36.269, Confs: Morphology; Semantics; Syntax / Germany

Sat Jan 18 07:05:05 UTC 2025

LINGUIST List: Vol-36-269. Sat Jan 18 2025. ISSN: 1069 - 4875.

Subject: 36.269, Confs: Morphology; Semantics; Syntax / Germany

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Date: 18-Jan-2025
From: Luke Adamson [adamson at leibniz-zas.de]
Subject: Clausal Complementation Across Categories

Clausal Complementation Across Categories

Date: 19-Jun-2025 - 20-Jun-2025
Location: Berlin, Germany
Contact: Luke Adamson
Contact Email: adamson at leibniz-zas.de
Meeting URL: https://adamson52.wixsite.com/zas-clausal-compleme

Linguistic Field(s): Morphology; Semantics; Syntax

Invited Speakers:
Nikos Angelopoulos (CNRS)
Johanna Benz (UPenn)
Kajsa Djärv (Edinburgh)
Kalle Müller (CNRS)
This workshop focuses on the relationship between clause-embedding
attitude predicates and the clauses with which they combine, with
special attention paid to how the syntax and semantics of clausal
embedding interacts with either the category of the predicate (i.e. as
a verb, noun, or adjective) or of the clause (i.e. as nominalized,
nonfinite, etc.). Discussion of these topics will further advance our
understanding of the fundamental components of clausal embedding,
attitude descriptions, and the interfaces between (morpho)syntax and
semantics.
The topic of clausal embedding has garnered a great deal of attention
especially in recent literature, spanning areas from complement clause
size (e.g. Wurmbrand and Lohninger 2023); composition with and
movement of clauses (e.g. Moulton 2015); embedded main clause
phenomena (e.g. Woods and Wolfe 2020); factivity inferences and
alternations (e.g. Djärv 2019, Bondarenko 2020, Degen and Tonhauser
2022); the effects of prosodic focus (e.g. Simons et al 2017); to
selectional restrictions for declaratives vs. questions (e.g. Roberts
2019, Djärv 2023).
A core topic in the study of clause-embedding that this workshop aims
to highlight concerns the extent to which it either resembles or
diverges from complementation with nominal arguments, and what the
consequences are for i) how a predicate’s selectional properties are
encoded and interact with the neighboring syntacticosemantic
environment; and ii) how clauses combine both syntactically (e.g. as
complements, as adjuncts, potentially moving) and semantically (e.g.
via function application, predicate modification, or “restrict” in
Chung and Ladusaw’s 2004 sense). An articulated theory of clausal
embedding, for example, should be able to account for the fact that in
English, verbal believe permits expressions like believe that it’s
raining and believe the claim whereas nominal belief allows the belief
that it’s raining but not *the belief of the claim (see e.g. Moulton
2015), and should also be able to contend with related clausal
embedding facts across different languages.
The linguistic properties of the clauses that combine with attitude
predicates have also been subject to extensive research from different
perspectives. More recent research in the syntax and semantics of
dependent clauses has asked whether clauses are all underlyingly
nominal, in contrast to earlier research where that-type clauses were
proposed to exhibit a low degree of “nouniness” (cf. Ross 1973): to
what extent are (different) clauses nominal-like, and how is this
manifested in the presence of nominal projections or individual-type
interpretation? In particular, the presence of different types of
clausal nominalizations across languages, and their interactions with
other semantic and syntactic properties, raises a host of questions
regarding the nominal analysis of clauses (cf. Kastner 2015).
The workshop welcomes presentations that address the following
questions:
• Are clause-taking and nominal-taking properties of a predicate
preserved across its verbal, adjectival, and/or nominal incarnations?
What accounts for shared and/or divergent behavior across categories?
• Does the interpretation of a nominalized predicate (or some other
type of derived form) correlate with its clause-taking properties?
• What is the manner of composition of a clause (e.g. syntactic
complementation vs. adjunction; semantic saturation vs. predicate
modification vs. “restrict”) and how does this change depending on the
category of the predicate? Does the clause move with one category but
not another? Do clauses combine with adjectives in the same manner as
with verbs or nouns?
• To what extent can a uniform analysis of embedded clauses as nominal
formations account for the overall distributional properties of
embedded clauses?
• How and why is the category of the complement affected by the
category of the clause-taking predicate (e.g. nouns can’t occur with
'so' anaphora; specific prepositions with PPs)?
• What are the implicational and entailment patterns between verbs
like claim (that p) and their corresponding “light verb” constructions
like make the claim (that p)?
• How does modulating argument- and/or event-structure affect clausal
interpretation and/or complementation patterns?
• What is the role of complementizers in the composition of a
clause-taking predicate with a clause and how does this change across
categories?
• What is the role of determiners (and/or pronominal correlates) that
occur with clauses, and how does this affect or reflect
nominal/clausal properties?
• What role does ﬁniteness play in the distribution of clauses in both
the verbal and nominal domains?
The workshop will bring together researchers whose work has engaged
with category-related questions about clausal complementation in
different languages, and will encourage and facilitate discussion
between researchers working on these topics.
Submission instructions:
All submissions will be considered for oral presentation at the
workshop. Abstracts should be submitted via EasyAbs:
https://easyabs.linguistlist.org/conference/clause_comp_zas/ (see the
URL at the bottom of the linked page).
Abstracts, including (select) references and data, must not exceed two
pages with 1 inch (2.54cm) margins on all sides. Font must be set in
Times New Roman (or equivalent) with a font size no smaller than 12pt.
Font size in displays and references may be smaller. The submission
must be anonymous and not reveal the identity of the author(s) in any
way.
All submissions will be considered for oral presentation at the
workshop. An author may submit a maximum of two abstracts, only one of
which may be single-authored.

Submission deadline: March 14, 2025 23:59 Berlin time (GMT +01:00)
Notification of acceptance: April

Should you encounter any issues, please write us an email at the
following address: adamson at leibniz-zas dot de

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LINGUIST List: Vol-36-269
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