34.2442, Calls: Factors in Natural Language Design – the Nominal Domain and Beyond

Wed Aug 9 03:05:05 UTC 2023

LINGUIST List: Vol-34-2442. Wed Aug 09 2023. ISSN: 1069 - 4875.

Subject: 34.2442, Calls: Factors in Natural Language Design – the Nominal Domain and Beyond

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Date: 09-Aug-2023
From: Andreas Blümel [andreas.bluemel at phil.uni-goettingen.de]
Subject: Factors in Natural Language Design – the Nominal Domain and Beyond

Full Title: Factors in Natural Language Design – the Nominal Domain
and Beyond
Short Title: FIND

Date: 11-Dec-2023 - 12-Dec-2023
Location: Göttingen, Germany
Contact Person: Andreas Blümel
Meeting Email: andreas.bluemel at phil.uni-goettingen.de
Web Site: https://sites.google.com/view/andreasbluemel/project/find-wo
rkshop-2023

Linguistic Field(s): Syntax

Call Deadline: 31-Aug-2023

Meeting Description:

The workshop’s title alludes to Chomsky 2005, suggesting that the
following factors "enter into the growth of language in the
individual": 1) genetic endowment, 2) experience, and 3) principles
not specific to the language faculty. Much research since explores the
extent to which the third Factor (e.g., principles of computational
efficiency) plays a role in determining properties formerly attributed
to core syntax, thereby minimizing Universal Grammar (Factor one),
cf., e.g., Epstein, Kitahara, Seely (2018, 2021). While it is already
challenging to align these theoretical guidelines with descriptive
work on natural language phenomena, additional tasks lurk in the
background. Accounting for the variation of grammars is one of them,
including the right conception of parameters (cf. e.g., Longobardi
2018; Roberts 2019)? How do works on Narrow Syntax square with results
from works at its interfaces, roughly: form and meaning? This workshop
aims at addressing such, and more, questions with an empirical
emphasis on the nominal domain.
This year marks the 40. anniversary of Szabolcsi’s (1983) seminal work
on the peculiar distribution of possessors in Hungarian, possessor
agreement, and the influential idea that projections of functional
heads dominate the lexical nominal core. Many works since have applied
these and comparable ideas across languages and constructions, now
commonly known as the DP-hypothesis. This is a great occasion to
re-assess these and related themes. Recent work suggests a revived
fundamental interest in the syntactic treatment of nominal phrases,
develops alternatives to, and highlights problems of, the
DP-hypothesis (cf., e.g., Bruening 2009; contributions in Blümel &
Holler 2020). Bošković (2005) et seq has persistently developed the
idea that UG provides a parameter which makes available the functional
head D, separating languages into NP- and DP-languages with many
correlates elsewhere in the languages’ grammars. Subsequent works have
indicated that a refined, gradual analytical apparatus might be
necessary for descriptive adequacy (Talić 2017; Oda 2022) or that the
one-way correlation between Left Branch Extraction and the absence
articles might be wrong (Pankau 2018; Barrie 2018). Other works
explicitly defend or continue employing the hypothesis with or without
discussion, emphasizing language- or dialect-specific aspects relevant
for it, some with extensive empirical coverage both synchronically and
diachronically (cf. Julien 2005; Brandner 2008, 2014; Lander &
Haegeman 2014; Syed & Simpson 2017; etc.). Some issues include what
decisive empirical criteria for or against the DP-hypothesis might be
(Salzmann 2020, 2022), or which analytical alternatives recent
theorizing provides for (Blümel to appear).
All these works in one form or another subscribe to a version of the
Borer-Chomsky conjecture of parametric variation as properties of
inflectional/functional elements. How does this framework square with
the view that "[t]he variety of languages might be localized in
peripheral aspects of lexicon and in externalization; perhaps
completely, we might someday learn" (Chomsky 2021: 11-12)? Do
peripheral aspects of lexical items affect syntactic computation?
Within the Borer-Chomsky view, the answer is "yes" (assuming
"peripheral" means inflectional features). In the perspective
expressed in the quote, it is less clear that syntactic computation is
directly sensitive to properties of lexical items.
A related field of research investigates typological universals. One
area has been investigated particularly: the serialization of
demonstratives, numerals, adjectives, and nouns (Greenberg 1963;
Cinque 2005; Dryer 2018). Some results indicate a shift of the
explanatory burden from Factor 1 to Factor 3, i.e., from syntactic
encoding to outsourcing to language independent cognitive principles
(cf. e.g., Martin et al 2019). Where do we stand in this domain? What
are some of the empirical or theoretical challenges?

2nd Call for Papers:

This 2-day workshop takes place in connection with the DFG-funded
project “Revisiting Phrasal Units in the Nominal Domain” / “Neue Wege
zur Nominalgruppe” at the University of Göttingen, one of the most
vibrant places in Germany for formal linguistics (see e.g. the RTG
"Form-Meaning Mismatches"). We invite contributions that address and
explore some of the pressing theoretical and empirical issues
regarding the syntactic structure of nominal phrases, including their
interfaces at the form and meaning side, the role processing and
acquisition play, and the like. We also welcome contributions on
Factor 3 beyond the nominal domain.

We invite abstracts for 20-minute talks, followed by 10 minutes Q&A.
Everybody may submit maximally two abstracts, only one of which may be
single-authored.

Submission Link:
https://easychair.org/conferences/?conf=find2023

Abstract Guidelines:
- Max. 2 pages of A4 paper, including references, examples, tables and
figures
- 12pt Times New Roman font or similar
- 1in (2.54cm) margins on all sides
- The abstract must not reveal the identity of the author in any way
- PDF format

We are aiming at publishing a selection of contributions.

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