35.2769, Calls: Part-Whole Structure and its Reflection in Natural Language
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LINGUIST List: Vol-35-2769. Tue Oct 08 2024. ISSN: 1069 - 4875.
Subject: 35.2769, Calls: Part-Whole Structure and its Reflection in Natural Language
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================================================================
Date: 05-Oct-2024
From: Lieven Danckaert [lieven.danckaert at univ-lille.fr]
Subject: Part-Whole Structure and its Reflection in Natural Language
Full Title: Part-Whole Structure and its Reflection in Natural
Language
Date: 23-Jan-2025 - 24-Jan-2025
Location: Nice, France
Contact Person: Lieven Danckaert
Meeting Email: partwhole2025 at gmail.com
Web Site: http://www.friederike-moltmann.com/events/workshop-part-whol
e-structure-and-its-reflection-in-natural-language/
Linguistic Field(s): Philosophy of Language; Semantics; Syntax
Call Deadline: 08-Nov-2024
Meeting Description:
It has long been recognized that mereological relations play an
important role in the semantics of natural language. In particular, it
has become standard to make use of extensional mereology for the
semantics of mass and plural nouns, conjunction, as well as various
part-related expressions. Extensional mereology contrasts with
integrity-based approaches to part-whole structure on which conditions
defining an entity as an integrated whole play a central role in
part-whole structures as well. Integrity-based approaches go back as
far as Aristotle, but have gained increasing interest among
semanticists as well since work by cognitive semanticists such
Langacker and Jackendoff as well as Moltmann in the late eighties and
nineties. Conditions of integrity, such as maximal connectedness, have
been argued to matter for the choice of count categories, the
semantics of classifier-like expressions, part-whole related
expressions relating to individuals, and possessor constructions (e.g.
the light verb ‘have’). The notion of an integrated whole also matter
for the semantics of intensional verbs of absence such as also is
missing and lack. The use of mereology in semantics has also faced
serious criticism, though. Logicians like Yi, McKay, Oliver and Smiley
have also pointed out limits of mereology for the semantics of
plurals, arguing that plurals do not stand for mereological sums, but
for pluralities ‘as many’. Mereological accounts of mass nouns
likewise face difficulties in that mass nouns do not seem stand for
quantities as single entities, but for things that count as neither
one nor many.
This workshop brings together new empirical and conceptual work
relating to part-whole structure with its reflection in different
linguistic phenomena. This includes typological work on classifiers
and other part-whole related expressions, syntactic constructions
pertaining to parts of a whole (such as verbs of possession and
absence), notions of integrated whole of mereotopological and
functional sorts and their linguistic application, developments of
plural reference and sui generis mass reference, and generalized
non-boolean approaches to conjunction.
Call for Papers:
The research labs ‘Bases, Corpus, Langage’ (UMR 7320, CNRS/Université
Côte d’Azur) and ‘Savoirs, Textes, Langage’ (UMR 8163, CNRS/Université
de Lille) are happy to announce a two-day workshop ‘Part-Whole
Structure and its Reflection in Language’, which will take place in
Nice on January 23-24, 2025.
Convenors : Friederike Moltmann (CNRS/Université Côte d’Azur, UMR
7320), Fayssal Tayalati (Université de Lille, UMR 8163 STL) and Lieven
Danckaert (CNRS/Université de Lille, UMR 8163 STL)
Workshop description:
It has long been recognized that mereological relations play an
important role in the semantics of natural language. In particular, it
has become standard to make use of extensional mereology for the
semantics of mass and plural nouns, conjunction, as well as various
part-related expressions. Extensional mereology contrasts with
integrity-based approaches to part-whole structure on which conditions
defining an entity as an integrated whole play a central role in
part-whole structures as well. Integrity-based approaches go back as
far as Aristotle, but have gained increasing interest among
semanticists as well since work by cognitive semanticists such
Langacker and Jackendoff as well as Moltmann in the late eighties and
nineties. Conditions of integrity, such as maximal connectedness, have
been argued to matter for the choice of count categories, the
semantics of classifier-like expressions, part-whole related
expressions relating to individuals, and possessor constructions (e.g.
the light verb ‘have’). The notion of an integrated whole also matter
for the semantics of intensional verbs of absence such as also is
missing and lack. The use of mereology in semantics has also faced
serious criticism, though. Logicians like Yi, McKay, Oliver and Smiley
have also pointed out limits of mereology for the semantics of
plurals, arguing that plurals do not stand for mereological sums, but
for pluralities ‘as many’. Mereological accounts of mass nouns
likewise face difficulties in that mass nouns do not seem stand for
quantities as single entities, but for things that count as neither
one nor many.
This workshop brings together new empirical and conceptual work
relating to part-whole structure with its reflection in different
linguistic phenomena. This includes typological work on classifiers
and other part-whole related expressions, syntactic constructions
pertaining to parts of a whole (such as verbs of possession and
absence), notions of integrated whole of mereotopological and
functional sorts and their linguistic application, developments of
plural reference and sui generis mass reference, and generalized
non-boolean approaches to conjunction.
Confirmed speakers at the event include Luca Gasparri (CNRS,
Université de Lille), Friederike Moltmann (CNRS, Université Côte
d’Azur), Neil Myler (Boston University), Johan Rooryck (cOAlition
S/Leiden University) and Viola Schmitt (Humboldt Universität zu
Berlin).
We now invite abstract submissions for oral presentations of 30
minutes, followed by 10 minutes of discussion. Abstracts should be
anonymous and no longer than two A4 pages, including references and
examples, with margins of at least 2,5 cm / 1 inch.
Submissions should be sent to partwhole2025 at gmail.com, preferably in
pdf format.
Practical information will be posted in due time at http://www.frieder
ike-moltmann.com/events/workshop-part-whole-structure-and-its-reflecti
on-in-natural-language/.
Deadline for abstract submission: November 8, 2024
Notification of acceptance: November 20, 2024
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