LAGB Autumn Meeting

Mon May 15 00:30:44 UTC 2000

Could you please put the announcement below on your mailing list?

Thank you,

Marjolein Groefsema
Meetings Secretary LAGB

	LINGUISTICS ASSOCIATION OF GREAT BRITAIN

	Autumn Meeting 2000: University of Durham

	First Circular and Call for Papers

The Autumn Meeting of the Linguistics Association of Great Britain will be
held in St. John's College, University of Durham, from September 7 - 9.
The local organizers are S.J. Hannahs <s.j.hannahs at durham.ac.uk> and Maggie
Tallerman <Maggie.Tallerman at durham.ac.uk>.

St. Johns's College where the meeting will be held is one of the peninsula
colleges of Durham, and forms part of the World Heritage Site containing
the magnificent Norman cathedral (which dates from 1093) and castle
(dating from 1072). Both are a  three minute walk from the meeting venue.
The castle was formerly the seat of the Prince Bishops, who ruled the
County Palatine as a virtually independent state with its own army, courts
and coinage.  In 1832 the castle became the foundation college of the
University, and can be viewed by the public in excellent guided tours. St.
John's is also a few minutes' walk from the thickly wooded banks of the
river Wear, and attractive footpaths meander round the entire peninsula.
Durham is a tiny but spectacular city with all its historic attractions
within walking distance; it also has several good  museums and a large
number of traditional public houses selling a wide variety of real ales!

Accommodation: All talks will be held in St. John's College,  where the
accommodation consists of single study bedrooms with washbasins and shared
bathroom facilities.  Twin bedded rooms are also available if booked in
advance.

Travel: The city has very good  rail and road links: for rail travellers,
Durham is on the East Coast Main Line, and is just off the A1M for those
who wish to drive. Parking facilities are available nearby, but are
extremely limited in the immediate vicinity of the meeting venue,  and so
participants are not recommended to travel by car. The nearest
international airports are at Newcastle and Teesside, and are both
approximately an hour away from Durham by public transport. St. John's
College is roughly 15 minutes from the train station on foot, or a 5
minute taxi ride.

Events: The Henry Sweet Lecture 2000 on the Thursday evening will be
delivered by Professor Peter Sells (Stanford University), who will be
discussing recent developments in the Optimality Theory approach to
morphosyntax.

There will also be a Workshop on OT syntax, organized by Ad Neeleman (UCL)
and Vieri Samek-Lodovici (UCL), speakers to be announced in the second
circular.

There will be a Language Tutorial on Akkadian, given by Dr Guy Deutcher
(Cambridge University).

There will be a Wine Party on the Thursday evening, following Professor
Sells' talk.

Enquiries about the LAGB meeting should be sent to the Meetings Secretary
(address below). Full details of the programme and a booking form will be
included in the Second Circular, to be sent out in early July.

Call for Papers

Members are invited to offer papers for the Meeting; abstracts are also
accepted from non-members. The LAGB welcomes submissions on any topic in
the field of linguistics; papers are selected on their (perceived) merits,
and not according to their subject matter or assumed theoretical framework.

How and when to submit an abstract

Abstracts must be submitted on paper (not by email or by fax). SEVEN
anonymous copies of the abstract, plus ONE with name and affiliation, i.e.
CAMERA-READY, should be submitted, and should be sent in the format
outlined below to the President (address below). You must write your
address for correspondence (email or surface) on the BACK of the
camera-ready copy. (Even if several authors are named on the front, there
should be only one name and address for correspondence.)

        Papers for the programme are selected anonymously - only the President
knows the name of the authors.  Where possible, authors should supply an
email address to which the committee's decision may be sent. All decisions
will be made by June 28th, and will be communicated by July 3th, so
please send an email to the President (spena at essex.ac.uk) if you have not
received your decision by that date.
        Abstracts must arrive by June 5th.  Abstracts may also be submitted now
for the meeting after the next one, but must be clearly marked as such. (In
general the abstract deadlines for the autumn and spring meetings are soon
after 1st June and 1st January respectively, so an abstract sent to reach
the President by that date will always be in time.)

