27.3061, Calls: Historical Ling, Typology/Sweden

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LINGUIST List: Vol-27-3061. Tue Jul 26 2016. ISSN: 1069 - 4875.

Subject: 27.3061, Calls: Historical Ling, Typology/Sweden

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Date: Tue, 26 Jul 2016 10:32:00
From: Ljuba Veselinova [ljuba at ling.su.se]
Subject: The Negative Existential Cycle Viewed Through Comparative Data

 
Full Title: The Negative Existential Cycle from a Historical-Comparative Perspective 

Date: 08-Dec-2016 - 09-Dec-2016
Location: Stockholm, Sweden 
Contact Person: Ljuba Veselinova
Meeting Email: negative.existential.cycle at gmail.com
Web Site: http://www.ling.su.se/negative.existentials.cycle 

Linguistic Field(s): Historical Linguistics; Typology 

Call Deadline: 15-Oct-2016 

Meeting Description:

The evolution of negation is often discussed in terms of a grammaticalization
process dubbed Jespersen Cycle by Dahl (1979). Within this process, negation
markers are seen to originate from emphatic elements in the negative phrase
which gradually lose their sense of emphasis and are eventually interpreted as
general verbal negators. Croft (1991) has suggested negative existentials as
another source for negation markers. This author presented his hypothesis
under the name Negative Existential Cycle (NEC). Despite renewed interest in
cyclical processes in language change cf. (van Gelderen 2008, 2009, Willis,
Lucas & Breitbath 2013), the NEC has received little attention. In order to
examine its realizations from a wider cross-linguistic perspective we, Ljuba
Veselinova (U of Stockholm) and Arja Hamari (U of Helsinki), have started a
collaborative effort; we are hereby inviting other scholars to join in.

Veselinova has devoted several articles to a critical examination of the NEC
cf. (Veselinova 2014, 2015, 2016). In these works she tests the NEC by
applying it to comparative data from six families: Slavic, Uralic, Turkic,
Dravidian, Berber and Polynesian. The main results of these tests can be
summarized as follows

(i) Negative existentials commonly break into the domain of standard/verbal
negation via their uses with nominalized verb forms.
(ii) In the typical case, negative existentials take over only parts of verbal
negation e.g. a specific tense-aspect category. These partial take-overs tend
to last for very long periods of time and thus look like stable states.
(iii) Negative existentials are most likely to take over the whole domain of
standard negation in languages where predicate concatenation is very
productive
(iv) Negative existentials are constantly renewed.

A more detailed overview of the generalizations outlined here is presented at
the workshop website www.ling.su.se/negative.existentials.cycle.

Lexington Books, https://rowman.com/LexingtonBooks are interested in
publishing a peer-reviewed book on this topic. Following their interest, we
are planning an edited volume where the NEC is tested on a family based sample
with a world-wide coverage. To this end we are now seeking collaboration with
other scholars who have expertise on specific language families and have an
interest in in issues similar to those outlined below:

- processes whereby negative existentials or other lexicalizations of negation
break into the domain of standard negation
- are there any language specific characteristics that trigger or halt the NEC
- the time duration of cyclical processes

The goal of this conference is to establish collaboration between scholars who
are interested in the evolution of negation and in the interaction between
special and standard negators.

Confirmed Participants:

Prof. Elly van Gelderen, U of Arizona
Prof. Johan van der Auwera, U of Antwerpen

References:

For reasons of space the references mentioned above are listed here
www.ling.su.se/negative.existentials.cycle.


2nd Call for Papers: 

The compilation of the planned volume will be preceded by a 2 day workshop in
Stockholm in May of 2017 (please note that the dates from the previous
announcement have been changed).

If you are interested in participating, please send one page abstract (500-700
words) to negative.existential.cycle at gmail.com.

Important Dates:

Deadline for abstract submission: October 15, 2016
Notification of acceptance: November 1, 2016
Workshop: May 4-5, 2017, Dept of Linguistics, U of Stockholm

The details for the planned volume will be discussed at the workshop. Please
note that your submission can be considered for the volume even if you do not
participate in the workshop.




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