21.4231, Calls: Historical Ling, Syntax/Germany

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LINGUIST List: Vol-21-4231. Sun Oct 24 2010. ISSN: 1068 - 4875.

Subject: 21.4231, Calls: Historical Ling, Syntax/Germany

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1)
Date: 22-Oct-2010
From: Roland Meyer [roland.meyer at sprachlit.uni-regensburg.de]
Subject: Grammatical Change and the Expression of Subjects
 

	
-------------------------Message 1 ---------------------------------- 
Date: Sun, 24 Oct 2010 16:32:54
From: Roland Meyer [roland.meyer at sprachlit.uni-regensburg.de]
Subject: Grammatical Change and the Expression of Subjects

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Full Title: Grammatical Change and the Expression of Subjects 
Short Title: GCES 

Date: 02-Dec-2010 - 04-Dec-2010
Location: Regensburg, Germany 
Contact Person: Roland Meyer
Meeting Email: roland.meyer at sprachlit.uni-regensburg.de
Web Site: http://www-slavistik.uni-regensburg.de/gces 

Linguistic Field(s): Historical Linguistics; Syntax 

Call Deadline: 03-Dec-2010 

Meeting Description:

Diachronic grammatical change in the realm of subject expressions involves 
phenomena like the loss of pro-drop, alternations in thematic alignment, and 
the rise of various new passive and impersonal constructions. The 
conference seeks to bring together researchers working on these and 
closely related topics. Attention shall also be devoted to annotated historical 
corpora which facilitate the treatment of the above issues. 

Call For Papers

Diachronic grammatical change affects verbal arguments through an 
interplay of various semantic and structural factors, leading to new 
alternations and structural patterns. In the realm of subject expressions, 
important documented changes include loss of pro-drop, alternations in 
thematic alignment, and the rise of various new passive and impersonal 
constructions. The notion of subject itself is, of course, a notoriously multi-
faceted one, involving factors like referential relations, structural position, 
case, agreement, and thematic roles, the specifications of which certainly do 
not always harmonise. Precisely this state of affairs has often given rise to 
important and fascinating research questions, as e.g. in the case of null and 
expletive subjects, or of oblique/quirky subjects.

Research on grammatical change has made a considerable leap forward by 
the exploitation of annotated corpora. Not only has its empirical base 
become more accessible in general, but methodological progress has made 
feasible new, exciting research questions, especially involving quantitative 
distributions of linguistic features. Historical and diachronic corpora of an 
increasing number of languages are being constructed and annotated with 
syntactically relevant information in order to address these and related 
issues.

The conference aims at bringing together researchers working on 
diachronic change in the realm of subject expressions. Since corpus data 
are so vital for the field, we also invite researchers who have constructed 
historical and diachronic corpora which specifically include annotations for 
(some of) the above-mentioned factors, and thus expedite the treatment of 
subject-related issues.

Topics of interest include, but are not limited to:

-Diachronic development of null subjects
-Changes in subject expletives
-Diachrony of oblique and quirky subjects
-History of impersonal constructions
-Development of diatheses affecting the external argument
-Change in unaccusatives
-History of subjects in root infinitives and modal constructions
-Empirical methodology in diachronic syntax
-Historical and diachronic corpora annotated for syntactic structure and -
syntactic relations
-The conference will seek a comparative and typological view. Papers will 
be given precedence which address grammatical change in a theoretically 
explicit way, aiming at an explanatory account, and/or demonstrate 
substantial methodological advancement.

Abstract specifications

Anonymous abstracts for 25 min. presentations (+10 min. discussion) 
should be submitted as am email attachment to gces at sprachlit.uni-
regensburg.de until 15 July 2010.

Abstracts may be up to 2 pages long, including examples and references, in 
pdf format, with fonts embedded. If you have difficulties at producing pdf, 
you may also submit a doc file. Please include your contact information 
(name, affiliation, address, email address for correspondence), as well as 
the title of your abstract, in the body of the email. Every abstract will be 
reviewed anonymously by two external referees. Accepted papers will be 
published in a proceedings volume after the conference.

Important dates

Submission of abstracts: 15 July 2010
Notification of acceptance: 31 August 2010
Conference: 2-4 December 2010





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LINGUIST List: Vol-21-4231