ALT News No. 29
Johan van der Auwera
auwera at uia.ua.ac.be
Sun Oct 28 09:30:47 UTC 2001
ALT News No. 29
October 2001
1. ALT IV, Santa Barbara (19-21 July 2001)
2. The 2001 Elections
3. Recently Published
1. ALT IV, Santa Barbara (19-21 July 2001)
1.1. Thanks
As anyone present can confirm, ALT IV was a most pleasant and successful
conference. The success was due to the quality of the presentations, but
also to the work of the program committee and the local organizers. The
program committee consisted of Casper de Groot (chair), Zlatka
Guentcheva, Maria Polinsky, Östen Dahl, Walter Bisang and Vera
Podlesskaya. The local organizers were a team headed by Marianne Mithun
and Jennifer van Vorst. Many thanks to all. And further thanks also to
the members of the Junior Award Committee: Masha Koptjevskaja Tamm
(chair), Bill Croft, Edith Moravcsik, Miren Lourdes Onederra, and
Vladimir Plungian. Gratitude further goes to the organizers of various
workhops: (i) to Pilar Valenzuela, Verónica Grondona, and Sergio Meira,
for the Workshop on South American Language Families; (ii) to Balthasar
Bickel and Johanna Nichols, for the Workshop on Cross-linguistic
Databases; (iii) to Anna Siewierska, Kees Hengeveld and Dik Bakker, for
the pre-ALT Workshop on Functional Grammar and Language Typology; and
(iv) to Bernard Comrie, Matthew Dryer, David Gil, and Martin Haspelmath
for the pre-ALT Workshop on the World Atlas of Language Structures.
1.2. The 2001 Alt Junior Award
The 2001 Alt Junior Award was shared by Michael Cysouw (“The
paradigmatic structure of person marking”, Katholieke Universiteit
Nijmegen, 2001) and Mikhael Daniel (“Tipologija associjativnoj
mnozestvennosti” [The typology of the associative plural], Russian
National Humanistic University, 2000). Elena Filimonova (Universal’nye
anomalij licnyx mestoimenij [Universal anomalies of personal pronouns]
Lomonosov University, 1999)received an honorary mention.
Both awardees received an all-expenses-paid trip to ALT IV and the
opportunity to present a plenary talk based on their work. In addition,
due to a generous offer by Mouton de Gruyter, each received a copy of
the monumental two-volume work “Handbook of Typology”. The recipient of
the honorary mention received a one-year subscription to Linguistic
Typology.
1.3. Business Meeting on 21 July
Thanks are due to Matthew Baerman for taking down the minutes.
a. Membership
-------------
The secretary presented the current figures on membership. According to
the directory kept on the web, ALT boasts 567 members (460 in 1999).
Student memberships account for 10%, as do group memberships (Moscow and
Tbilisi). More then 360 of the members come from Europe and a bit more
than 100 from North America. Unfortunately, in the records held at
Mouton in Berlin many fewer members have left their trace, the
difference amounting to at least 100 names. Several factors help explain
the divergence. One important fact is that for Mouton membership becomes
real only when the invoice for the journal has been paid. There was no
journal in 2000, hence Mouton did not register any new members that
year. Another factor is the less than transparent nature of the invoice
form. Mouton and ALT resolved to launch a campaign to establish a closer
correspondence between the two membership lists and to make it clearer
how members can fulfill their annual financial duties.
b. Finances
-----------
The treasurer presented the current figures on finances. There were no
drastic changes since the last meeting. There was an increase, but it
was noted that the costs for ALT IV and for its prize winners would be
higher than for ALT III.
