27.930, Calls: Morphology, Pragmatics, Semantics, Syntax, Typology/Poland

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LINGUIST List: Vol-27-930. Mon Feb 22 2016. ISSN: 1069 - 4875.

Subject: 27.930, Calls: Morphology, Pragmatics, Semantics, Syntax, Typology/Poland

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Date: Mon, 22 Feb 2016 11:51:24
From: Marc Tang [tangsaiid at gmail.com]
Subject: Nominal Classification in South-East Asia

 
Full Title: Nominal Classification in South-East Asia 

Date: 15-Sep-2016 - 17-Sep-2016
Location: Poznan, Poland 
Contact Person: Marc Tang
Meeting Email: tangsaiid at gmail.com
Web Site: http://wa.amu.edu.pl/plm/2016/Nominal_Classification_Asia 

Linguistic Field(s): Morphology; Pragmatics; Semantics; Syntax; Typology 

Call Deadline: 31-Mar-2016 

Meeting Description:

Linguists are interested in systems of nominal classification due to their
diverse lexical and pragmatic functions as well as cognitive and cultural
correlates. In particular, ongoing research has focused on semantic,
functional and morphosyntactic properties of complex nominal classification
systems, such as co-occurring gender and numeral classifiers as well as gender
and verbal classifiers (see, e.g. Fedden&Corbett, 2016). The main regions
discussed within such approaches include north-western South America and Papua
New Guinea.

This workshop proposes to focus on another region possessing languages which
display complex nominal classification systems, i.e., Asia. In particular,
numeral classifiers are the hallmark of the languages of East and South-East
Asia. Moreover, the northern region of India is also the meeting point between
Indo-European and Sino-Tibetan languages, which possess prototypical examples
of gender and numeral classifier systems, respectively. This condition makes
the language of this zone unique in the sense that they show a co-occurrence
of numeral classifiers and grammatical genders, while most of the languages
attested in the literature involve either two classifier systems, e.g.
Minangkabau (Austronesian) rely on both noun classifiers and numeral
classifiers (Marnita, 1996) or two-gender systems, e.g. Paumari(Arawan) with a
masculine/feminine gender system plus human/non-human gender system (Fedden &
Corbett, 2016). Studies have been done on co-existing classifier and gender
systems in South American languages, e.g. Palikur (Aikhenvald, 2000),
nevertheless this phenomenon has not been treated in the languages of Asia,
where language contact between Indo-European and Sino-Tibetan languages is
expected to create different results than in South American languages.

As to the motivation of studying such languages, first of all, such complex
systems are relatively uncommon statistically (Sinnemäki, 2015; Tang,
2015).Generally genders occur in inflectional languages while classifiers tend
to occur in languages with less complex inflectional morphology. The
co-existence of the two systems in the same language creates a conflict
between these opposing tendencies, as shown by the complex morphosyntactic
properties of such systems (Fedden et al, 2015). Second, the way genders and
classifiers categorize nouns is drastically different: gender languages such
as French categorize all nouns into either masculine and feminine, while
classifier languages such as Mandarin Chinese class nouns according to the
inherent properties of their referents, such as animacy and shape. The ways in
these systems operate on nouns in the same language create a unique patchwork
of semantic and morphosyntactic properties. Following the motif of PLM 46
“Linguistics and data: A fresh look”, we will therefore focus on the following
issues related to nominal classification systems in Asia, focusing but not
limited to South-East Asia:

- case studies of specific languages displaying complex nominal classification
systems and the formal and semantic interaction among them;
- the realization of particular semantic and discourse functions, e.g.
individuation and reference tracking;
- the interaction of nominal classification and other nominal categories such
as number and definiteness;
- areal studies of nominal classification; 
- the role of language contact in the origin and loss of nominal
classification systems.


Call for Papers: 

For abstract submission, please refer to the website of PLM46:

http://wa.amu.edu.pl/plm/2016/PLM2016_Abstract_submission




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