[Lingtyp] Final call: Valence change in Uralic

[Johanna Nichols]

Final call for papers

XIII International Congress for Finno-Ugric Studies, 16–21 August 2020, Wien

Workshop: The diachrony of valence change in Uralic
Abstract deadline:  September 30, 2019

Abundant derivational morphemes and overlapping lexical and functional
properties in verbal morphology are characteristic of very many Uralic
languages. One of the keys to examining these phenomena more closely
is to clarify the relationship of underived and derived in verb sets
such as causative verbs and decausativizing mechanisms. Given that
derivational morphology is widely used in the Uralic languages, we
seek to bring new light to its importance for etymology and the
diachrony of languages. In this respect, the evidence of the Uralic
languages is also of more general interest.

We are interested in identifying the role of different morphological
and structural units in the diachronic development of valence and
verb, e.g.:

•  Does the evidence of Uralic branches and individual languages show
similar patterns of change, or are they mutually contradictory?
•  How is grammatical information transferred from morphology to lexemes?
•  To what extent does the pairing of verbs, i.e. the relationship
between an underived and a derived word, reveal the diachrony of
grammatically encoded lexemes?
•  What are the origins of valence-related suffixes in Uralic languages?
•  What valence-related derivational suffixes can be reconstructed for
Proto-Uralic (PU) or intermediate branches?
•  For what PU verbs can valence be reconstructed?
•  Can we reconstruct PU derived verbs consisting of a verb root and
valence-changing suffix?
•  Was causativization as predominant in PU as in many contemporary
Uralic languages?
•  Was transitivity generally an inherent lexical property in PU, or
were most/many verbs ambitransitive (labile)?

The maximum length of each abstract is 3000 characters (including
spaces). Abstract proposals must be submitted by September 30, 2019,
using the electronic submission tool (for detailed information, see
https://cifu13.univie.ac.at/call/). Upon submission, you should
classify your abstract as a submission to the VIRSU symposium. In this
conference, each participant can submit maximally two abstracts: one
as the lead author (presenting author), one as a co-author.

Please note that the abstracts must be in English. The title of the
abstract, however, should be in the language in which you plan to give
your talk. In addition to English, the actual papers can be presented
in Hungarian, Finnish, Estonian, German or Russian, in which case
visual support in English is strongly recommended.

For additional information about the International Congress for
Finno-Ugric Studies, see https://cifu13.univie.ac.at/.

Workshop organizers: Riho Grünthal (University of Helsinki), Johanna
Nichols (University of California, Berkeley / University of Helsinki)
Contact: riho.grunthal at helsinki.fi


Literature

Cennamo, Michela, Lars Hellan & A. L. Mal’chukov (eds.) 2017.
Contrastive studies in verbal valency. Amsterdam: John Benjamins.

Dolovai, Dorottya 2001. A többszörös műveltés az obi-ugor nyelvekben.
Néprajz és nyelvtudomány 41. 77–93.

Grünthal, Riho & Johanna Nichols 2016. Transitivizing-detransitivizing
typology and language family history. Lingua posnaniensis LVIII (2).
11–31.

Kasik, Reet 2001. Analytic causatives in Estonian. In: Mati Erelt
(ed.), Estonian typological studies V. Tartu: Tartu Ülikooli
Kirjastus. 77–122.

Kulikov, Leonid, Andrej Malchukov and Peter de Swart (eds.) 2006.
Case, Valency and Transitivity. Amsterdam: John Benjamins.

Kulikov, Leonid. 2011. Voice typology. In Jae Jung Song, ed., The
Oxford Handbook of Linguistic Typology, 368-398. Oxford:
OxfordUniversity Press.

Lehtisalo, Toivo 1936: Über die primären ururalischen
Ableitungssuffixe. Mémoires de la Société Finno-Ougrienne 72.
Helsinki: Finno-Ugrian Society.

Nichols, Johanna, David A. Peterson & Jonathan Barnes. 2004.
Transitivizing and detransitivizing languages. Linguistic Typology
8:2.149–211.