CfP: Workshop on Evidentiality, Mirativity and Modality *Apologies for cross-postings*

[Ljuba Veselinova]

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From: Anastasios Tsangalidis <atsangal at auth.gr>
To: LINGTYP at LISTSERV.LINGUISTLIST.ORG
Cc:
Date: Wed, 05 Mar 2014 09:07:54 +0200
Subject: Workshop on Evidentiality, Mirativity and Modality
*Apologies for cross-postings*

A workshop on Evidentiality, Mirativity and Modality is to be submitted for
consideration within the International Conference on Evidentiality and
Modality in European Languages 2014, to be held at the Facultad de
Filología, Universidad Complutense de Madrid. Registration for the workshop
is done as part of the normal conference registration process (
http://linguistlist.org/issues/25/25-498.html).

Contact persons:
Agnès Celle & Anastasios Tsangalidis
agnes.celle at univ-paris-diderot.fr & atsangal at auth.gr

Paper submissions are invited for 20 minutes talks - + 10 min. discussion –
including a 300 word abstract and a title. Data from any European
language(s) can be presented. Note, however, that the working language of
the workshop will be English. All papers will be circulated beforehand in
order to facilitate roundtable discussion.

Abstract submission deadline: 15 March 2014
Notification of acceptance by the workshop convenors: 30 March 2014
Notification of acceptance by the conference organisers: 26 April 2014
Papers accepted for oral presentation due by 5 September 2014

The aim of this workshop is to focus on the relation between mirativity and
evidentiality. Ever since DeLancey’s work on Lhasa Tibetan, mirativity has
been promoted as a cross-linguistic category which encodes information that
is “new or surprising to the speaker”. However, there has been much debate
on whether such a category is relevant to cross-linguistic analysis and
even to Tibetan. Lazard, for instance, challenges DeLancey’s theory on the
grounds that inference, hearsay and unexpected observation are all facets
of the mediative category. Hill rejects both the category of mirativity and
DeLancey’s analysis of Tibetan data, claiming that the particle ḥdug
encodes sensory evidence, not new information. It seems, then, that the
category of mirativity cannot be taken for granted. The goal of this
workshop will be:

(i) to reassess the relation between mirative meaning and evidentiality as
well as modality in European languages. More specifically, we wish to
explore the question whether mirativity can be seen as a legitimate
semantic category on its own or whether it is always a possible extension
of evidential meaning.
(ii) to determine whether mirativity is a valid concept in languages which
encode surprise not in a separate morphosyntactic category, but in specific
constructions.

We welcome proposals for 20 minute papers on topics including (but not
limited to) the following areas:
- (ad-)mirative mood and meaning in European languages: to what extent are
all individual markers the exponents of a single, cross-linguistic,
category? For example, what various analysts call ‘mirative’ in different
Balkan languages involves quite distinct properties – both formally and
notionally. Assuming that mirativity is a valid cross-linguistic category,
is it prototypically organized? To what extent can different mirativity
markers deviate from the prototype?
- The connection between unexpectedness, direct / indirect evidence,
sensory evidence and modality, especially in terms of speaker’s
responsibility
- Further possible questions concerning mirativity: are there well-attested
paths of development out of particular lexical/grammatical sources? Is
mirativity located in the Tense-Aspect-Mood area? Is it a property of
sentences or utterances? Does it involve a specific sentence form or focus
construction reflecting information structure? Can mirativity be subsumed
under the broad category of “noncanonicity judgement” (Fillmore, Kay &
O’Connor) and how is it related to constructions such as “Mad Magazine
sentences” (Akmajian), “Incredulity Response Constructions” (Fillmore, Kay
& O’Connor), “What’s X doing Y?” (Kay & Fillmore)?

Selected References
Akmajian, Adrian, 1984. Sentence types and the form-function fit, in NLLT
2, 1, 1-23.
Chafe, Wallace & Johanna Nichols (eds.). 1986. Evidentiality. The
linguistic coding of epistemology. Norwood, NJ: Ablex.
DeLancey, Scott, 1997. Mirativity: The grammatical marking of unexpected
information. Linguistic Typology 1. 33-52.
Fillmore, Charles & Kay, Paul & O’Connor, Mary. 1988. Regularity and
idiomaticity in grammatical constructions: the case of “Let alone”.
Language 64: 501-538.
Hill, Nathan. 2012. “Mirativity” does not exist: ḥdug in “Lhasa” Tibetan
and other suspects. Linguistic Typology 16, 389-433.
Kay, Paul and Fillmore Charles J. 1999. Grammatical Constructions and
Linguistic Generalizations: The What's X Doing Y? Construction, Language,
Vol. 75, No. 1, 1-33.

-- 
Αναστάσιος Τσαγγαλίδης
Τομέας Θεωρητικής και Εφαρμοσμένης Γλωσσολογίας
Τμήμα Αγγλικής Γλώσσας και Φιλολογίας Α.Π.Θ.
541 24 Θεσσαλονίκη

Anastasios Tsangalidis
Dept of Theoretical and Applied Linguistics
School of English
Aristotle University of Thessaloniki
541 24 Thessaloniki, Greece

Tel.: +30 2310 99 7939
Fax: +30 2310 99 7432
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