>
<BR><SPAN LANG="en-gb"> </SPAN><SPAN LANG="nl"> <FONT FACE="Times New Roman">Roland Pfau (University of Amsterdam)</FONT></SPAN>
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<P><SPAN LANG="en-us"><FONT FACE="Times New Roman">Call deadline: July 31<SUP>st</SUP>, 2003</FONT></SPAN>
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<P><SPAN LANG="en-gb"><B><FONT FACE="Times New Roman">Goal of the workshop</FONT></B></SPAN>
<BR><SPAN LANG="en-gb"><FONT FACE="Times New Roman">The goal of the workshop is to bring together sign researchers who conduct comparative research on grammatical phenomena in different sign languages in order to investigate and discuss typological variation across sign languages.</FONT></SPAN></P>
<P><SPAN LANG="en-gb"><FONT FACE="Times New Roman">Comparison of sign languages with spoken languages has yielded many fruitful results. On the one hand, it was shown that the grammatical structures are strikingly similar, on the other hand interesting modality effects have also been revealed. </FONT></SPAN></P>
<P><SPAN LANG="en-gb"><FONT FACE="Times New Roman">We are convinced, however, that it is of crucial importance to compare sign languages with each other in order to gain better insights into the structures of sign languages in their own right. The expectation is that sign languages, just like spoken languages, are typologically different from each other. In this context, it is also worth investigating whether typological variation is observed along similar lines as in spoken languages and/or whether we find significantly different clusterings along a typological continuum.</FONT></SPAN></P>
<P><SPAN LANG="en-gb"><FONT FACE="Times New Roman">Usually, in the literature, the similarities between sign languages are highlighted. The grammatical similarities are indeed striking (e.g. phonotactic constraints, realisation of agreement, wh-questions) and it has been claimed that they are due to the language modality. Recent research, however, also points to interesting differences (e.g. position of functional categories, negation, plural marking).</FONT></SPAN></P>
<P><SPAN LANG="en-us"><FONT FACE="Times New Roman">This workshop aims to bring together linguists who investigate the grammatical structure of various sign languages in order to ascertain and discuss further phonological, morphological, and syntactic similarities and differences.</FONT></SPAN><SPAN LANG="en-gb"> <FONT FACE="Times New Roman">The results of such investigations have important implications for our understanding of the question of universals of language and cognition and of typological variation, in general.</FONT></SPAN><SPAN LANG="en-us"><FONT FACE="Times New Roman"></FONT></SPAN><SPAN LANG="nl"> </SPAN></P>
<P><SPAN LANG="en-gb"><FONT FACE="Times New Roman">We hope that the different theoretical backgrounds of the organizers will ensure a forum for discussion at the workshop that is balanced between various theoretical approaches to linguistics. </FONT></SPAN></P>
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<P><SPAN LANG="en-gb"><B><FONT FACE="Times New Roman">Structure of the workshop</FONT></B></SPAN>
<BR><SPAN LANG="en-gb"><FONT FACE="Times New Roman">Depending on the content of a given abstract and the clustering of topics, both 30 minutes and 60 minutes time slots will be available.</FONT></SPAN></P>
<P><SPAN LANG="en-gb"><FONT FACE="Times New Roman">Note that the 60 minutes slots are designed to accommodate joint presentations by researchers working on similar topics in different sign languages. We thus encourage researchers to collaborate in advance of the conference. </FONT></SPAN></P>
<P><SPAN LANG="en-gb"><FONT FACE="Times New Roman">Possible topics may include, but are not restricted to:</FONT></SPAN>
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<LI><SPAN LANG="en-gb"><FONT FACE="Times New Roman">verb agreement</FONT></SPAN></LI>
<LI><SPAN LANG="en-gb"><FONT FACE="Times New Roman">classifiers and classifier constructions </FONT></SPAN></LI>
<LI><SPAN LANG="en-gb"><FONT FACE="Times New Roman">iconicity in lexicon and grammar</FONT></SPAN></LI>