Action +/- Balance (EURO)
Sept 99 +5.917,94
Dec 99 interest +117,03 +6.034,97
Feb 00 fee legal help -68,17 +5.966,8
June 00 preparation ALT IV -554,12 +5.412,68
00 mail -22,8 +5,389,88
Aug 00 membership fees 99 +2.488,08 +7.877,96
Dec 00 interest +159,64 +8.037,6
June 01 fee legal help -74,36 +7.963,2
c. Legal Status
---------------
At the business meeting at ALT III (1999) the secretary reported on his
attempts to file ALT as a non-profit organization in Belgium. In this
matter he was - and is - helped by the VSDC - Vlaams Studie-en
Documentatiecentrum voor vzw’s - the Flemish organization representing
the interests of non-profit organizations. The problem was that Belgian
law imposed nationality requirements, which made it rather difficult for
any international organization to register in Belgium. This problem was
solved towards the end of 2000. Belgian law was actually in conflict
with European law, so Belgium came into compliance. In the course of
2001 a second problem became apparent. The VSDC argued that it would be
practically unwieldy to register the entire organization, with its
already established structure and rules. It would be better to legally
register only the Executive Committee, with a legally subsidiary role
for the entire organization, which could keep its present structure and
statutes. The VSDC could draw up the statutes required for Belgian law,
and the financial implications would be acceptable (about 230 Euro for
the original document, and another 230 Euro for the translation). The
Executive Committee would explore to what extent this formula would suit
the needs of ALT.
d. Linguistic Typology
----------------------
The Editor-in-chief, Frans Plank, gave figures on submission and
acceptance rates for the ALT journal. (Noteworthy there was that no
submissions were accepted between 9/99 and 12/00. See also the
attachment.) He wondered whether something couldn’t be done to speed up
reviewing time (currently 2-3 months). Martin Haspelmath suggested, half
(all?) in jest that Mouton could provide incentives to expedite the
review process, while Scott Delancey didn’t see that it could really be
any faster; 2-3 months was the industry standard.
On the matter of low acceptance rates, Grev Corbett commended the
editors’ restraint in maintaining a certain level of quality at the
expense of regularity, but Martin Haspelmath thought the compromise
should be in the other direction, i.e. maintain a regular publishing
schedule regardless of the quality of the submissions. Frans Plank
didn’t think it was so much of a problem at the moment, as the quality
of submissions was up, and 3 issues are in the works for this year.
Marianne Mithun thought it was important that students be encouraged to
submit articles.
e. Future ALT meetings
----------------------
An offer to host ALT is likely to come from Sardinian linguists. Martin
Haspelmath provided more information. The plan is to host the biennial
meeting in conjunction with a Summer School.
f. Other events
---------------
- ALT supports the Third International Winter School in Linguistic
Typology, Moscow, January 29 - February 6, 2002. The organizer is Vera
Podlesskaya (vera at pdlssk.mccme.ru).
- Martin Haspelmath outlined the plan for a Summer School in 2003,
worked out with the University in Cagliari on Sardinia. Edith Moravcsik
pointed out that the first two weeks of September would be problematic
for many American students. Martin Haspelmath pointed out that August
was no good from the Sardinian perspective, as (a) it’s more expensive
then, being the tourist season; (b) it’s too hot; (c) everybody’s on
holiday. Edith Moravcsik suggested May or June, but Martin Haspelmath
pointed out that European universities would be in session then. Östen
Dahl noted that the academic year in Scandinavia corresponds to that in
the U.S., so they’d have the same problem. Anna Giacalone Ramat,
representing the Italian perspective, agreed that August was undoable,
but noted that the Italian Linguistic Society typically has a course in
Udine at the beginning September, and one should make sure there is no
time conflict there. The discussion trailed off with people pointing out
the problems inherent in scheduling anything which was to be attended by
people from various countries and at various levels of the academic
hierarchy (undergraduates, graduate students and faculty), and it was
generally acknowledged that nothing could be satisfactory for everybody.
g. Typological Databases
Johanna Nichols reported on the plan to form a Committee on Typological
Databases, discussed at the workshop she held at the conference. She
will be writing up the minutes of that meeting and sending them to the
Executive Committee.
