Workshop on information structure in head-marking languages

[Dejan Matic]

Workshop on information structure in head-marking languages

Syntax, Typology, and Information Structure Group
Max Planck Institute for Psycholinguistics, Nijmegen
March 28-29 2014


Head-marking languages exhibit significant morphosyntactic differences
from dependent marking languages, as Nichols (1986) and subsequent
research has showed. An interesting question which is appropriate to ask
in the context of contemporary research into information structure is
whether head-marking languages have any distinctive information structural
properties that are a function of, or related to, their head-marking
morphosyntax. Information structure concerns the morphosyntactic coding of
the different informational statuses an element may have with respect to
the proposition (e.g. topic or focus), and it is therefore reasonable to
inquire as to whether head-marking morphosyntax interacts with discourse
in a distinctive manner.

We would like to elicit contributions on the above question and other
related issues. The call is open for proposals which address pragmatic,
semantic, morphosyntactic and/or prosodic aspects of the expression of IS
in head-marking languages, from a theoretical, descriptive, or typological
perspective. Studies dealing with interesting aspects of the expression of
IS in particular head marking languages are explicitly welcome.


Invited speakers:

Anna Berge
Jürgen Bohnemeyer
Stephen Levinson
Eva Schultze-Berndt
Jenneke van der Wal


Abstract: anonymous, up to 500 words (without references and examples)
Address for abstracts: dejan.matic at mpi.nl
Abstract deadline: November 15th
Notification of acceptance: December 1st
Date: March 28th-29th 2014