[Lingtyp] ALT Newsletter 54

Thu Mar 8 22:39:40 UTC 2018

Greetings ALT Community:

Please find the latest newsletter here. If you would like a separate .pdf,
please just contact me and I'll send you one.

Respectfully,
Kristine Hildebrandt (ALT Secretary)
----------------------------------------------

*ALT News No. 54*

*February/March 2018*

*1. Message from the president*

The end of 2017 was unusually eventful for ALT. The Association had its
first Meeting in Australia, and the southern hemisphere location meant that
the meeting took place in December, a different time of year than usual. It
thus nearly coincided with another major event for ALT, the transition of
the editorship of *Linguistic Typology* from Frans Plank, the founding
editor, to Maria Koptjevskaja Tamm at the beginning of 2018. This was
recognized at the meeting itself through a plenary session panel on
morphosyntactic typology that ended by honoring Frans for his many years of
service to the field as Editor of *Linguistic Typology*.

The Meeting in Canberra was a great success, with high attendance and
excellent presentations across all areas of typology. The talks on
quantitative and areal typology seemed especially well attended, in
particular by younger scholars, perhaps suggesting something about where
the field is headed. The organizers provided an excellent balance between
regular sessions, plenary lectures, and plenary panels, and I appreciated,
in particular, their efforts to bring interdisciplinary perspectives to the
discussion. The next ALT Meeting is scheduled for early September 2019 in
Pavia, and I am looking forward to learning more about the progress of
typology there.

As a year between meetings, 2018 will provide the ALT Executive Committee
with an opportunity to take up various issues that are important to the
governing of the Association but which are best dealt with away from the
pressures of the deadlines that necessarily accompany the organization of a
major conference. Three issues that I expect to be addressed in particular
are improving ALT's system for membership management, updating the ALT
website, and revisiting the development of a code of conduct (or something
like it) associated with ALT activities. With respect to the last topic, I
hope that ALT will be able to build on the work of other scholarly
societies in this area to develop a statement that will balance the
concerns of as many members as possible.

.

Jeff Good

*2. ALT 12 Conference Report*

*2.1. Conference Statistics*.

The ALT 12 program committee received 298 abstracts. Of these, 121 were
accepted as oral presentation, 50 were accepted as a poster, and 43 were
accepted to one of the workshops. 43 abstracts were rejected. While there
is no attendance record for ALT 12, a total of 245 bookings
(student/unwaged and waged combined) were submitted for registration.

*2.2. Business Meeting.*

We wish to express our gratitude to the Canberra organizing committee, in
particular the directors, Wayan Arka, Danielle Barth, Don Daniels (also on
the local organizing committee) and Nick Evans, and also to the members of
the local organizing committee: David Nash, Jane Simpson, Beth Evans,
Leanne Scott, Joanne Allen, Harold Koch, Kyla Quinn, Tina Gregor, and the
other volunteers who played a role.

Thanks also go to the program committee: Oliver Bond, Don Daniels, Michael
Dunn, Mark Ellison, Bethwyn Evans, Sebastian Fedden, Lauren Gawne, Tina
Gregor, Martin Haspelmath, Rachel Hendery, Kristine Hildebrandt, Larry
Hyman, Linda Konnerth, Masha Koptjevskaja-Tamm, Silvia Luraghi, Rachel
Nordlinger, Uta Reinöhl, Michael Riessler, Adam Schembri, Shahar Shirtz,
Hedvig Skirgard, Mark Van de Velde, Alena Witzlack, and Ulrike Zeshan.

*2.2.1. Membership*

Regular Members

Student Members

Total

2014

284

35

319

2015

250

30

280

2016

262

28

290

12/8/2017

338

42

380

95 pledged members

475

*2.2.2. Finances*

2016 beginning balance

12.361,51 €

Action

Amount

Bank Interest

+23,50

Banking Cost

-34,60

Membership

+2710,00

Legal Help

-603,36

Leftover EC and board meeting

+1993,95

2016 end balance

16.721,00 €

2017 beginning balance

16.721,00 €

Action

Amount

Bank Interest

+7,19

Banking Costs

-29,22

Membership

+2816,00

Legal Help

-100,00

Estimated Costs

Amount

Scholarships

-3000

Awards

-3000

2017 end balance

≈13.415,00 €

A quick note regarding finances: due to practical reasons, although the
conference took place in 2017, our expenses on awards and fellowships for
the conference all have been recorded for the calendar year 2018. The
actual numbers on awards and fellowships will come when 2018 financial year
is finished and recorded. We wish to thank the ALT 12 organizers for their
financial efforts and contributions in making this conference a success!

