WORKSHOP TO BE HELD AT ICHL 20 (Osaka) - SECOND PRELIMINARY CALL

Sun Sep 19 09:32:21 UTC 2010

>Dear all,

since the deadline for submission of workshop 
proposals has been moved to October 15, the 
deadline for manifestations of interest for the 
workshop "The diachrony of referential null 
arguments " (convenors: Silvia Luraghi and Dag 
Haug) is now October 13. Up to now, we received a 
number of reactions, mostly from colleagues who 
work on Indo-European languages; in order to 
stimulate discussion, we'd like to point out that 
our workshop is not limited to a specific language family.

PRELIMINARY CALL FOR PAPERS FOR A WORKSHOP TO BE HELD  AT ICHL 20 (Osaka)

Workshop title: The diachrony of referential null arguments

Convenors:      Dag Haug (University of Oslo) / 
Silvia Luraghi (University of Pavia)
Contact:        d.t.t.haug at ifikk.uio.no   /   silvia.luraghi at unipv.it

Deadline for manifestation of interest: October 13, 2010
(we need a title and a couple of lines of 
description; the abstract must be submitted later 
directly to the ICHL. The final deadline for abstracts is November 15).

Definite referential null objects are apparently 
one of the distinctive features of 
non-configurational languges, see Baker (2001). 
Even though descriptions are available for 
various genetically unrelated languages (see e.g. 
Austin 2001, Hale 1983, Chung 1984, Huang 1984, 
Raposo 1986), there are little if any accounts of their diachrony.

Our workshop aims to bring together scholars 
working on different language families and on 
typologically different languages (e.g. head or 
dependent marking) who are interested in 
diachronic changes concerning the creation or 
disappearance of null arguments, with a focus on 
null objects or other types of null arguments not coreferenced on the verb.

The occurrence of definite referential null 
objects has been observed in many ancient 
Indo-European languages, two examples are given below:
(1)       dverginn 
mælti,           at    sá 
baugri    skyldi                 vera
             dwarf      say.prf.3sg that 
dem.nom.sg.m ring(m)  should.prf.3sg  be.inf
             hverjum                   hofuðsbani, er  atti               Øi
             whosoever.dat.sg death               rel have.prf.3sg
             “The dwarf said that that ring 
should bring death to anybody who possessed (it)”
             (Old Icelandic, from Sigurðsson, 1993, p. 248);
(2)        toîsi        dè deksiòn 
hêken             ero#diòni  eggùs hodoîo Pallàs 
Athe#naíe:#   toì            d’
             3pl.dat ptc right     send:aor.3sg 
heron:acc near road:gen P.:nom    A.:nom 3pl.nom 
ptc ouk ídon Øi        ophthalmoîsi 
núkta         di’       orphnaíe#n allà Øi klágksantos
not  see:aor.3pl 
eyes:dat       night:acc   through dark:acc  but        scream:part.gen.sg.m
ákousan
             hear:aor.3pl
             “Athena sent them an heron to the 
right of their route: they could not see it in 
the dark night, but heard it screaming.”, Hom. Il. 10.274-276 (Greek);
    In spite of this, and in spite of the long 
documented history of these languages, even in 
their case historical accounts are limited, as 
are detailed studies of the conditions licensing 
null objects (see Schäufele 1990 on Sanskrit; 
several studies have been devoted to null objects 
in Old Icelandic, see e.g. Sigurðsson 1993 and 
Rögnvaldsson 1995). At least in Latin and 
possibly in Greek, null objects seem to be 
obligatory in coordinated sentences, unless 
emphasis or disambiguation are involved (see 
Luraghi 1997, 1998a, b, 2003, Sznayder 1998; this 
is possibly a common phenomenon connected to 
coordination reduction and frequent in 
non-Indo-European languages as well, see Harris 
Delisle 1978, Luraghi 2004), as well as in 
answers to yes/no questions (see van der 
Wurff  1997, Luraghi 1997, 2003). Descriptions of 
increasing use of over objects in Latin and 
Germanic point to increasing transitivity or 
emerging configurationality (see e.g. Johnson 1991, Luraghi 2010).
Papers presented at the workshop should aim to assess:
a) the relation between null objects and other 
parameters of configurationality;
b) the relation of null objects to other null 
argument, in particular to null subjects;
c) the relation between null objects and the 
parameter of head/dependent marking (cf. Baker 2001);
d) null objects and the grammaticalization of valency.
Papers should have a diachronic orientation; 
research based on extensive corpora and 
quantitative approaches to language change are especially encouraged.

