[Lingtyp] Final call for papers, "Explaining the cross-linguistic distribution of argument-coding patterns", Potsdam, March 21-24, 2023

Thu Oct 13 12:51:06 UTC 2022

*Explaining the cross-linguistic distribution of argument-coding patterns
(EDAP2023)*
March 21-24, 2023
University of Potsdam
https://sites.google.com/view/edap2023/home

Dear colleagues,

We welcome abstracts for the conference on *E*xplaining the
cross-linguistic *D*istribution of *A*rgument-coding *P*atterns (EDAP2023),
which will be held in Potsdam (Potsdam University, Campus Am Neuen Palais)
on March 21-24, 2023. Please find the call for abstracts below or visit our
website <https://sites.google.com/view/edap2023/call-for-abstracts>.

*Submission guidelines*

Abstracts (maximally 1 page plus references and figures) should be
submitted to the conference email *orgteampotsdam at gmail.com
<orgteampotsdam at gmail.com>* by *October 20, 2022*. The language of the
conference is English. Acceptance notifications will be sent no later than
November 1, 2022.

*Invited speaker *

Martin Haspelmath (Max Planck Institute for Evolutionary Anthropology)

*Call for abstracts*

Argument coding patterns consist of bound markers indicating the semantic
and syntactic dependency of the arguments from their verb and are either
argument-bound (flagging or dependent-marking) or verb-bound (indexing or
head-marking), see Haspelmath (2019). Much scholarly attention has been
devoted to the variation in the productivity degrees of the transitive
pattern across languages. The semantic core of the verbs that typically
assign the transitive coding to their arguments is generally stable across
languages (Tsunoda 1985; Haspelmath 2015). This is also true of one-place
intransitive verbs. The features that are responsible for both classes are
well understood (Hopper & Thompson 1980; Tsunoda 1985; Næss 2007).
Transitive and intransitive verbs are also relatively stable
cross-linguistically in terms of their alignment options (ergative,
accusative or a mixture of the two). It is nevertheless known that
languages significantly differ in their ‘transitivity prominence’, that is,
in the lexical extent of the transitive class (Haspelmath 2015).

By contrast, non-transitive bivalent patterns show much more versatility in
coding frames they represent across and within languages. Although
language-specific non-transitive bivalent patterns display relatively low
type and token frequencies compared to the transitive pattern,
collectively, they can be even more frequent than transitive verbs both in
the lexicon (type frequency) and in the corpus (token frequency). However,
they are often analyzed merely in terms of “deviations” from the transitive
prototype (Kittilä 2011) and, generally speaking, remain quite understudied
by typologists and linguists exploring areal phenomena. For example, so far
no universal trends have been detected with respect to these patterns.

High degrees of both intralinguistic and cross-linguistic versatility of
non-transitive bivalent patterns make it difficult to find strong universal
trends in this domain. By the same token, this variability accounts for
strong local and areal skewings in the cross-linguistic distributions and
thus presents an excellent testing ground for various approaches within the
variationist paradigm. In particular, non-transitive bivalent patterns lend
themselves to exploring various areal pressures and specific contact
situations (see the collection of papers in Grossman et al., eds., 2019).
However, the difficulty here is to establish a cross-linguistically
applicable set of comparative concepts for the non-transitive codings.
Various solutions to this problem have been suggested (Say 2014; Bickel et
al. 2016; Hartmann et al. 2016; Seržant et al., forthc.), but none of them
seems to have gained general acceptance to date. Available studies focusing
on areality in valency patterns are mainly limited to unearthing
contact-induced phenomena in individual languages (Grosmann 2019) or areal
effects in medium-size areas (inter alia, Seržant 2015a, 2015b; Gaszewski
2020; Widmer et al. 2019), while attempts to trace large-scale effects are
generally lacking.

We invite contributions that explore variation, language contact and/or
areal effects, diachronic changes or typological distribution of
argument-coding patterns. The workshop topics include but are not limited
to:

   - methodology of cross-linguistic studies on valency patterns, including
   ways to identify a tertium comparationis;
   - calques and other types of PAT-borrowings and their effect on the
   development of valency patterns in individual languages;
   - areal effects in the distribution of valency patterns associated with
   specific verb types, such as, e.g., perception verbs, interaction verbs,
   pursuit verbs, etc.;
   - areal distribution of valency patterns in synchrony and/or diachrony;
   - interaction of genealogical and areal effects in the development of
   valency patterns;
   - cross-linguistic corpus-based analysis of valency patterns, their
   frequency and productivity;
   - diachronic changes and diachronic (in)stability of the bivalent
   patterns;
   - effects of language contact on argument coding in specific languages.