*2.2.3. Journal*

Maria (Masha) Koptjevskaja-Tamm has taken over editorship of *Linguistic
Typology*, and she adds some news and information here:

1.     Changes in the team

·      Three Associate Editors have left the board: Bill Croft (starting
Fall 2011), Larry Hyman (starting Fall 1999), Maria Koptjevskaja-Tamm
(starting Fall 2007). Thank you for all of your hard work!

·      Our amazing editorial assistant Wolfgang Schellinger, who has been
with the journal since its start, has left the journal

·      Two new Associated Editors have joined the board: Dan Dediu and
Jean-Christophe Verstraete

·      Angela Terrill is the new Assistant Editor

2.     Access related issues

·      *Linguistic Typology* implements the Hybrid Open Access model (
https://www.degruyter.com/page/560), meaning that authors of journal
articles have the option of making their accepted articles freely
accessible on degruyter.com. The price is currently 2,000 Euros; Hybrid
Open Access contributions also qualify for Institutional Membership
discounts. You can check with your universities if they have any agreements
with De Gruyter.

·      We are going to introduce “The editor’s choice” model: the editor
chooses one article per issue or possibly two for a special issue for free
access - free to read online. The details are under discussion.

·      Note that De Gruyter allows authors the use of the final published
version of an article (publisher pdf) for self-archiving (author's personal
website) and/or archiving in an institutional repository (on a non-profit
server) after an embargo period of 12 months after publication. Also, the
Authors may download offprint of the article as a PDF document and send 30
copies of the article to colleagues.

See https://www.degruyter.com/dg/page/repository-policy for the publishers’
repository policy.

3.     We have been working on updating the mission of the journal, on the
list of the genres represented in it and on the new submission guidelines
(will soon be published at https://www.degruyter.com/view/j/lity)

3.1. New text for the mission of the journal

*Aims and Scope*

*Linguistic Typology* provides a forum for all work of relevance to the
study of language typology and cross-linguistic variation. It welcomes work
taking a typological perspective on all domains of the structure of spoken
and signed languages, including historical change, language processing, and
sociolinguistics. Diverse descriptive and theoretical frameworks are
welcomed so long as they have a clear bearing on the study of
cross-linguistic variation. We welcome cross-disciplinary approaches to the
study of linguistic diversity, as well as work dealing with just one or a
few languages, as long as it is typologically informed and typologically
and theoretically relevant.

3.2. An updated list of genres. Particularly important items (in bold) are
accompanied by comments below:

• Research articles
• Target articles with peer commentary *
*• Special issues* *
• Debates *

*• Language profiles, family portraits and areal surveys ***
• Review articles (reviewing two or more books, or a whole subject area)
• Book reviews
• *Methodological contributions* ***

• *Squibs* ****

Special issues, methodological contributions and squibs are additions to
the earlier repertoire, while language profiles/family portraits/areal
surveys have already been published earlier.

* For special issues, target articles and debates: please contact the editor

** ‘Language / Family / Area Portraits’ emphasize the connection between
typology and description/documentation. These should give a profile of the
language(s) in typological perspective, with particular attention to the
points of greatest typological interest. Examples of previous profiles can
be seen here:

– Quesada, J. Diego. 1999. Chibchan, with special reference to
participant-highlighting (LT 3 (2), 209 – 257).

– Evans, Nicholas. 2000. Iwaidjan, a very un-Australian language family (LT
4 (1), 91–142)

– François, Alex. 2005. A typological overview of Mwotlap, an Oceanic
language of Vanuatu (LT 9 (1), 115–146)
– Epps, Patience. 2008. Hup's typological treasures: Description and
explanation in the study of an Amazonian language (LT 12 (2), 169–193)
– Yager, Joanne & Burenhult, Niclas. 2017. Jedek: A newly discovered Aslian
variety of Malaysia. (LT 21 (3), 493–545).

We invite prospective authors to use their own creativity in bringing out
what is most interesting and unusual in the languages or families they are
describing.

*** Methodological contributions include, but are not restricted to reports
on and reviews of toolkits, databases, software, collection of texts and
corpora, archival collections resulting from fieldwork etc. These should
include a discussion of how/why the material is of typological relevance.

 *** Squibs are very short and often humorous pieces on a very specific
topic intended to encourage debate

Articles can be accompanied by supplementary online materials (e.g.,
examples, lists of sources, queries to databases, etc., contact the Editor
for details). We urge authors to make as much as possible of the primary
data, analysis scripts, software, databases, etc. freely available in the
supplementary materials or in publicly accessible repositories or archives.

