ALT Meeting Year Change?

[Bill Croft]

Dear typologists,

   I am writing to the ALT list because I will not be able to
attend the ALT III meeting next week in Amsterdam.

   One of the main reasons I am not attending ALT III is
because it meets in odd-numbered years, that is, in the
same years as the International Cognitive Linguistics
Conference and the International Conference on Historical
Linguistics. I am only able to obtain at most partial funding
from my university to attend just one of
these conferences in any given year. I am sure that I am
not the only linguist who would like to go to two (or three)
of these conferences but can obtain at most (partial)
funding for only one.

   I would like to propose that the ALT shift its meetings
to even-numbered years.

   I made this proposal at ALT II in 1997 in Eugene, Oregon.
It was not acted upon at that time. I realized that of course,
the people most affected by this problem probably were
not at the ALT meeting, because they (like me this year)
were not able to obtain funding to attend. So I would like to
urge those of you ALT members who would like to have
the year of the meeting changed, to please email the
secretary-treasurer of the ALT, Johan van der Auwera
(auwera at uia.ua.ac.be). Thank you.

Bill Croft
University of Manchester