[Lingtyp] Call: Adverbial relations and clause linkages (workshop at SWL7)

Mon Feb 29 10:17:11 UTC 2016

Adverbial relations and clause linkages

Syntax of the World’s Languages Conference

Adjacent workshop

Mexico City; August 20, 2016

Organizers: Lilián Guerrero (UNAM) and Rosa Vallejos (UNM)

This workshop aims to explore the means by which languages encode semantic relations between clauses. In the study of clause combining, adverbial clauses are generally considered to be less subordinate, as compared to relative and complement clauses. Hence, the dependent unit is not syntactically embedded to particular components of the main clause but it relates to it as a whole (Thompson & Longacre 1985; Matthiessen & Thompson 1988). Perhaps due to their relative heterogeneity, adverbial clauses were not studied systematically until the 1990s, when the relevant research focused on their semantic properties (van der Aurea 1998; Hengeveld 1998) and the form and function of adverbial subordinators (Kortmann 1997). More recently, the syntax and semantics of adverbial clauses have been explored, both in cross-linguistic and variational perspectives (Givón 2001; Cristofaro 2003; Van Valin 2005; Thompson et al. 2007; Dixon 2009; Schmidtke-Bode 2009).

In recent years, different syntactic and semantic aspects of adverbial clauses have been thoroughly studied. These studies include the formal variation of encoding one semantic relation, TAM dependency and scope, the coding of argument structure of main and supportive events, the relevance of subordinators, the pragmatic use of particular adverbial relations, among others (Longacre 2007; Verstraete 2008; Van Valin 2009; Nordstrom 2010; Diessel & Hetterle 2011; Vallejos 2014; McDaniels 2014; Guerrero under review). Diessel has devoted several articles to the motivations influencing the order between the main and the subordinated unit in several languages (2001, 2005, 2008). Albeit less extensively, diachronic aspects of adverbial clauses in individual languages have also been discussed (Givón 2015). The typology of clause linkage and the establishment of an inventory of typologically relevant parameters is also a crucial aspect of the study of adverbial relations (Lehman 1988; Bickel 1993, 2010; Gast & Diessel 2012).

Call for papers

Contributions are invited from scholars of different theoretic orientations, on in-depth (preferably corpus-based) research of different aspects of adverbial relations, including (albeit not exclusively):

 - The typology of clause-linking strategies, in general, and the relevant parameters for certain adverbial relations, in particular

- The linguistic encoding of (sub)types of semantic relationships, and the possibility of structural overlaps

- The syntactic ways in which certain types of semantic relations are encoded in particular languages and/or linguistic families

- Evidence for the relationship between coordination, subordination and co-subordination for particular adverbial relations 

- An assessment of previously proposed binding or implicational hierarchies dealing with adverbial relations (Cristofaro 2003; Van Valin 2005)

- The relevance of adverbial subordinators 

- The sources or origins of adverbial subordinators

- Syntactic and semantic integration between focal clause and supporting clause

- Correlations between semantic relationship and constituent ordering 

- The interplay of TAM marking and argument structure factors (e.g., control) in determining the rise of particular semantic relationships

-The role of language contact in the emergence of new syntactic manifestations of adverbial clauses (e.g. subordinator loans, syntactic calques).

Submissions

Abstracts are invited for 20-minute talks (plus 10 min. discussion). Abstracts should be in English, and anonymous. They should be no longer than two pages, including examples and references. Papers can be presented in English and/or Spanish; if the presentation is in Spanish, then there must be a full handout in English. Please send your abstract to the organizers of the workshop:

lilianguerrero at yahoo.com

rvallejos at unm.edu

Important dates

April 1st, 2016: Deadline for abstract submission
April 20th, 2016: Notification of acceptance
August 17th – 19th, 2016: SWL Conference 

August 20th, 2016: Workshops

References

Bickel, B. 1993. Belhare subordination and the theory of topic. Studies in Clause Linkage, ed. K. H. Ebert, pp. 23–55. Zürich: Seminar für Allgemeine Sprachwissenschaft.

_____. 2010. Capturing particulars and universals in clause linkage: A multivariate analysis. Clause-Hierarchy and Clause Linking: The Syntax and Pragmatics Interface, ed. I. Bril, pp. 51–101. Amsterdam: John Benjamins.