2. The 2001 Elections
The Nominating Committee, consisting of Marco Bertinetto (chair,
1998-2002), Joan Bybee (1998-2002), Mily Crevels (2001-2004)and Nigel
Vincent (2001-2004) proposed a slate for the offices to be renewed. All
the nominees had accepted.
The Executive Committee needed three new members. The nominees were:
Oesten Dahl (Fall 2001- Fall 2005)
William Foley (Fall 2001 - Fall 2005)
Vera Podlesskaya (Fall 2001- Fall 2005)
The Editorial Board needed four new members. The nominees were:
Hilary Chappell (Fall 2001 - Fall 2005)
Peter Bakker (Fall 2001 - Fall 2005)
Alice Harris (Fall 2002 - Fall 2006)
Johanna Nichols (Fall 2002 - Fall 2006)
These slates were offered to the membership by mail. During the six
weeks following the meeting, 104 members expressed their opinion. An
overwhelming majority (103 out of 104) accepted all of the candidates.
The candidates have therefore been elected.
This is also the appropriate moment to thank Matthew Dryer, Gilbert
Lazard and Paolo Ramat, for their years on the Executive Committee, and
Nichols Evans and Aleksandr Kibrik for their service on the Editorial
Board. Anna Siewierska and Marianne Mithun deserve special thanks, for
on special request by the Editor-in-chief they served the journal during
an extra year.
At present the Executive Committee and the Editorial Board have the
following membership.
Executive Committee
President
Secretary-Treasurer
Editor-in-chief
Bernard Comrie (Fall 1999 - Fall 2003)
Scott Delancey (Fall 1999 - Fall 2003)
Maria Polinsky (Fall 1999 - Fall 2003)
Oesten Dahl (Fall 2001- Fall 2005)
William Foley (Fall 2001 - Fall 2005)
Vera Podlesskaya (Fall 2001- Fall 2005)
Editorial Board
Editor-in-chief
Edith Moravcsik (Fall 1995 - Fall 2002)
Leon Stassen (Fall 1995 - Fall 2002)
Larry Hyman (Fall 1999 - Fall 2003)
Matt Shibatani (Fall 1999 - Fall 2003)
Carmen Pensado (Fall 2000 - Fall 2004)
Dan Slobin (Fall 2000 - Fall 2004)
Hilary Chappell (Fall 2001 - Fall 2005)
Peter Bakker (Fall 2001 - Fall 2005)
Alice Harris (Fall 2002 - Fall 2006)
Johanne Nichols (Fall 2002 - Fall 2006)
3. Recently Published
If interested in reviewing any of these titles for LT, or any others
that can be meaningfully reviewed from a typological angle (and don't be
mislead: they don't have to have "typology" or lots of language names
in their titles -- The Phonology of Kimatuumbi/Armenian/English can have
profounder typological meaning than Kleines Lexikon der Sprachen: Von
Albanisch bis Zulu), get in touch with frans.plank at uni-konstanz.de
Abbi, Anvita, R. S. Gupta, & Ayesha Kidwai (eds.) (2001). Linguistic
Structure and Language Dynamics in South Asia. Delhi: Motilal
Banarsidass.
Aikhenvald, Alexandra Y., R. M. W. Dixon, & Masayuki Onishi (eds.)
(2001). Non-Canonical Marking of Subjects and Objects. (Typological
Studies in Language, 46.) Amsterdam: Benjamins.
Aikhenvald, Alexandra Y., & R. M. W. Dixon (eds.) (2001). Areal
Diffusion and Genetic Inheritance: Problems in Comparative Linguistics.
Oxford: Oxford University Press.
Alexiadou, Artemis (2001). Functional Structure in Nominals:
Nominalization and Ergativity. Amsterdam: Benjamins.
Bisang, Walter (ed.) (2001). Aspects of Typology and Universals. (studia
typologica, 1.) Berlin: Akademie-Verlag.
