35.2842, Calls: SLE Workshop: Wordhood in West African Languages and Beyond

[The LINGUIST List]

LINGUIST List: Vol-35-2842. Tue Oct 15 2024. ISSN: 1069 - 4875.

Subject: 35.2842, Calls: SLE Workshop: Wordhood in West African Languages and Beyond

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Date: 11-Oct-2024
From: Andrey Shluinsky [andrey.shluinsky at googlemail.com]
Subject: SLE Workshop: Wordhood in West African Languages and Beyond


Full Title: SLE Workshop: Wordhood in West African Languages and
Beyond
Short Title: SLE Workshop

Date: 26-Aug-2025 - 29-Aug-2025
Location: Bordeaux, France
Contact Person: Andrey Shluinsky
Meeting Email: andrey.shluinsky at googlemail.com

Linguistic Field(s): Morphology; Phonology; Syntax; Typology

Call Deadline: 15-Nov-2024

Meeting Description:

There is general consensus over the existence of a mismatch between
phonological (prosodic) and morphosyntactic (grammatical) words, as
well as of particular items called clitics, traditionally defined as
morphosyntactic, yet not phonological words. At the same time, the
problem of wordhood has been discussed extensively by linguists during
the last decades and especially in recent years. In particular, new
concepts have been proposed for items which are neither clearly words
nor clearly non-words.

Despite this active discussion on wordhood, recent theoretical
findings and proposals in this domain are rarely implemented into the
practice of language description and analysis. Reversely, linguistic
diversity could contribute more to the problem of wordhood. The
problem of wordhood is especially relevant for West African languages.

On the one hand, most works on West African languages either do not
specify the definition of word that they use, or reproduce some
definition without delving into the details of how it applies to the
language in focus. The criteria for representing certain items as
separate words, clitics, or morphemes within a word, often remain
implicit. Studies focusing directly on wordhood in West African
languages are extremely rare.

On the other hand, for many West African language groups there is no
practical consensus on wordhood. Moreover, the experience of
fieldworkers themselves shows that the first practical choice on
conjunct vs. disjunct spellings in transcription is usually arbitrary.

This gap is all the more significant as West Africa constitutes a
linguistic area with distinct features, many of which are relevant for
wordhood. First and foremost, the majority of West African languages
have tonal systems involved in the issues of phonological wordhood.
Combinations of morphemes within a phonological word producing
agrammatical tonal patterns are solved via tonal compactness phenomena
that do not occur in combinations of separate phonological words.
Conversely, other tonal phenomena such as downdrift, downstep and
upstep, are governed by boundaries assumed to be those of phonological
words. Second, most West African languages feature vowel harmony
and/or assimilation phenomena, which are generally assumed to take the
phonological word as their domain. However, their domain does not
always match that of other phenomena which are also assumed to apply
to the phonological word. Third, West African languages typically
exhibit a highly rigid word order, rendering the traditional criterion
of uninterruptibility for determining word boundaries inapplicable.
Moreover, the rigidity of many syntactic constructions also
complicates the application of the traditional criterion of occurrence
in isolation. Furthermore, it is typical for West African languages to
feature semi-grammaticalized items that keep a transparent connection
with corresponding lexical items, and whose wordhood status, both
phonological and morphosyntactic, is problematic. Finally, in certain
languages, a multitude of sandhi phenomena occur at certain loci which
are neither boundaries between two phonological words nor within a
phonological word. Needless to say, this is not an exhaustive list of
wordhood-related phenomena in the linguistic area in focus.

The goal of our workshop is to stimulate a joint effort of linguists
for understanding wordhood and wordhood-related phenomena in West
African languages and beyond. We are primarily focused on this
particular linguistic area and invite contributions presenting and
analyzing data from a West African language and comparative studies in
West African language groups or in the area as a whole. We also
welcome submissions dealing with languages from other linguistic areas
from linguists interested in comparing their data with those of West
African languages or testing their findings against the perspective of
West African languages.

Call for Papers:

The goal of our workshop is to stimulate a joint effort of linguists
for understanding wordhood and wordhood-related phenomena in West
African languages and beyond. We are primarily focused on this
particular linguistic area and invite contributions presenting and
analyzing data from a West African language and comparative studies in
West African language groups or in the area as a whole. We also
welcome submissions dealing with languages from other linguistic areas
from linguists interested in comparing their data with those of West
African languages or testing their findings against the perspective of
West African languages.

Possible topics of submissions include, but are not limited to, the
following:
 - Criteria for phonological wordhood and their interaction
 - Criteria for morphosyntactic wordhood and their interaction
 - Correlations between phonological and morphosyntactic wordhood
 - Criteria for clitichood
 - Phonological units smaller than phonological words as parts of
phonological words
 - Morphosyntactic units smaller than morphosyntactic words as parts
of morphosyntactic words
 - Phonological units larger than phonological words as consisting of
phonological words
 - Morphosyntactic units larger than morphosyntactic words as
consisting of morphosyntactic words
 - Correlations between phonological and morphosyntactic units smaller
and larger than words

We invite abstracts for the workshop titled “Wordhood in West African
languages and beyond”, to be held as part of the 58th Annual Meeting
of the Societas Linguistica Europaea, University of Bordeaux, 26–29
August 2025. Preliminary abstracts of 300 max. words must be received
no later than 15 November 2024 to be included into the workshop
proposal. In case the workshop proposal is accepted, you will have to
submit full abstracts by 15 January 2025 to be further reviewed by the
Scientific Committee of SLE and by the workshop convenors.

Neige Rochant (University of Lausanne; neigelily at gmail.com) and Andrey
Shluinsky (Humboldt University of Berlin;
andrey.shluinsky at googlemail.com)



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