<LI><SPAN LANG="en-gb"><FONT FACE="Times New Roman">wh-questions</FONT></SPAN></LI>
<LI><SPAN LANG="en-gb"><FONT FACE="Times New Roman">negation</FONT></SPAN></LI>
<LI><SPAN LANG="en-gb"><FONT FACE="Times New Roman">number and quantification / plural-marking</FONT></SPAN></LI>
<LI><SPAN LANG="en-gb"><FONT FACE="Times New Roman">narrative and information structure</FONT></SPAN></LI>
<LI><SPAN LANG="en-gb"><FONT FACE="Times New Roman">discourse markers</FONT></SPAN></LI>
<LI><SPAN LANG="en-gb"><FONT FACE="Times New Roman">use of non-manuals</FONT></SPAN></LI>
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<P><SPAN LANG="en-gb"><B><FONT FACE="Times New Roman">Submission</FONT></B></SPAN>
<BR><SPAN LANG="en-gb"><FONT FACE="Times New Roman">All abstracts should be submitted by e-mail as attachments to both organizers (<U></U></FONT><U><FONT COLOR="#0000FF" FACE="Times New Roman">pamela.perniss@mpi.nl <<A HREF="mailto:pamela.perniss@mpi.nl">mailto:pamela.perniss@mpi.nl</A>></FONT></U><FONT FACE="Times New Roman"> and</FONT><U> <FONT COLOR="#0000FF" FACE="Times New Roman">r.pfau@uva.nl <<A HREF="mailto:r.pfau@uva.nl">mailto:r.pfau@uva.nl</A>></FONT></U><FONT FACE="Times New Roman">), specifying ‘abstract’ in the subject line. The following information should be contained in the body of the e-mail message:</FONT></SPAN></P>
<P><SPAN LANG="en-gb"><FONT FACE="Times New Roman">- author’s name(s)</FONT></SPAN>
<BR><SPAN LANG="en-gb"><FONT FACE="Times New Roman">- title of abstract</FONT></SPAN>
<BR><SPAN LANG="en-gb"><FONT FACE="Times New Roman">- affiliation</FONT></SPAN>
<BR><SPAN LANG="en-gb"><FONT FACE="Times New Roman">- e-mail address</FONT></SPAN>
<BR><SPAN LANG="en-gb"><FONT FACE="Times New Roman">- postal address</FONT></SPAN>
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<P><SPAN LANG="en-gb"><FONT FACE="Times New Roman">Abstracts should be anonymous and be either in .doc or .pdf formats. Abstracts should not exceed two pages (font size 12) including examples, figures, and references.</FONT></SPAN></P>
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<P><SPAN LANG="en-gb"><FONT FACE="Times New Roman">Deadline for submission of abstracts is</FONT><B> <FONT FACE="Times New Roman">July 31<SUP>st</SUP>, 2003</FONT></B><FONT FACE="Times New Roman">.</FONT></SPAN>
<BR><SPAN LANG="en-gb"><FONT FACE="Times New Roman">Notification of acceptance:</FONT><B> <FONT FACE="Times New Roman">August 31<SUP>st</SUP>, 2003</FONT></B></SPAN>
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<P><SPAN LANG="en-gb"><FONT FACE="Times New Roman">Information about the conference will be posted at:</FONT></SPAN>
<BR><SPAN LANG="en-gb"><U><FONT COLOR="#0000FF" FACE="Times New Roman">www.uni-mainz.de/dgfs2004</FONT></U></SPAN>
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<P><SPAN LANG="en-us"><FONT FACE="Times New Roman">We are looking forward to receiving your abstracts!</FONT></SPAN>
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<P><SPAN LANG="en-us"><FONT FACE="Times New Roman">Pamela Perniss & Roland Pfau</FONT></SPAN>
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<P><SPAN LANG="nl"><FONT FACE="Times New Roman">*************************</FONT></SPAN>
<BR><SPAN LANG="nl"><FONT FACE="Times New Roman">Pamela Perniss, Max-Planck-Institut für Psycholinguistik, </FONT></SPAN>
<BR><SPAN LANG="nl"><FONT FACE="Times New Roman">Wundtlaan 1, 6525 XD Nijmegen, The Netherlands, </FONT></SPAN>
<BR><SPAN LANG="nl"><U><FONT COLOR="#0000FF" FACE="Times New Roman">pamela.perniss@mpi.nl</FONT></U></SPAN>
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<P><SPAN LANG="nl"><FONT FACE="Times New Roman">Roland Pfau, Dept. of Linguistics, University of Amsterdam, </FONT></SPAN>
<BR><SPAN LANG="nl"><FONT FACE="Times New Roman">Spuistraat 210, 1012 VT Amsterdam, The Netherlands, </FONT></SPAN>
<BR><SPAN LANG="nl"><U><FONT COLOR="#0000FF" FACE="Times New Roman">r.pfau@uva.nl</FONT></U></SPAN>
<BR><SPAN LANG="nl"><FONT FACE="Times New Roman">*************************</FONT></SPAN>
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