Format of abstracts

Abstracts must be presented as follows: The complete abstract (i.e. the one
containing your title and your name) must be no longer than ONE A4 page
(21cm x 29.5cm) with margins of at least 2.5cm  on all sides. You may use
single spacing but type must be no smaller than 12 point. If the paper is
accepted the abstract will be photocopied and inserted directly into the
collection of abstracts sent out to participants, so the presentation
should be clear and clean.
        The following layout should be considered as standard:

        (title)  Optimality and the Klingon vowel shift
        (speaker)  Clark Kent (clark at astro.mars.ac.uk)
        (institution)  Department of Astrology, Eastern Mars University

The normal length for papers delivered at LAGB meetings is 25 minutes (plus
15 minutes discussion). Offers of longer papers (40 minutes) will also be
considered: please explain why your paper requires more time than usual,
and whether you would accept a 25-minute slot if the committee cannot offer
more. If you request 40 minutes, please write this on each of the anonymous
abstracts.
        The committee will plan the programme as soon as it has selected the
successful abstracts, so please indicate on the anonymous abstracts if you
cannot present your paper on either the second or third day of the
conference (6th or 7th September). It is very difficult to reschedule papers
after the programme has been planned.

Content of abstracts

The following guidelines may be useful:
+ You should clearly describe the paper's general topic. (The topic may be
a problem of theory or analysis or set of data which have not previously
been analysed.)
+ You should describe your treatment of the topic, and how it relates to
previous work on the same topic. (When referring to previous work, it is
enough to quote "Author (Date)" without giving full bibliographical
details.) It is not acceptable simply to promise ‘a solution'.
+ You should explain how you will justify your treatment, and quote crucial
evidence - you must trust the committee (and other conference attenders)
not to steal your ideas before you have presented them.  If you are taking
a stand on a controversial issue, summarise the arguments which lead you to
take up this position.

Conference Bursaries

Up to 10 bursaries are available for unsalaried members of the Association
(e.g. PhD students) with preference given to those who are presenting a
paper. Applications should be sent to the President, and must be received
by the deadline for abstracts. Please state on your application: (a) date
of joining the LAGB (applicants must have been a member at least since the
date of the previous meeting); (b) whether or not you are a student; (c) if
a student, whether you receive a normal grant; (d) if not a student, your
employment situation. STUDENTS WHO ARE SUBMITTING AN ABSTRACT and who wish
to apply for funding should include all the above details WITH THEIR
ABSTRACT. The bursary normally covers a significant proportion of the
conference expenses and of travel within the UK.

Internet home page: The LAGB internet home page is now active at the
following address: http://clwww.essex.ac.uk/LAGB.
        Electronic network: Please join the LAGB electronic network which
is used for disseminating LAGB information and for consulting members
quickly. It can be subscribed to by sending the message "add lagb" to:
listserv at postman.essex.ac.uk.

Future Meetings

5-7 April 2001                  University of Leeds.
4-6 September 2001              University of Reading.
Spring 2002 (provisional)       Edge Hill University College.

The Meetings Secretary would very much like to receive offers of future
venues, particularly from institutions which the LAGB has not previously
visited.

The LAGB committee

President                       Professor Andrew Spencer
	 Department of Language and Linguistics, University of Essex,
Wivenhoe
	 Park, COLCHESTER CO4 3SQ. spena at essex.ac.uk

Honorary Secretary              Professor Anna Siewierska
         Department of Linguistics, University of Lancaster, LANCASTER LA1 4YW
	 A.Siewierska at lancaster.ac.uk

Membership Secretary            Dr. David Willis
         Dept. of Linguistics, University of Manchester, MANCHESTER M13 9PL.
         david.willis at man.ac.uk

Meetings Secretary              Dr. Marjolein Groefsema
         Dept. of Linguistics, University of Hertfordshire, Watford Campus,
	 ALDENHAM, Herts. WD2 8AT. m.groefsema at herts.ac.uk

Treasurer                      Dr Wiebke Brockhaus
         Dept. of German, University of Manchester, MANCHESTER M13 9PL.
         Wiebke.Brockhaus at man.ac.uk

Assistant Secretary             Dr. Gillian Ramchand
         Linacre College, Oxford University, OXFORD OX1 3JA.
	 gillian.ramchand at linguistics-philology.oxford.ac.uk