Boeder, Winfried & Gerd Hentschel (eds.) (2001). Variierende Markierung
von Nominalgruppen in Sprachen unterschiedlichen Typs. (Studia Slavica
Oldenburgensia, 4.) Oldenburg: Bibliotheks- und Informationssystem der
Universität Oldenburg.
de Boer, Bart (2001). The Origins of Vowel Systems. Oxford: Oxford
University Press.
Bresnan, Joan (2000). Lexical-Functional Syntax. Oxford: Blackwell.
Campbell, George L. (2000). Compendium of the World's Languages. 2
vols., 2nd edn. London: Routledge.
Carnie, Andrew & Eithne Guilfoyle (eds.) (2000). The Syntax of Verb
Initial Languages. New York: Oxford University Press.
Cysouw, Michael (2000). The Paradigmatic Structure of Person Marking.
Ph.D. dissertation, Katholieke Universiteit Nijmegen.
Deltcheva-Kampf, Veronika (2000). Onomasiologisches Modell für eine
kontrastiv-typologische Betrachtung des suffixalen und kompositionellen
Wortbildungsbereichs: am Beispiel des Finnischen, Ungarischen und
Russischen. (Veröffentlichungen der Societas Uralo-Altaica, 52.)
Wiesbaden: Harrassowitz.
Ebert, Karen & Fernando Zúñiga (eds.) (2001), Aktionsart and
Aspectotemporality in Non-European Languages. (Arbeiten des Seminars für
Allgemeine Sprachwissenschaft, 16.) Zürich: Universität Zürich.
Fischer, Steven Roger (ed.) (2000). Possessive Markers in Central
Pacific Languages. (=Sprachtypologie und Universalienforschung 53-3/4.)
Berlin: Akademie-Verlag.
Haarmann, Harald (2001). Kleines Lexikon der Sprachen: Von Albanisch bis
Zulu. München: Beck.
Haarmann, Harald (2001). Babylonische Welt: Geschichte und Zukunft der
Sprachen. Frankfurt/Main: Campus.
Hagège, Claude (2000). Halte à la mort des langues. Paris: Odile Jacob.
Han, Chung-hye (2000). The Structure and Interpretation of Imperatives:
Mood and Force in Universal Grammar. (Outstanding Dissertations in
Linguistics.) New York: Garland.
Haspelmath, Martin, Ekkehard König, Wulf Oestereicher, & Wolfgang Raible
(eds.) (2001). Sprachtypologie und sprachliche Universalienforschung.
Vol. 1. Berlin: De Gruyter.
Hinton, Leanne & Kenneth Hale (eds.) (2001). The Green Book of Language
Revitalization in Practice. Orlando: Academic Press.
Joppen-Hellwig, Sandra (2001). Verbklassen und Argumentlinking:
Nicht-kanonische Argumente, Expletiva und vierstellige Kausativa in
Ergativ- versus Akkusativsprachen. Tübingen: Niemeyer.
Junker, Marie-Odile (2000). Quantification in East Cree and Linguistic
Relativity. (The Belcourt Lecture 1999.) Winnipeg: Voices of Rupert's
Land.
Kikusawa, Ritsuko & Kan Sasaki (eds.) (no date [2001?]). Modern
Approaches to Transitivity. (ILCAA Study of Languages and Cultures of
Asia and Africa Monograph Series, 35.) Tokyo: Institute for the Study of
Languages and Cultures of Asia and Africa.
Klose, Albrecht (2001). Sprachen der Welt: Ein weltweiter Index der
Sprachfamilien, Einzelsprachen und Dialekte, mit Angabe der Synonyma und
fremdsprachigen Äquivalente. 2nd edn. München: Saur.
Kuteva, Tania (2001). Auxiliation: An Enquiry into the Nature of
Grammaticalization. Oxford: Oxford University Press.
