[Lingtyp] Call for papers: Exploring Possession Across Indigenous Central and South America. University of Warsaw, 17/01/2025 (hybrid mode)

[jacob_menschel at web.de]

Dear colleagues,

please find below the call for papers for our workshop “Exploring Possession
Across Indigenous Central and South America: Expanding Perspectives Through
Underdescribed Languages”, to be held in hybrid mode at the University of
Warsaw, Poland, on January 17, 2025. The deadline for abstract submission is
November 21, 2024.

 

Call for papers
Possessive constructions have garnered recent scholarly attention, both from
theoretical (e.g. Heine 1997; Haspelmath 2017) and typological (e.g.
Aikhenvald & Dixon 2013; van Rijn 2016a; 2016b) perspectives, including
areal and microvariational studies (e.g. Chappell & Lü 2022; Wagner-Nagy
2020). Crosslinguistic variation in possessive constructions has been noted
early on, with examples such as alienability splits in Oceanic languages
described by Lévy-Bruhl (1914). In the realm of Amazonian languages,
possessive constructions have been extensively examined in descriptive
accounts, both in reference grammars and dedicated writings (Krasnoukhova
2011; Labrada 2023; Overall, Vallejos & Gildea 2018; van der Voort 2009).
Addressing recent developments related to possessive constructions, our
workshop seeks to investigate variation within possessive constructions –
primarily across hitherto un(der)described indigenous American languages.
While Amazonian languages will be a central focus, the workshop also aims to
explore possessive constructions beyond the Amazon, extending to other
languages from Central and South America. By doing so, we aim to uncover new
broader cross-linguistic patterns and enrich our understanding of possession
in typologically and geographically distinct language families from this
part of the world.

The framework employed in this workshop is fundamentally anchored in
linguistic description, thereby providing a solid foundation for exploring
complex theoretical paradigms. Its primary aim is to investigate possession
in languages that have little or no prior detailed description of their
possessive systems. By focusing on new data, this workshop seeks to uncover
fresh insights and not yet well-described patterns. Some questions that will
be addressed in this workshop include:

 

• How is the possessive construction expressed? What does the construction
depend on (e.g. the nature of the possessor, the possessive relationship, or
the possessed)?

• Are there any non-possessive functions associated with possessive markers?

• Does the language express alienable vs. inalienable possessive
constructions? 

• Does the language have classifiers in possessive constructions?

• What are other means for establishing predicative possessive constructions
(e.g. verbs like ‘have’, copula constructions, an intransitive verb
‘exist’)?

• Do any of such patterns correspond to areal, genetic, or macrotypological
tendencies?

• What insights can be drawn about the historical development and diffusion
of the possessive constructions described?

• Are there sociolinguistic factors contributing to variation in possessive
constructions?

• How does language contact shape and potentially alter the possessive
constructions in the language?
• Do possessive constructions reflect indigenous perspectives on ownership
and the conceptualization of 'belonging' (e.g., land, language)?

 

Further information

We look forward to engaging discussions that contribute to our understanding
of possessive constructions in South and Central America. We are planning a
potential publication of either a special issue (e.g., of Journal of
Language Diversity) or an edited volume (e.g., John Benjamins, de Gruyter)
through the contents of this workshop. Anonymized abstracts should be sent
to both k.wojtylak at uw.edu.pl and jmensch2 at uni-koeln.de by November 21, 2024.

 

Workshop length: Full day 
Presentation format: Hybrid 
Presentation length: 30 minutes (20min for presentation, 10min for
questions)
Fee: free of charge

Invited speakers: Alexandra Aikhenvald, Justyna Olko, John Sullivan

Convenors:

Dr Katarzyna (Kasia) Wojtylak

Assistant professor at the University of Warsaw. Kasia focuses on the
typology of languages of Northwest Amazonia, especially the Witotoan and
Boran language families. She’s worked on language contact and the nature of
relationships between the zones in the world with the highest concentrations
of both biodiversity and linguistic and cultural diversity.

Jacob Menschel 

Researcher at the University of Cologne, conducting language documentary
work with the Andoke language isolate of Southern Colombia, as well as
contact-related investigations related to Northwest Amazonia and further
typological studies on Amazonian languages.

 

Best regards,

Jacob Menschel

Kasia Wojtylak

 

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