*References *

Bickel, Balthasar, Taras Zakharko, Lennart Bierkandt, & Alena
Witzlack-Makarevich. 2016. Semantic role clustering: An empirical
assessment of semantic role types in non-default case assignment. In Seppo
Kittila & Fernando Zúñiga (eds.). Advances in research on semantic roles,
51–78.
Gaszewski, Jerzy. 2020. Does Verb Valency Pattern Areally in Central
Europe? A First Look. In Szucsich, Luka, Agnes Kim, & Uliana Yazhinova
(eds.). Areal convergence in Eastern Central European languages and beyond.
Berlin et al. Peter Lang, 13–53.
Grossman, Eitan. 2019. Language-Specific Transitivities in Contact: The
Case of Coptic. Journal of language contact 12 (1). 89-115.
Grossman, Eitan, Alena Witzlack-Makarevich & Ilja Seržant, eds., 2019.
Valency and transitivity in contact: theoretical and empirical issues.
Journal of Language Contact 12(1). Special issue.
Hartmann, Iren, Martin Haspelmath & Michael Cysouw. 2016. Identifying
semantic role clusters and alignment types via microrole coexpression
tendencies. In Seppo Kittila & Fernando Zúñiga (eds.). Advances in research
on semantic roles, 27–49.
Haspelmath, Martin. 2015. Transitivity prominence. In Andrej L. Malchukov &
Bernard Comrie (eds.), Valency classes in the world’s languages, vol. 1:
Introducing the framework, and case studies from Africa and Eurasia
(Comparative Handbooks of Linguistics 1/1), 131-147. Berlin: de Gruyter
Mouton.
Haspelmath, Martin. 2019. Indexing and flagging, and head and dependent
marking. Te Reo, the Journal of the Linguistic Society of New Zealand
62(1), 93-115.
Haspelmath, Martin & Iren Hartmann. 2015. Comparing verbal valency across
languages. In Andrej L. Malchukov & Bernard Comrie (eds.), Valency classes
in the world’s languages: A comparative handbook, vol. 1, 41–71. Berlin: De
Gruyter Mouton.
Hopper, Paul J. & Sandra A. Thompson. 1980. Transitivity in Grammar and
Discourse. Language 56(2), 251-299.
Kittilä, Seppo. 2011. Transitivity typology. In Jae Jung Song (ed.), The
Oxford handbook of linguistic typology, 346–367. Oxford: Oxford University
Press.
Næss, Åshild. 2007. Prototypical Transitivity (Typological studies in
language 72). Amsterdam, Philadelphia: John Benjamins.
Say, Sergey. 2014. Bivalent Verb Classes in the Languages of Europe. A
Quantitative Typological Study, Language Dynamics and Change 4(1), 116–166.
Seržant, Ilja A. 2015a: Dative experiencer constructions as a Circum-Baltic
isogloss. In: P. Arkadiev, A. Holvoet, B. Wiemer (eds.), Contemporary
Approaches to Baltic Linguistics. Berlin/New York: De Gruyter. 325-348.
Seržant, Ilja A. 2015b: Independent partitive as a Circum-Baltic isogloss,
Journal Language Contact 8, 341-418.
Seržant, Ilja A., Björn Wiemer, Eleni Bužarovska, Martina Ivanová, Maxim
Makartsev, Stefan Savić, Dmitri Sitchinava, Karolína Skwarska, Mladen
Uhlik, Areal and diachronic trends in argument flagging across Slavic. In:
Eystein Dahl (ed.), Alignment and Alignment Change in the Indo-European
Family. Oxford: OUP. (accepted)
Tsunoda, Tasaku. 1985. Remarks on transitivity. Journal of Linguistics 21.
385–396.
Widmer, Paul, Stefan Dedio, Lea Gafner, & Barbara Sonnenhauser. 2019.
Comparing the multi-faceted morphosyntax of microrole selection. Paper
presented at the 13th ALT conference, Pavia. 06.09.2019.

Yours sincerely,

*Organizing team*

Daria Alfimova
<https://www.uni-potsdam.de/de/slavische-linguistik/team/daria-alfimova>
(University of Potsdam)

Cem Keskin
<https://www.uni-potsdam.de/de/daf/personal/doktorandinnen/cem-keskin>
(University
of Potsdam)

Maxim Makartsev
<https://uol.de/slavistik/forschung/sprachwissenschaft/hybridisierung-von-zwei-seiten-1>
(University
of Oldenburg)

Sergey S. Say
<https://www.uni-potsdam.de/de/slavische-linguistik/team/dr-sergey-say>
(University
of Potsdam)

Christoph Schroeder
<https://www.uni-potsdam.de/de/daf/personal/christoph-schroeder> (University
of Potsdam)

Ilja A. Seržant
<https://www.uni-potsdam.de/de/slavische-linguistik/team/serzant> (University
of Potsdam)

-- 
Daria Alfimova, PhD student
Department of Slavonic Studies
University of Potsdam
Am Neuen Palais 10, Haus 01, 14469 Potsdam
https://www.uni-potsdam.de/de/slavische-linguistik/team/daria-alfimova
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