34.2762, Calls: Thematic Session Proposal for a Workshop on the Concept of Possibility and its Morphological, Syntactic and Pragmatic Realizations in Natural Language

[The LINGUIST List]

LINGUIST List: Vol-34-2762. Wed Sep 20 2023. ISSN: 1069 - 4875.

Subject: 34.2762, Calls: Thematic Session Proposal for a Workshop on the Concept of Possibility and its Morphological, Syntactic and Pragmatic Realizations in Natural Language

Moderators: Malgorzata E. Cavar, Francis Tyers (linguist at linguistlist.org)
Managing Editor: Justin Fuller
Team: Helen Aristar-Dry, Steven Franks, Everett Green, Daniel Swanson, Maria Lucero Guillen Puon, Zackary Leech, Lynzie Coburn, Natasha Singh, Erin Steitz
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: Zachary Leech <zleech at linguistlist.org>
================================================================


Date: 20-Sep-2023
From: Patrick Duffley [Patrick.Duffley at lli.ulaval.ca]
Subject: Thematic Session Proposal for a Workshop on the Concept of Possibility and its Morphological, Syntactic and Pragmatic Realizations in Natural Language


Full Title: Thematic Session Proposal for a Workshop on the Concept of
Possibility and its Morphological, Syntactic and Pragmatic
Realizations in Natural Language

Date: 21-Aug-2024 - 24-Aug-2024
Location: Helsinki, Finland
Contact Person: Patrick Duffley
Meeting Email: Patrick.Duffley at lli.ulaval.ca

Linguistic Field(s): General Linguistics

Call Deadline: 05-Nov-2023

Meeting Description:

Within linguistics, possibility has been approached in different ways,
but generally with circumspection. Palmer (1979) treats it as
constituting, along with necessity, the core of the category of
modality. In Palmer (2001), modality is defined as depicting the
reality-status of the proposition in terms of some form of irrealis.
This implies that the relation between possibility and irrealis needs
to be explored. Mithun (1999) draws a distinction between realis,
which presents events as real, actualized or occurring, and irrealis,
which presents them as not actualized or “purely within the realm of
thought.” Bybee (1998) has criticized the notion of irrealis as being
too inconsistent crosslinguistically to constitute a useful analytical
category and very rarely attested in binary opposition to realis in
the languages of the world. On the other hand, von Prince, Krajinović
and Krifka (2022) have argued recently that “irrealis is real” and
represents a crosslinguistically meaningful notion that can be
properly understood if split into two domains – the possible and the
counterfactual. They characterize these domains in terms of a
branching time framework in which the possible is defined as the
successor of the actual and the counterfactual as being neither actual
nor possible. But isn’t the successor of the actual the future and not
the merely possible? And if possibility is a species belonging to the
genus of irrealis, what is its relation to the other species belonging
to this genus?

Call for Papers:

The ways in which possibility is expressed in natural language are
extremely diverse. In Indo-European languages it is typically conveyed
by verbs like can or adverbs like perhaps. Japanese has not only verbs
and adverbs but also final particles and interjections. Turkic
languages use affixes. Russian has recourse to adjectives. Tags like I
think may also express possibility, as in Toc Pisin (Keesing 1988). In
many European languages, possibility is expressed by dedicated adverbs
with specific suffixes: -ly (English),-erweise (German), -ment(e)
(Romance), etc. Hengeveld 1988 distinguishes them from purported
synonymous expressions in that they convey the speaker’s position,
whereas 'it is possible that' does not. Modal adverbs have been
claimed to constitute a predicate that does not scope over the
proposition but rather over the truth of the proposition (Bellert
1977; Ernst 2002). Possibility can therefore pertain either to
objective modality, in which the speaker effaces himself as much as
possible, or to subjective modality, in which the speaker explicitly
expresses his stance towards the propositional content (Dik 1997). It
remains to be seen whether this dichotomy can be applied to languages
such as Mohawk which do not have adverbs but express possibility using
particles or matrix verbs (Mithun 1999).

