28.3722, Confs: Lang Acquisition, Morphology, Semantics, Syntax, Typology/UK

Mon Sep 11 18:39:12 UTC 2017

LINGUIST List: Vol-28-3722. Mon Sep 11 2017. ISSN: 1069 - 4875.

Subject: 28.3722, Confs: Lang Acquisition, Morphology, Semantics, Syntax, Typology/UK

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Date: Mon, 11 Sep 2017 14:39:01
From: Maria J Arche [m.j.arche at greenwich.ac.uk]
Subject: Tenselessness

Tenselessness 

Date: 05-Oct-2017 - 06-Oct-2017 
Location: London, United Kingdom 
Contact: Maria J. Arche 
Contact Email: m.j.arche at greenwich.ac.uk 
Meeting URL: https://www.gre.ac.uk/ach/events/tenselessness/home 

Linguistic Field(s): Language Acquisition; Morphology; Semantics; Syntax; Typology 

Meeting Description: 

Meeting Title: Workshop on Tenselessness
Venue: University of Greenwich, London (UK)

This workshop is about the syntax and semantics of verbal forms that lack
morphological tense marking. Its aim is to bring together researchers working
on tenseless languages and uninflected clauses together to discuss the
following questions concerning tenselessness.

Tense locates the situation we speak about in time, which is crucial for
adequate comprehension. Can a clause or a language be tenseless, then?
Infinitives and many languages in the world lack tense indication (e.g.,
Mandarin Chinese, Salishan Lillooet, Halkomelem, in British Columbia,
Algonquian Blackfoot in Alberta, Kalaallisut in Greenland, Guaraní and Ayoreo
in Paraguay, Yucatec Maya in Mexico, Navajo in Southern US, or Hausa in West
Africa). However, to discern whether such absence is a case of phonologically
null morphemes or absence of Tense altogether is intricate. While Matthewson
(2006) defends that tense content cannot be ruled out for Blackfoot, Ritter &
Wiltschko (2014) argue that person and location constitute the substance of
Inflection. In the absence of tense, other categories, e.g., Mood (in
Kalaallisut, Bittner 2014 or Hausa, Mucha 2015) or Aspect (Lin 2012 for
Chinese) are said to establish temporal interpretation. However, this
formalisation and whether these are mere tendencies is debated (Klein et al
2000). Finally, what light can uninflected forms (e.g., infinitives) shed onto
the issue? Some authors (Wurmbrand 2014) argue all are tenseless, while others
(Stowell 1982) defend only certain types are with aspect being the temporal
provider too (Stowell 2007; Zwart 2014).

AIM of the workshop: to bring together researchers working on tenseless
languages and uninflected clauses together to discuss tenselessness:

- What counts as evidence of a null but present Tense or no Tense at all? 
- How are subject licensing phenomena (e.g., Nominative case) accounted for in
the absence of Tense?
- How is temporal interpretation obtained and acquired in the absence of
explicit cues? 
- How does temporal interpretation work in uninflected cases in tensed
languages?

Invited Speakers: 

- Professor Lisa Matthewson, University of British Columbia 
- Professor Wolfgang Klein, Max Planck Institute for Psycholinguistics 
- Professor Tim Stowell, University of California Los Angeles
- Professor Jan-Wouter Zwart, University of Groningen

Program: 

Tenselessness, University of Greenwich London

Thursday 5 October:

9:00-9:45:  
Registration

9:45-10:00: 
Welcome and presentation

10:00-11:00: 
Jan-Wouter Zwart, University of Groningen
Postsyntactic morphology and the syntax of verb clusters

11:00-11:30: Coffee break

11:30-12:10: 
Hazel Pearson, Queen Mary University of London
Revisiting Tense and Aspect in English Infinitives

12:10-12:50: 
Jerneja Kavcic, University of Ljubljana
The Tense of Complement Infinitives in Ancient Greek

12:50-15:00: Lunch

15:00-15:40: 
Vanessa Köbke López, University of Lisbon 
Parasitic Temporal Morphology: The case of the Gerúndio Composto in Portuguese

15:40-16:15: 
Rosa Junia Garcia-Barragan Cordova, Autonomous Metropolitan University of
Mexico
On Cross-Categorical Determiners Resolving the Tense-Mood Interpretation of
the Spanish Subjunctive

16:15-17:00:
Coffee break & poster session
Ying-Ju Chang, University of York
Tense marking in Taiwanese Mandarin
Pablo Rico, Autonomous University of Barcelona
Infinitive licensing through A’-movemnet: wh-elements vs. Foci
Neda Todorovic, University of British Columbia
What is (Im)possible when Tense is not there?

17:00-18:00:
Tim Stowell, University of California Los Angeles
What Counts as a Tense: Nonfinite Past

18:00: Wine reception

19:30: Informal conference dinner –Venue TBC

Friday 6 October:

9:30-10:30:
Lisa Matthewson, University of British Columbia
Finding tenses where we don’t expect them                                     

10:30-10:50: Coffee break

10:50-11:30:
Hamida Demirdache & Hongyuan Sun, University of Nantes 
Constraints on embedded time reference in Mandarin: zero vs. overt aspect

11:30-12:10:
Sherry Yong Chen and Matthew Husband, Massachusetts Institute of Technology
and University of Oxford
Non-future tense in Mandarin Chinese: Evidence from contradictory ‘forward
lifetime effects’

12:10-12:50:
Fernanda Pratas, University of Lisbon
How much Tense is needed? The mixed response from Capeverdean

12:50-14:30: Lunch

14:30-15:10:
Callum Hackett, Newcastle University
Universals of INFL: Challenges from Maybrat

15:10-15:50
Jürgen Bohnemeyer, University at Buffalo
Reality check: future time reference in tenseless languages

15:50-16:15: Coffee break

16:15-17:15:
Wolfgang Klein, Max Planck Institute for Psycholinguistics
Why Tense?

17:15-18:00:
Open table and final discussion

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