3.3. LT is adding the transcription of the contributors’ names as
obligatory component. We are also adding a statement on the contribution of
each author in co-authored works (ideally with a clarification re the
ordering of their names).

3.4. We are also adding the transcription of the language names – in those
cases where the contribution focuses on one or a few languages.

4.     Challenges for the journal:

4.1.We regularly have problems with filling the journal, even though we
always succeed in the end. Why? What can we do for attracting more
high-quality contributions?

Conversely, it seems that few people outside of the field read the journal.
Again why? What can we do for attracting readers to the journal? We need to
make the journal more relevant to the members of the ALT community, but
also enhance the dialogue with theoretical linguists, anthropologists,
psychologists, etc. ANY IDEAS ARE WELCOME!!!

4.2.There is a significant geographic/linguistic bias in the contributions
published by the journal. Among the different reasons for this one is
particularly relevant, namely, the challenge of writing a decent journal
paper in Academic English. This is a real and big problem the magnitude of
which native speakers of English are probably not aware of. And the ALT,
whose primary focus is on linguistic diversity, should take this challenge
seriously and try to come up with practical measures for ensuring that also
linguists with a weaker English language background can make their way to
“Linguistic Typology” – or to other English speaking academic fora.

4.3. There is also a noticeable gender imbalance in the debates that have
been published in *Linguistic Typology*. This is of course not truly
representative of the ALT community of the whole, as all of us know (also
exemplified by the two most recent award winners, Diana Forker and Ksenia
Shagal – and by the composition of the Editorial Board of the journal).
This imbalance is most probably a reflection of the general debate climate
on LingTyp – and on many other discussion lists – indicating that we should
be more active in inviting female researchers to participate in future
debates.

Please contact the editor (lt at degruyter.com) for any comments, ideas,
suggestions, reactions etc.!

5.     Table of contents for *Linguistic Typology* 2018 (1)

(1)    From the Editors (Frans Plank, Maria Koptjevskaja-Tamm)

Articles

(2)    Sonja Riesberg - Optional ergative, agentivity and discourse
prominence: Evidence from Yali (Trans-New Guinea)

(3)    Yuèyuán Lǐ and Dan Ponsford - Predicative reduplication: Functions,
their relationships and iconicities – THE EDITOR’S CHOICE (freely
accessible)!

(4)    Cynthia Hansen - Defining the parameters for subordinate and
interrogative clause negation in Iquito (Zaparoan)

Book reviews

(5)    Nina Dobrushina - Review of Boye, K. & Kehayov, P. (Eds.)
(2016). *Complementizer
Semantics in European Languages*. Berlin, Boston: De Gruyter Mouton.

Obituary

(6)    Pavel Iosad, Maria Koptjevskaja-Tamm, Alexander Piperski, Dmitry
Sitchinava -

a.     Depth, brilliancy, clarity: Andrey Anatolyevich Zaliznyak (1935 –
2017)

*2.2.4. Elections*

The ALT EC elected three new members: Mark Dingemanse, Rachel Nordlinger,
Ljuba Veselinova.

Thank you to the outgoing EC members: Felix Ameka, Isabel Bril, and Keren
Rice!

*2.2.5. Future Meetings*

ALT 13, September 4-6, 2019, Pavia, Italy.

The conference web site is now up, and will be developed as more
information comes together:
https://sites.google.com/universitadipavia.it/alt2019/home

The organizers are also planning a number of teach-ins for September 3, so
participants should keep this date in mind, as well.

We encourage potential host venues for ALT 14 (North/South America?) to
begin thinking about submitting a bid in late 2018.

*2.2.6. Awards (the jury report was in Newsletter 53)*

The Joseph Greenberg award for the best typological dissertation defended
between 2015-2016: Ksenia Shagal, of the University of Helsinki, delivered
a presentation on her thesis “Towards a typology of participles”.

The Georg von der Gabelentz award for achievements in language
documentation through the writing of reference grammars: Diana Forker delivered
a presentation on her published grammar, *A Grammar of Hinuq *(
https://www.degruyter.com/view/product/203728)

The jury reports were published in Newsletter 53, November 2017.

We wish to once again thank the chairs and committees for their work:
Toshihide Nakayama and Sonia Cristofaro (chairs), and also Bernard Comrie,
Denis Creissels, Volker Gast , Ekaterina Gruzdeva, Bernd Heine, Johanna
Nichols, Doris Payne, Maria Polinsky, Jean-Christophe Verstraete, Bernhard
Wälchli, and Honore Watanabe (jury members).
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