Modal adverbs expressing dynamic possibility occupy a specific place
in Cinque (1999)’s functional hierarchy (Mod possibility) and are
clearly distinguished from adverbs such as probably (Mod epistemic)
and perhaps (Mod irrealis). However, few studies have been done to
test this model. On the other hand, much attention has been devoted to
weak epistemic adverbs and the notion of possibility: in English,
perhaps has been the subject of a number of studies (e.g. Doherty
1987, Suzuki 2018, Rozumko 2022) and has been compared to conceivably
by Suzuki/Fujiwara (2017); the relationship between possibly and modal
verbs has been explored by Hoye (1997). One basic question
nevertheless needs to be answered: do all weak epistemic adverbs
express the notion of possibility? Or do they express it only
partially or under certain conditions? A number of other questions
also arise. Are possibly and its equivalents in other languages (e.g.
Fr. possiblement, It. possibilmente, Ger. möglicherweise, womöglich)
the archetypical expressions of possibility? Can words that are
etymologically linked to the notions of potentiality (Eng.
potentially, Fr. potentiellement) or eventuality (Fr. éventuellement,
Ger. eventuell) express possibility as well? If so, how are they to be
distinguished from other weak epistemic adverbs? Would it make sense
to contrast non-factuality and possibility (Pietrandrea 2007) so as to
establish two classes of weak adverbs?

There is also a relation between possibility and negation. Russell
(1919) has argued that negation relies on the notion of possibility
and that the denial of a proposition assumes the possibility of its
truth. Prior (1967) maintains similarly that negation presupposes the
existence of alternative possibilities in the future or past. However,
is that all there is to the relation between possibility and negation?
How is it that one can negate a possibility, as in She can’t swim?
Does this involve conceiving the possibility of a possibility? Might
this have something to do with the different loci of negation in I
didn’t dare to interrupt him and I dared not interrupt him (see
Duffley 1994)?

We invite any and all proposals concerning the concept of possibility,
its definition, its morphological, syntactic and pragmatic
realizations in any language, its interaction with negation, whether
it be a cross-linguistic study or one devoted only to a particular
language. All theoretical frameworks are welcome.

Please submit your proposal before November 5th to both
Patrick.Duffley at lli.ulaval.ca and olivier-duplatre at wanadoo.fr



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

Please consider donating to the Linguist List https://give.myiu.org/iu-bloomington/I320011968.html


LINGUIST List is supported by the following publishers:

American Dialect Society/Duke University Press http://dukeupress.edu

Bloomsbury Publishing (formerly The Continuum International Publishing Group) http://www.bloomsbury.com/uk/

Brill http://www.brill.com

Cambridge Scholars Publishing http://www.cambridgescholars.com/

Cambridge University Press http://www.cambridge.org/linguistics

Cascadilla Press http://www.cascadilla.com/

De Gruyter Mouton https://cloud.newsletter.degruyter.com/mouton

Dictionary Society of North America http://dictionarysociety.com/

Edinburgh University Press www.edinburghuniversitypress.com

Elsevier Ltd http://www.elsevier.com/linguistics

Equinox Publishing Ltd http://www.equinoxpub.com/

European Language Resources Association (ELRA) http://www.elra.info

Georgetown University Press http://www.press.georgetown.edu

John Benjamins http://www.benjamins.com/

Lincom GmbH https://lincom-shop.eu/

Linguistic Association of Finland http://www.ling.helsinki.fi/sky/

MIT Press http://mitpress.mit.edu/

Multilingual Matters http://www.multilingual-matters.com/

Narr Francke Attempto Verlag GmbH + Co. KG http://www.narr.de/

Netherlands Graduate School of Linguistics / Landelijke (LOT) http://www.lotpublications.nl/

Oxford University Press http://www.oup.com/us

SIL International Publications http://www.sil.org/resources/publications

Springer Nature http://www.springer.com

Wiley http://www.wiley.com


----------------------------------------------------------
LINGUIST List: Vol-34-2762
----------------------------------------------------------