30.3701, Calls: Historical Ling, Syntax, Typology/Romania

[The LINGUIST List]

LINGUIST List: Vol-30-3701. Tue Oct 01 2019. ISSN: 1069 - 4875.

Subject: 30.3701, Calls: Historical Ling, Syntax, Typology/Romania

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: Tue, 01 Oct 2019 23:24:55
From: Guglielmo Inglese [guglielmo.inglese01 at ateneopv.it]
Subject: Towards a Diachronic Typology of the Middle Voice

 
Full Title: Towards a Diachronic Typology of the Middle Voice 

Date: 26-Aug-2020 - 29-Aug-2020
Location: Bucharest, Romania 
Contact Person: Guglielmo Inglese
Meeting Email: guglielmo.inglese01 at ateneopv.it

Linguistic Field(s): Historical Linguistics; Syntax; Typology 

Call Deadline: 10-Nov-2019 

Meeting Description:

The middle voice is a grammatical domain whose complexity has long puzzled
scholars, as it lies at the cross-roads between the grammatical domain of
voice phenomena and the structure of the lexicon. In spite of the existing
typological work on the topic, there is no systematic diachronic typology of
this domain.

Cross-linguistic research on the middle voice has shown that from a synchronic
standpoint middle voice systems (MVSs) typically feature a split distribution,
to the extent that in individual languages middle markers (MMs) can act as
valency changing markers with some verbs but also display an obligatory
lexically specific distribution with others (see e.g. Kemmer 1993, Kazenin
2001, Kaufmann 2007). These two classes of verbs can be referred to as
oppositional and non-oppositional middles.

Typical functions of oppositional middles include valency changing operations
like anticausative, passive, reflexive, and reciprocal (cf. Zúñiga & Kittilä
2019). Non-oppositional middles show a consistent distribution across
languages, as they tend to occur with a specific cluster of situation types,
such as grooming verbs, verbs of change in body posture, and spontaneous
events (cf. Kemmer 1993). Kemmer (1993) suggested that this distribution
across grammatical functions and lexical classes is not random, and that the
middle is “coherent but relatively diffused category that comprises a set of
loosely linked semantic subdomains” (ibid.: 238), relating to the property of
low degree of elaboration of events.
In spite of the existing synchronic typology, diachronic studies of the middle
remain few, to the effect that nowadays there is no comprehensive diachronic
typology of MVSs. Existing studies focus almost exclusively on the diachrony
of individual valency changing functions (e.g. passives [Haspelmath 1990],
anticausative [Haspelmath 1993], reflexives [König & Siemund 2000],
reciprocals [Heine & Miyashita 2008], antipassives [Sansò 2017]). What is
lacking in most of these studies is a careful consideration of how
oppositional functions of MMs historically relate to non-oppositional ones.
The mainstream view on the development of MMs maintains that there is a
unidirectional path from oppositional to non-oppositional functions, with
reflexives constituting one of the most frequent sources of MMs (cf. Kemmer
1993, Haspelmath 2003). However, the reverse scenario has also been found,
i.e. MMs that start from a lexical distribution and later develop oppositional
functions (cf. Dom et al. 2016 on Bantu, Inglese forthc. on Hittite). These
and other findings call for a rethinking of the systematic diachronic typology
of the middle voice domain.
The aim of the workshop is to bring together scholars working on the middle
voice and related phenomena in a typological and diachronic perspective.

Possible topics to be addressed in the workshop include:

- documentation of previously undescribed MVSs;
- the development of individual MMs, with a focus on the historical
relationship between oppositional and non-oppositional functions;
- corpus studies on the development of MMs in specific languages;
- the synchronic and diachronic relationship between MMs and competing
constructions in individual languages;
- possible sources and processes of language change that may give rise to MMs;
- …


Call for papers:

We invite abstracts of max. 300 words. Please, send abstracts in an editable
format (e.g. .docx) to:

- guglielmo.inglese01 at universitadipavia.it
- andrea.sanso at uninsubria.it

The DEADLINE FOR THE SUBMISSION of the short abstract is NOVEMBER 10, 2019. 

If the workshop will be accepted, you will also have to prepare a full
abstract and submit it to be reviewed by the SLE scientific committee. The
deadline for full abstracts is January 15, 2020.




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

***************************    LINGUIST List Support    ***************************
 The 2019 Fund Drive is under way! Please visit https://funddrive.linguistlist.org
  to find out how to donate and check how your university, country or discipline
     ranks in the fund drive challenges. Or go directly to the donation site:
               https://iufoundation.fundly.com/the-linguist-list-2019

                        Let's make this a short fund drive!
                Please feel free to share the link to our campaign:
                    https://funddrive.linguistlist.org/donate/
 


----------------------------------------------------------
LINGUIST List: Vol-30-3701	
----------------------------------------------------------