28.4249, Calls: Sociolinguistics, Typology/Estonia

[The LINGUIST List]

LINGUIST List: Vol-28-4249. Mon Oct 16 2017. ISSN: 1069 - 4875.

Subject: 28.4249, Calls: Sociolinguistics, Typology/Estonia

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Date: Mon, 16 Oct 2017 14:38:49
From: Björn Wiemer [wiemerb at uni-mainz.de]
Subject: The Study of (Micro-)Areal Patterns in Eurasia

 
Full Title: The Study of (Micro-)Areal Patterns in Eurasia 

Date: 29-Aug-2018 - 01-Sep-2018
Location: Tallinn, Estonia 
Contact Person: Björn Wiemer
Meeting Email: wiemerb at uni-mainz.de

Linguistic Field(s): Sociolinguistics; Typology 

Call Deadline: 10-Nov-2017 

Meeting Description:

The past 20-30 years have witnessed an enormous increase in interest in areal
biases of basic grammatical patterns. Among others, Europe has been identified
as a linguistic area which stands out if we compare the features of ‘Standard
Average European’ (SAE) with their world-wide distribution, for instance, the
relative pronoun strategy or HAVE-verbs and grammatical paradigms based on
these (perfects, causatives); cf. Haspelmath (2001), Heine/Kuteva (2006). At
the same time, the “SAE-peripheries” often turn out to form merely part of
larger clines which stretch throughout Eurasia; e.g. non-nominative
experiencers, preference for non-finite predicates of independent clauses,
locative comparatives, etc. On the other hand, areal clines and clusters
within Europe (and adjacent parts of Asia) have been discovered which show
that larger areas can be very heterogeneous internally; compare, e.g.,
external possessors (Haspelmath 1999), reflexive-reciprocal polysemy (Wiemer,
forthcoming: §5.3), future gram types (Wiemer/Hansen 2012). Thus, as we
examine presumed linguistic areas in greater detail, we also discover
heterogeneity within them, forcing us to refine our defining criteria.
Micro-areal studies allow for more in-depth scrutiny and allow us to account
for diastratic differentiation, provided that adequate corpora or databases
exist. Diastratic variation of linguistic features has often been neglected in
typological work, and outside of the English-speaking world dialectology has
paid little attention to diastratic diversification. Moreover, for large areas
it has been emphasized that one should not only deal with spectacular cases
(Wälchli 2012) and that it is a mistake to contrast the close association of
diffusion and contact with genealogical affiliation, as these two sources of
convergence need not contradict one another but may rather reinforce each
other (Dahl 2001). When closely related varieties are studied the goals of
areal typology and dialect geography converge. That is, research into dialect
variation should not stop at borders between language families, but neither
should areal linguistics neglect dialect geography. Moreover, larger areal
clines can intersect with dialect continua of the languages involved.


Call for Papers:

We invite contributions addressing at least one area and/or language group in
Eurasia, on one or more of the following topics:

- Which methods allow us to identify hidden or complex patterns in areas of
different geographical scope (and demographic/linguistic density)?
- Can methods used in macro-areal research be applied to micro-areas and to
areas with a high number of closely related varieties? This includes dialect
continua, possibly intertwining with larger areal clines.
- How does seemingly free variation become meaningful (e.g., by being
lexicalized, e.g., with phonetic or morphological variants)?
- Can we determine in which contact situations some language A triggers or
reinforces minor patterns in another language B? More specifically, does A
influence the productivity of some pattern in B and/or its status in B’s
grammar? Have there been chain effects between adjacent languages yielding a
family resemblance of linguistic structures (including the productivity of
patterns) over larger areas? How can we distinguish contact-induced features
from inherited features? What role is played by frequency?

Contributions on phenomena from all areas of grammar are welcome, especially
those dealing with verb morphology/categories, clausal complementation and
analyses based on feature aggregates.

Potential participants are requested to send a preliminary abstract (300
words) by November 10, to:  Björn Wiemer (wiemerb at uni-mainz.de)




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