30.760, Calls: General Linguistics, Morphology, Syntax, Typology/United Kingdom

[The LINGUIST List]

LINGUIST List: Vol-30-760. Sat Feb 16 2019. ISSN: 1069 - 4875.

Subject: 30.760, Calls: General Linguistics, Morphology, Syntax, Typology/United Kingdom

Moderator: Malgorzata E. Cavar (linguist at linguistlist.org)
Student Moderator: Jeremy Coburn
Managing Editor: Becca Morris
Team: Helen Aristar-Dry, Everett Green, Sarah Robinson, Peace Han, Nils Hjortnaes, Yiwen Zhang, Julian Dietrich
Jobs: jobs at linguistlist.org | Conferences: callconf at linguistlist.org | Pubs: pubs at linguistlist.org

Homepage: http://linguistlist.org

Please support the LL editors and operation with a donation at:
           https://funddrive.linguistlist.org/donate/

Editor for this issue: Everett Green <everett at linguistlist.org>
================================================================


Date: Sat, 16 Feb 2019 23:58:25
From: Tim Feist [t.feist at surrey.ac.uk]
Subject: Non-canonicity in Inflection

 
Full Title: Non-canonicity in Inflection 

Date: 21-Jun-2019 - 22-Jun-2019
Location: University of Surrey, Guildford, United Kingdom 
Contact Person: Tim Feist
Meeting Email: t.feist at surrey.ac.uk
Web Site: http://www.smg.surrey.ac.uk/projects/lexical-splits/workshop-on-non-canonicity-in-inflection/ 

Linguistic Field(s): General Linguistics; Morphology; Syntax; Typology 

Call Deadline: 28-Feb-2019 

Meeting Description:

Given the diversity of inflection systems, linguists still struggle to find
the means to characterise and compare inflectional morphology across
languages. The notion of Canonical Inflection provides one method for doing
this, by establishing a baseline from which to evaluate the inflectional
systems we encounter. In canonical inflection, the stems of individual words
remain unchanged between cells of a paradigm, while inflectional exponents are
encoded consistently, and uniquely, from one cell to the next. This is by no
means common, however. Instead, we find a multitude of deviations from this
idealization across the world's languages.

For instance, in Cupeño the verb ‘die’ has suppletive stems: /qaaw/ for
singular subjects, but /chix/ for plural subjects. In Dime person indexing on
verbs is present for all TAM values, bar the progressive past which leaves
person unmarked. In Skolt Saami stem allomorphy can involve up to eleven
different stems.

These examples all share the characteristic of splitting the paradigm into
different segments. Within each segment, canonical inflection obtains, but the
principles shift when you move to a new segment. By taking this more abstract
view of non-canonical inflection, we can talk about the relationship between
different segments of a split paradigm, independent of what is happening
inside them.

For instance, in some cases a split is fully regular in that it occurs across
an entire word class, while in other cases it may be an entirely irregular
property of the paradigm, restricted to a single lexeme. We can thus talk of a
split’s regularity irrespective of whether it manifests itself as suppletion,
periphrasis, or some other type of non-canonical inflection. Likewise, a split
in a paradigm may result in coherent groupings of cells, or disjunct
groupings.

Peering deeper below the surface, this diversity becomes even more apparent.
For example, many splits give rise to a paradigm cleaved into two, but in
other cases the result is a split three or more ways. Alternatively, distinct
factors, each of which results in a split in its own right, may combine
forces, and we talk of the resulting split being made up of several COMPONENT
splits (e.g. the potential eleven-way split in Skolt Saami stems arises from
the combination of a three-way split in consonant gradation, a two-way split
in vowel height alternations, and a two-way split in palatalization).


And perhaps the most fascinating splits are those which have a corresponding
effect which is external to inflection, say in the syntax: in Serbo-Croat, for
instance, the noun ‘eye’ is non-canonical in its inflection, having a singular
stem /oko/ and a plural stem /oči/, but crucially the two forms control
different genders (neuter in the singular, feminine in the plural). We refer
to examples like these as EXTERNAL splits.

Taking this more abstract view of non-canonical inflection, as opposed to
looking at individual phenomena in isolation, interesting theoretical
questions arise. For example, how should we define the pattern generated by
one component split, when a separate component split eliminates the conditions
required for the first component to apply in a given sector of the paradigm?
Where a paradigmatic split has a corresponding pattern in syntax, is one of
these triggered by the other, and why? How stable are complex splits over
time? Are splits stored in memory or computed?

This workshop will serve as an arena for discussing some of the more unusual
instances of non-canonical inflection and seeking answers to the problematic
theoretical issues which they give rise to.

Invited speakers:

Balthasar Bickel (University of Zurich)
Louise Esher (CNRS – Toulouse)
Enrique Palancar (CNRS – Paris)
Erich Round (University of Queensland)

2nd Call for Papers:

The main questions guiding this workshop are:

(i) How prevalent are those instances of non-canonical inflection that have a
corresponding ‘effect’ elsewhere in the grammar (i.e. external splits ), and
how should we analyse them?
(ii) Are complex splits more prone to processes of simplification than less
complex ones?
(iii) How do speakers deal, cognitively, with the complexities arising from
non-canonical inflection?

While we will favour abstracts that address these issues directly, we will
also consider abstracts that address more general issues of non-canonical
inflection. And as part of the celebrations surrounding the International Year
of Indigenous Languages, we particularly encourage abstracts which focus on
indigenous languages.

People wishing to present a paper at the workshop are invited to submit a
one-page anonymous abstract in electronic form (PDF or Word document) to Tim
Feist at the following address: t.feist at surrey.ac.uk.

Deadline for submission of abstracts: 28 February 2019




------------------------------------------------------------------------------

*****************    LINGUIST List Support    *****************
Please support the LL editors and operation with a donation at:

              The IU Foundation Crowd Funding site:
       https://iufoundation.fundly.com/the-linguist-list

               The LINGUIST List FundDrive Page:
            https://funddrive.linguistlist.org/donate/
 


----------------------------------------------------------
LINGUIST List: Vol-30-760	
----------------------------------------------------------