23.14, Calls: Syntax/Sweden

Tue Jan 3 19:22:33 UTC 2012

LINGUIST List: Vol-23-14. Tue Jan 03 2012. ISSN: 1069 - 4875.

Subject: 23.14, Calls: Syntax/Sweden

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1)
Date: 21-Dec-2011
From: Lobke Aelbrecht [lobke.aelbrecht at gmail.com]
Subject: Parallels Between Clauses and Nominals

-------------------------Message 1 ---------------------------------- 
Date: Tue, 03 Jan 2012 14:21:40
From: Lobke Aelbrecht [lobke.aelbrecht at gmail.com]
Subject: Parallels Between Clauses and Nominals

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Full Title: Parallels Between Clauses and Nominals 

Date: 29-Aug-2012 - 01-Sep-2012
Location: Stockholm, Sweden 
Contact Person: Lobke Aelbrecht
Meeting Email: lobke.aelbrecht at ugent.be

Linguistic Field(s): Syntax 

Call Deadline: 15-Jan-2012 

Meeting Description:

Parallels Between Clauses and Nominals
Workshop at the 45th Annual Meeting of the Societas Linguistica Europaea (http://www.sle2012.eu), Stockholm, 29 August - 1 September 2012

In an endeavour to explain how language is structured, linguists attempt to find patterns and account for generalisations. In formulating such generalisations, many syntacticians have been exploring the parallels between clauses and nominal expressions.

One of the first explicit formal proposals is Szabolcsi's (1983) work on Hungarian noun phrases, where she likens the possessor in the nominal to the sentential subject. Abney's (1987) dissertation pushes the parallelism between nominals and clauses even further by assuming a similar functional structure for both. Subsequently, more evidence was brought forward supporting a parallel approach towards the nominal and clausal domain, from a typologically diverse range of languages (Alexiadou&Stavrou 1998; Cardinaletti&Starke 1999; Bernstein 2001; Grimshaw 2005; Koopman 2005; Rijkhoff 2008, among others).

Parallels can be found by examining these domains from two angles. Properties which are typically attributed to clauses, such as the expression of tense and aspect, have been argued to have a counterpart in nominals (Kratzer 1998, Wiltschko 2003, Giusti 2008 and Lecarme 2008, see also Alexiadou et al. 2007). Conversely, several characteristics typically associated with nominals have been linked to clauses, such as referentiality, definiteness, familiarity and factivity. 

Invited Speaker:

Guglielmo Cinque 

Call for Papers:

This workshop aims to bring together the empirical evidence for - or against - parallels between clause and nominal domain, and to explore the different viewpoints on how they can be encoded in the grammar. We hope to include both formal and functional perspectives, as well as new data from experimental or acquisitional research, for instance, and welcome contributions dealing with any natural language. Questions we would like to see addressed include, but are not limited to:

1. Do nominal expressions have clausal properties? What would be empirical evidence for such a claim? If it is true, do nominals always exhibit 'clausal' structure? For nominalisations such as the destruction of Rome, the motivation for claiming they have verbal roots may be clear (cf. Chomsky 1970; Grimshaw 2005), but parallels have also been drawn for other nominals, based on several properties: 

- Giusti (2008) discusses agreement and concord phenomena in nominal expressions with respect to similar mechanisms in the clause. Subject agreement, for instance, is not limited to clauses but also occurs with possessors in noun phrases, as shown for Romance and Bantu languages. See also Bittner & Hale (1996) for a link between case and clausal agreement.
- Notions such as topic and focus, which are typically associated with clausal structure, have received counterparts inside the nominal domain (cf. Giusti 1996, Horrocks and Stavrou 1987; Aboh 2004, among others). There is debate, however, as to whether there are designated topic and focus positions within nominals mirroring those proposed for clauses (Aboh 2010). 
- Patterns such as How/So important a decision suggest that wh-movement applies inside the nominal phrase (Bennis et al 1998, Haegeman 2008).
- Predication is also argued to take place within the nominal domain. Den Dikken (1995,1998) shows that copular verbs as in Ben is a doctor are parallel to 'nominal copulas' such as prepositional of in a jewel of an island, where a jewel is predicated of an island (see also Campbell 1996; Bennis et al 1998; Den Dikken 2006).
- Sentential negation has also been argued to have its counterpart in the nominal domain (cf. Troseth 2004).
- Even Verb Second, a phenomenon that seems exclusive to clauses, has been argued to have a parallel in nominal expressions (Haegeman 2004; Bennis et al 1998). 
- Wiltschko (2003), Nordlinger&Sadler (2004) and Lecarme (2008) extend tense and modality to the nominal domain and Roehrs (2009) does the same for auxiliaries. See also Pesetsky&Torrego 2004; Matthewson 2005 and Alexiadou 2010 on the debate on whether or not there is tense in nominals.