Maas, Utz, Selmy El-Sayed, & Ahmed Mostafa (2000). Perspektiven eines
typologisch orientierten Sprachvergleichs Deutsch - Arabisch, Arabisch
-Deutsch. Kairo: Echnaton.
Mal'cukov, A. L. (1999). Sintaksis prostogo predlozenija v evenskom
jazyke: Strukturnye i semanticeskie aspekty. Sankt-Peterburg: Nauka
(Rossijskaja Akademija Nauk, Institut linguisticekix issledovanij,
Institut problem malocislennyx narodov severa).
Miller, J. & R. Weinert (1998). Spontaneous Spoken Language. Oxford:
Clarendon.
Miyaoka, Osahito (ed.) (2000). Languages of the North Pacific Rim,
Volume 5. Suita: Faculty of Informatics, Osaka Gakuin University.
Moure, Teresa (2001). Universales del lenguaje y linguo-diversidad.
Barcelona: Ariel.
Newman, Paul & Martha Ratliff (eds.) (2001). Linguistic Fieldwork.
Cambridge: Cambridge University Press.
Plungjan, V. A. (2000). Obscaja morfologija: vvedenie v problematiku.
Moskva: Editorial URSS.
Polomé, Edgar C. & Carol F. Justus (eds.) (1999). Language Change and
Typological Variation: In Honor of Winfred P. Lehmann on the Occasion of
his 83rd Birthday. 2 vols. Washington, DC: Institute for the Study of
Man.
Siemund, Peter (ed.) (2000). Methodology in Linguistic Typology.
(=Sprachtypologie und Universalienforschung 53-1.) Berlin:
Akademie-Verlag.
Simpson, Jane, David Nash, Mary Laughren, Peter Austin & Barry Alpher
(eds.) (2001). Forty Years on: Ken Hale and Australian Languages.
(Pacific Linguistics, •.) Canberra: Australian National University.
Sornicola, Rosanna, Erich Poppe, & Ariel Shisha-Halevy (eds.) (2000).
Stability, Variation and Change of Word-Order Patterns Over Time.
Amsterdam: Benjamins.
Sörés, Anna & Christiane Marchello-Nizia (eds.) (1999). Typologie des
langues, universaux linguistiques. (Numéro spécial de LINX.) Paris:
Université Paris X - Nanterre.
Stolz, Thomas (ed.) (2001). Minor Languages of Europe. Bochum:
Brockmeyer.
Van Valin, Jr., Robert D. (2001). An Introduction to Syntax. Cambridge:
Cambridge University Press.
Voeltz, F. K. Erhard & Christa Kilian-Hatz (eds.) (2001). Ideophones.
(Typological Studies in Language, 44.) Amsterdam: Benjamins.
Xrakovskij, V. S. (ed.) (1998). Tipologija uslovnyx konstrukcij.
Sankt-Peterburg: Nauka.
-o-o-o-o-o-o-o-o-o-o-o-o-o-o-o-o-o-o-o-o-o-o-o-o-o-
Marianne Mithun [President]
Department of Linguistics UCSB
University of California tel: + 1-805-893-4058
Santa Barbara, California 93106 + 1-805-563-1152
USA fax: + 1-805-563-1948
E-mail: mithun at linguistics.ucsb.edu
Frans Plank [Editor-in-chief, Linguistic Typology]
Sprachwissenschaft
Universitaet Konstanz
D-78457 Konstanz tel + 49 7531 88 26 56
Germany fax + 49 7531 88 27 41
E-mail: frans.plank at uni-konstanz.de
Johan van der Auwera [Secretary-Treasurer]
Linguistiek (GER)
Universiteit Antwerpen (UIA)
B-2610 Antwerpen tel + 32 3 820 27 76
Belgium fax + 32 3 820 27 62
E-mail: auwera at uia.ua.ac.be
ALT on the WEB: http://www.ling.lancs.ac.uk/alt
Webmaster : Peter Kahrel p.kahrel at lancaster.ac.uk
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