26.3423, Calls: General Linguistics, Semantics, Syntax/Germany

Wed Jul 29 14:16:37 UTC 2015

LINGUIST List: Vol-26-3423. Wed Jul 29 2015. ISSN: 1069 - 4875.

Subject: 26.3423, Calls: General Linguistics, Semantics, Syntax/Germany

Moderators: linguist at linguistlist.org (Damir Cavar, Malgorzata E. Cavar)
Reviews: reviews at linguistlist.org (Anthony Aristar, Helen Aristar-Dry, Sara Couture)
Homepage: http://linguistlist.org

*****************    LINGUIST List Support    *****************
Please support the LL editors and operation with a donation at:
              http://funddrive.linguistlist.org/donate/

Editor for this issue: Erin Arnold <earnold at linguistlist.org>
================================================================

Date: Wed, 29 Jul 2015 10:16:08
From: Jana Haeussler [jana-haeussler at web.de]
Subject: Empirical Methods and Grammatical Theory: The Issue of Gradience

Full Title: Empirical Methods and Grammatical Theory: The Issue of Gradience 

Date: 24-Feb-2016 - 26-Feb-2016
Location: Konstanz, Germany 
Contact Person: Jana Haeussler
Meeting Email: jana-haeussler at web.de

Linguistic Field(s): General Linguistics; Semantics; Syntax 

Call Deadline: 03-Aug-2015 

Meeting Description:

The workshop is part of the 38th Annual Conference of the German Linguistic Society (DGfS) to be held in Konstanz, Germany, February 24—26, 2016. For further information see http://dgfs2016.uni-konstanz.de/

The workshop “Empirical Methods and Grammatical Theory: The Issue of Gradience”, organized by Tom Juzek (Oxford University) and Jana Häussler (University of Potsdam), will take place February 24—26, 2016.

In recent years, issues surrounding the empirical basis of linguistic theory have been discussed intensively again and again (e.g. in a special issue of Theoretical Linguistics, 33 (3), 2007 and a special section in Zeitschrift für Sprachwissenschaft, 28 (1), 2009). The workshop aims to bring together different views on the relationship between empirical methods and grammatical theory with a focus on issues of gradience. Traditionally, grammatical theory is based on categorical (i.e. binary) distinctions, and introspective judgments, i.e. judgments provided by the linguist herself, constitute the primary method to obtain data. Empirical studies, on the other hand, recurrently yield gradient patterns. This discrepancy raises questions like the following which are potential topics for the workshop.

- Is gradience an experimental artefact or do we have to account for it?
- If the latter: Is gradience a performance-effect, which should be reduced, or is it part of the grammar and should be modelled?
- Can categorial models and gradience be reconciled with each other?
- Can gradience be found on all levels of the grammar and if so, does it have the same relevance on each level?
- Are introspective judgements by linguists indispensable, as they might be less vulnerable to confounding factors, or they are too unreliable and should be backed up by empirical data?
- How can the impact of possible confounding factors be estimated and reduced?

2nd Call for Papers:

Extended Deadline: Aug 3, 2015

The workshop “Empirical Methods and Grammatical Theory: The Issue of Gradience”, organized as part of the Annual Conference of the German Linguistic society (DGfS) will take place in Konstanz, February 24—26, 2016. The workshop aims to bring together different views on the relationship between empirical methods and grammatical theory with a focus on issues of gradience.

We invite anonymous abstracts for 30 minutes (20+10) presentations in English. Topics of interest include, but are not limited to, the questions listed in the workshop description and repeated below.

- Is gradience an experimental artefact or do we have to account for it?
- If the latter: Is gradience a performance-effect, which should be reduced, or is it part of the grammar and should be modelled?
- Can categorial models and gradience be reconciled with each other?
- Can gradience be found on all levels of the grammar and if so, does it have the same relevance on each level?
- Are introspective judgements by linguists indispensable, as they might be less vulnerable to confounding factors, or they are too unreliable and should be backed up by empirical data?
- How can the impact of possible confounding factors be estimated and reduced? 

Abstracts should be no longer than 750 words (excluding examples, figures and references) and be submitted as pdf at:

http://linguistlist.org/easyabs/dgfs2016gradience

Deadline for Submissions: Aug 3, 2015

Notifications of acceptance will be sent September 15, 2015

----------------------------------------------------------
LINGUIST List: Vol-26-3423	
----------------------------------------------------------
Visit LL's Multitree project for over 1000 trees dynamically generated
from scholarly hypotheses about language relationships:
          http://multitree.org/