2. Do clauses have nominal properties? Many properties traditionally attributed to noun phrases are also used to distinguish between clause types:

- Kiparsky&Kiparsky (1971) analyse factive clauses as being introduced by the fact that, making them noun phrases in terms of structure. This started an ongoing debate as to how one can - and whether one should - encode factivity in the syntax of a complement clause (Melvold 1991; Aboh 2005; Kallulli 2006; De Cuba 2007; De Cuba&Ürögdi 2009).
- Subsequently, the distinction between types of complement clauses has been construed in terms of other nominal properties such as referentiality (Haegeman&Ürögdi 2010), familiarity (Hegarty 1992) and definiteness (Melvold 1991, Roussou 1993). See also Han (2005) and Takahashi (2010). 
- Free relatives show a surface resemblance to embedded interrogatives. Only the former however, have frequently been analysed as involving a nominal layer in their structure (Huddleston&Pullum 2002; Caponigro 2002), although this has been disputed (Rooryck 1994).
- Recent discussion of relative clauses has given rise to new viewpoints on the link between clauses and nominals (Aboh 2005, Arsenijevic 2009, Manzini 2010). 

3. If there is a parallel between the clausal and nominal domain, how can this be encoded in the grammar? Several analyses have been proposed (see references above, cf. Alexiadou et al 2007 for an overview).

4. Entering more formal approaches towards these parallels, following Van Riemsdijk (1978), Starke (1993), Koopman (2000,2010) and Den Dikken (2003,2010) for work in the adpositional domain, Grimshaw (2005) proposes a link between DP (the nominal phrase including the determiner, i.e. the referential layer) and TP (Tense Phrase, including the finite verb), and between PP and CP (Complementizer Phrase, including e.g. complementizer and illocutionary force). Not everyone agrees with this parallel, however: other work has, for instance, linked DP and CP together. So another question to be addressed is, are we drawing the right parallellisms? What in the clausal domain is it that the nominal domain is parallel to? 

5. Perhaps more fundamentally even: how real are the parallellisms and how far do the parallellisms go? In trying to find generalisations, one should always be wary of imposing patterns on the data. For instance, many linguists have drawn parallels between clauses and nominals based on referentiality or presupposition, but are we actually looking at the same thing, or is the link 'created' by the way we look at phenomena? 

We aim to organise a one-and-a-half-day workshop (15 slots), and encourage linguists who are interested in presenting at this workshop to submit an abstract through the SLE website (http://www.sle2012.eu) by 15 January 2012.

Abstracts, stating research questions, approach, method, data and (expected) results, should be anonymous and contain between 400 and 500 words (exclusive of references). Participants are allowed to present only one single-authored paper at SLE 2012. In addition they may have a joint paper (without being the first author). Two co-authored papers are also allowed. Workshop slots last 30 minutes, which means 20 minutes for the presentation and 8 minutes for discussion (we ideally allow 2 minutes for people to change rooms).

The abstracts will receive three scores, two by two members of the SLE 2012 scientific committee and one by us, the workshop convenors. Both workshop papers and general session papers will be selected according to the same threshold. Last year the threshold was slightly above the average score of all abstracts. You will be informed of your acceptance by the SLE organisers by the end of March 2012. Accepted abstracts which are not included in the proposal for thematic reasons or reasons of space can still be presented during the general session. Because some potential participants cancel their participation, we encourage everyone to submit their abstract. The full schedule should be ready by May 2012. More information about the conference can be found on the SLE website.

Important Dates:

Deadline for submission: 15 January
Notification: 31 March 2012
SLE Conference: 29 August-1 September 2012, Stockholm

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