36.2549, Calls: Workshop at SLE 2026: Linguistic Perspectives on the Expression of Necessity (Germany)

Thu Aug 28 08:05:02 UTC 2025

LINGUIST List: Vol-36-2549. Thu Aug 28 2025. ISSN: 1069 - 4875.

Subject: 36.2549, Calls: Workshop at SLE 2026: Linguistic Perspectives on the Expression of Necessity (Germany)

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Date: 27-Aug-2025
From: Patrick.Duffley [Patrick.Duffley at lli.ulaval.ca]
Subject: Workshop at SLE 2026: Linguistic Perspectives on the Expression of Necessity

Full Title: Workshop at SLE 2026: Linguistic Perspectives on the
Expression of Necessity

Date: 26-Aug-2026 - 29-Aug-2026
Location: Osnabrück, Germany
Contact Person: Anna Kisiel
Meeting Email: sle.cm at kuleuven.be
Web Site: https://societaslinguistica.eu/sle2026/

Linguistic Field(s): Applied Linguistics; General Linguistics;
Linguistic Theories; Philosophy of Language

Call Deadline: 01-Nov-2025

Convenors: Patrick Duffley (Université Laval, Québec, CA) and Olivier
Duplâtre (Sorbonne U., Paris, FR)
Abstracts (max. 300 words, excluding references) should be sent to
Patrick Duffley (Patrick.Duffley at lli.ulaval.ca) and Olivier Duplâtre
(olivier.duplatre at icloud.com) by November 10th.
Workshop Description:
We propose a workshop dedicated to exploring how languages encode,
interpret, and deploy the concept of necessity. Necessity is a pivotal
notion within human communication, cutting across semantics, syntax,
pragmatics and typology. It is realized through a wide variety of
linguistic strategies, from modal verbs, adverbs and grammatical
markers to holistic discourse constructions. Yet, because research on
necessity has emerged in parallel across different subdisciplines, our
collective understanding of this phenomenon remains fragmented. This
workshop aims to bring together scholars from multiple theoretical and
methodological traditions to examine necessity in language with a view
to attaining a more integrated perspective.
Traditionally, logicians and formal semanticists have investigated
necessity through the lens of modal logic, exploring relationships
between necessity, possibility and contingency (see Prior 1957;
Hintikka 1969; Kripke 1980). Their models provide rigor and
abstraction but can sometimes remain detached from actual language
use. Syntactic theories have examined how necessity interacts with
clause type, tense, aspect or negation, noting that structural
configurations often impose constraints on interpretation (see
Chierchia 1985; Condoravdi 2002; De Haan 2015; Hacquard 2009, 2011,
2020; Stowell 2004; von Fintel and Iatridou 2003). What is missing is
a venue where formal perspectives can dialogue with work that adopts
more usage-based (e.g. Biber 2004; Flach 2020) or typological
approaches (e.g. van der Auwera and Plungian 1998; Palmer 2001),
ensuring a more comprehensive picture of necessity as both a cognitive
and a communicative category.
Equally important, the workshop seeks to highlight the pragmatic and
sociolinguistic dimensions of necessity. Expressions of necessity
often vary in force depending on context: what counts as obligation,
epistemic certainty, or interpersonal directive may shift with
cultural norms and interactional dynamics (see Myhill and Smith 1995;
Gibbard 2012). Understanding necessity in actual use requires careful
attention to these pragmatic realities. By engaging with scholars in
pragmatics and sociolinguistics, participants will gain a fuller
appreciation for how necessity operates as both a linguistic and a
social tool.
Typological and cross-linguistic perspectives can further enrich the
dialogue. While necessity in many European languages is commonly
associated with modal auxiliaries, other language families rely on
affixal morphology, clitics, adverbs, or particles to cover this
semantic domain. These differences call into question universalist