Cristofaro, S. 2003. Subordination. New York: Oxford University Press. 

Diessel, H. 2001. The ordering distribution of main and adverbial clauses: A typological study. Language 77, 343-65.

_____. 2005. Competing motivations for the ordering of main and adverbial clauses. Linguistics 43 (3), 449-470.

_____. 2008. Iconicity of sequence. A corpus-based analysis of the positioning of temporal adverbial clauses in English. Cognitive Linguistics 19: 457–482

Diessel, H. and K. Hetterle. 2011. Causal clauses: a cross-linguistic investigation of their structure, meaning and use. Linguistic Universals and Language Variation, ed. P. Siemund, pp. 23-54. Berlin: Mouton.

Dixon, R.M.W. and A. Aikhenvald. 2009. The Semantics of Clause Linking: A Cross-linguistic Typology. Oxford: Oxford University Press.

Dryer, M. 2013. Order of Adverbial Subordinator and Clause. The World Atlas of language Structures Online, eds. M. Dryer & M. Haspelmath. Leipzig: Max Planck Institute for Evolutionary Anthropology. (Available online at http://wals.info/chapter/94, Accessed on 2014-06-27.) 

Gast, V. and H.  Diessel. 2012. Clause Linkage in Cross-Linguistic Perspective: Data-Driven Approaches to Cross-Clausal Syntax. Berlin: Mouton de Gruyter. 

Givón, T. 2001. Syntax. Amsterdam: John Benjamins.

Guerrero, L. Under review. Purpose, cause and reason clauses in Yaqui. IJAL.

Hengeveld, K. 1998. Adverbial clauses in the languages of Europe. Adverbial Constructions in the Languages of Europe, ed. J. van der Auwera, pp. 335-419. Berlin: Mouton. 

Kortmann, B. 1997. Adverbial Subordination: A Typology and History of Adverbial Subordinators Based on European Languages. Berlin & New York: Walter de Gruyter.

Lehmann, C. 1988. Towards a typology of clause linkage. Clause Combining in Grammar and Discourse, eds. J. Haiman & S. Thompson, pp. 181-225. Amsterdam/ Philadelphia: John Benjamins.

Longacre, R. 2007. Sentences as combinations of clauses. Language Typology and Syntactic Description II, ed. T. Shopen, pp. 372-420. Cambridge: Cambridge University Press.

Matthiessen, W. C. and S. Thompson. 1988. The structure of discourse and ‘subordination’. Clause Combining in Grammar and Discourse, eds. J. Haiman & S. A. Thompson, pp. 275–329. Amsterdam: John Benjamins

McDaniels, T. 2014. Rationale and Purposive Clauses in Comanche. IJAL 80:69-97.

Nordstrom, J. 2010. Modality and Subordinators. Amsterdam, John Benjamins.

Schmidtke-Bode, K. 2009. A Typology of Purpose Clauses. Amsterdam: John Benjamins.

Thompson, S., R. Longacre, and S.J. Hwang. 2007. Adverbial clauses. Language Typology and Syntactic Description II, ed. T. Shopen, pp. 237-300. Cambridge: Cambridge University Press.

Vallejos, R. 2014. Reference constraints and information structure management in Kokama purpose clauses: A typological novelty? IJAL 80:39-67.

Van der Auwera, J. 1998. Adverbial Constructions in the Languages of Europe. Berlin/ New York: Mouton de Gruyter.

Van Valin, R., Jr. 2005. Exploring the Syntax-Semantics Interface. Cambridge: Cambridge University Press.

_____, 2009. Privileged syntactic arguments, pivots, and controllers. Studies in Role and Reference Grammar, eds. L. Guerrero, S. Ibáñez & V. Belloro, pp. 45-68. Mexico: UNAM.

Verstraete, J-C. 2008. The status of purpose, reason, and intended endpoint in the typology of complex sentences: Implications for layered models of clause structure. Linguistics 46:757-788. 

Dra. Lilián Guerrero
Seminario de Lenguas Indígenas
Instituto de Investigaciones Filológicas
Universidad Nacional Autónoma de México
Ciudad Universitaria, 04510, México, D.F.
Tel. Seminario:(+52)-(55)-5622-7489
Fax: (+52)-(55)-5622 7907
Página web: http://lilianguerrero.weebly.com