Austin, Peter K. 2001 Word order in a free word 
order language: the case of Jiwarli. In Jane 
Simpson, David Nash, Mary Laughren, Peter Austin 
and Barry Alpher (eds) Forty years on: Ken Hale 
and Australian languages, 305-324. Canberra: Pacific Linguistics.
Baker, Mark (2001), ‘Configurationality and 
polysynthesis’, in M. Haspelmath, E. König, W. 
Oesterreicher, W. Raible (eds.),  Language 
Typology and Language Universals . An 
International Handbook. Berlin/New York: Mouton 
de Gruyter, vol. 2, pp. 1433-41.
Chung, S. 1984. ‘Identifiability and null objects in Chamorro.’ BLS 10: 116–30.
Hale, Kenneth. 1983. Warlpiri and the grammar of 
nonconfigurational languages. Natural Language and Linguistic Theory 1:574.
Harris Delisle, Helga 1978     Coordination 
reduction.  In Universals of Human Language, ed. 
J. Greenberg.  Stanford: UP. Pp. 515-583.
Huang, C-T. James. 1984. On the distribution and 
reference of empty pronouns. Linguistic Inquiry, 15, 531-574.
Johnson, Ruth Ann, 1991. The Direct Object 
Pronoun as a Marker of Transitivity in Latin.  Ph. D. Diss. UCLA.
Luraghi, Silvia 1997. Omission of the direct 
object in Classical Latin.  Indogermanische Forschungen 102, 239-257.
Luraghi, Silvia 1998a  Omissione dell’oggetto 
diretto in frasi coordinate: dal latino 
all’italiano. In Sintassi storica.  Atti del xxx 
Congresso SLI, ed. P. Ramat. Roma: Bulzoni, 183-196.
Luraghi, Silvia 1998b Participant tracking in 
Tacitus.  In Estudios de Lingüística Latina, ed. 
B. García-Hernandez. Madrid: Ediciones Clásicas, 467-485.
Luraghi, Silvia 2003, ‘Definite referential null 
objects in Ancient Greek’. Indogermanische Forschungen 108, 169-196.
Luraghi, Silvia (2004), ‘Null Objects in Latin 
and Greek and the Relevance of Linguistic 
Typology for Language Reconstruction’, in 
Proceedings of the 15th Annual UCLA Indo-European 
Conference, JIES Monograph 49, pp.234-256.
Luraghi, Silvia 2010. “The rise (and possible 
downfall) of configurationality”. In S. Luraghi 
and V. Bubenik, eds.,  Continuum Companion to 
Historical Linguistics, London/New York, Continuum, 212-229
Raposo, Eduardo. 1986. On the null object in 
European Portuguese. Studies in Romance 
linguistics, ed. by Osvaldo Jaeggli and Carmen 
Silva-Corvalán, 373-90. Dordrecht: Foris.
Rögnvaldsson, Eiríkur (1995), ‘Old Icelandic: A 
Non-Configurational Language?’. North-Western 
European Language Evolution 26, 3-29.
Schäufele, Steven (1990), Free Word-Order Syntax: 
the Challenge from Vedic Sanskrit to Contemporary 
Formal Syntactic Theory. Ph. D. dissertation, 
University of Illinois at Urbana-Champaign.
Sigurðsson, Halldór A. (1993), ‘Argument-drop in 
Old Islandic’.  Lingua 89, 247-280.
Sznajder, Lyliane, 1998.  “Conditions 
d’effacement des compléments d’objet et 
agencement des propositions en latin”.  In 
Estudios de Lingüística Latina, ed. B. 
García-Hernandez. Madrid: Ediciones Clásicas.

Silvia Luraghi
Dipartimento di Linguistica Teorica e Applicata
Università di Pavia
Strada Nuova 65
I-27100 Pavia
telef.: +39-0382-984685
fax: +39-0382-984487
silvia.luraghi at unipv.it
http://lettere.unipv.it/diplinguistica/docenti.php?&id=68 
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