assumptions and raise key questions about the cognitive and
communicative foundations of modality. A core objective of the
workshop will be to bring typologists into sustained conversation with
descriptivists and formalists, ensuring that fine-grained data is
integrated into broader theoretical models.
The study of necessity also calls for interdisciplinary engagement.
Beyond linguistics, necessity connects directly to philosophy, logic,
cognitive science, and computational modeling. Philosophical inquiry
distinguishes between metaphysical, epistemic and normative forms of
necessity, while computational approaches require nuanced accounts of
modality for natural language processing. This workshop will thus
provide a platform for dialogue not only among linguists but also with
scholars in related fields, promoting intellectual exchange at the
boundaries of traditional disciplines.
We warmly invite scholars working on necessity from any theoretical,
methodological, or lectal perspective to participate in this workshop.
By creating a forum for collaboration across disciplinary divides, we
aim to advance our collective understanding of how necessity is
encoded and interpreted in human language. Contributions may address
formal analyses, pragmatic usage, cross-linguistic diversity or
interdisciplinary connections. Together, we hope to develop a richer,
more comprehensive view of necessity as a linguistic universal that is
always realized in locally specific ways.
References:
Biber, Douglas. 2004. Modal use across register and time. In Anne
Curzan and Kimberly Emmons (eds.), Studies in the history of the
English language II: Unfolding conversations. Berlin: De Gruyter
Mouton, 189-216.
Chierchia, Gennaro. 1985. Formal semantics and the syntax of
predication. Linguistic Inquiry 16: 417-443.
Condoravdi, Cleo. 2002. Temporal interpretation of modals: modals for
the present and for the past. In David Beaver, Luis D. Casillas
Martinez, Brady Z. Clark, and Stefan Kaufmann (eds.), The Construction
of Meaning. Stanford: CSLI Publications, 59-87.
De Haan, Ferdinand (2015). The Interaction of Modality and Negation.
London: Routledge.
Flach, Susanne. 2020. Beyond modal idioms and modal harmony: A
corpus-based analysis of gradient idiomaticity in MOD + ADV
collocations. English Language and Linguistics: 1-23.
Gibbard, Allan. 2012. Meaning and Normativity. New York: Oxford
University Press.
Hacquard, Valentine. 2009. On the interaction of aspect and modal
auxiliaries. Linguistics and Philosophy 32: 279-315.
Hacquard, Valentine. 2011. Modality. In Claudia Maienborn, Klaus Von
Heusinger, and Paul Portner (eds.), Semantics: An International
Handbook of Natural Language Meaning. Berlin: Mouton De Gruyter,
1484-1515.
Hacquard, Valentine. 2020. Actuality entailments. In Daniel Gutzmann,
Cecile Meier, Thomas E. Zimmerman, Lisa Matthewson, and Hotze Rullmann
(eds.), The Wiley Blackwell Companion to Semantics. New York: Wiley,
1-26.
Hintikka, Jaako. 1969. Models for Modalities. Dordrecht: Reidel.
Kripke, Saul. 1980. Naming and Necessity. Cambridge, MA: Harvard
University Press.
Myhill, John, and Lauren A. Smith. 1995. The discourse and interactive
functions of obligation expressions. In Joan Bybee and Suzanne
Fleischman (eds.), Modality in Grammar and Discourse. Amsterdam:
Benjamins, 239-292.
Palmer, Frank R. 2001. Mood and Modality, second edn, Cambridge:
Cambridge University Press.
Prior, Arthur N. 1957. Time and Modality. Oxford: Oxford University
Press.
Stowell, Tim. 2004. Tense and modals. In Jacqueline Guéron and
Jacqueline Lecarme (eds.), The Syntax of Time. Cambridge, MA: MIT
Press, 621-636.
van der Auwera, J. and Plungian, V. A. 1998. Modality’s semantic map.
Linguistic Typology 2: 79-124.
Von Fintel, Kai, and Sabrine Iatridou. 2003. Epistemic Containment.
Linguistic Inquiry 34: 173-198.

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