36.320, Confs: Phonology; Pragmatics; Semantics; Syntax; Typology / Netherlands

[The LINGUIST List]

LINGUIST List: Vol-36-320. Thu Jan 23 2025. ISSN: 1069 - 4875.

Subject: 36.320, Confs: Phonology; Pragmatics; Semantics; Syntax; Typology / Netherlands

Moderator: Steven Moran (linguist at linguistlist.org)
Managing Editor: Justin Fuller
Team: Helen Aristar-Dry, Steven Franks, Joel Jenkins, Daniel Swanson, Erin Steitz
Jobs: jobs at linguistlist.org | Conferences: callconf at linguistlist.org | Pubs: pubs at linguistlist.org

Homepage: http://linguistlist.org

Editor for this issue: Erin Steitz <ensteitz at linguistlist.org>

================================================================


Date: 23-Jan-2025
From: Beste Kamali [b.c.kamali at uva.nl]
Subject: Polar Question Form[s] Across Languages


Polar Question Form[s] Across Languages

Date: 24-Apr-2025 - 25-Apr-2025
Location: University of Amsterdam Humanities Labs/Bushuis, Netherlands
Meeting URL: https://sites.google.com/view/poqal-2/home

Linguistic Field(s): Phonology; Pragmatics; Semantics; Syntax;
Typology

After the success of our first workshop Polar Question Meaning[s]
Across Languages, we are launching a second POQAL meeting, this time
focusing on form. How are polar questions expressed in syntax,
morphology, intonation? How do components of the grammar of each
language constrain and determine these ways, e.g. in the inventory of
functional categories, the expression of negation, focus, polarity,
intonational characteristics, pragmatic division of labor among forms?
How do fine grammatical components correlate with fine components of
meaning? What crosslinguistic generalizations can be made in this new
level of granularity?
The last decades have seen a steady increase in work on polar question
meaning, with relatively new notions like bias becoming front and
center. The empirical scope has also expanded, to include not only
plain interrogatives but also declaratives, tags, and alternative
questions. These forms raise important questions about the
relationship between form and meaning, as the so-called non-canonical
forms induce finer components of meaning like bias.
Beyond these polar-like question forms familiar from widely studied
languages, various other lexical and structural means are deployed to
form paradigms of polar-like questions across languages. These include
various particles, forms related to embedding, negation and focus. It
is sometimes not clear how canonically applies to these paradigms, yet
different forms relate to different components of complex polar
question meaning. Proposals have been made that the syntax and prosody
of polar questions hold a discrete complexity, with dedicated
components spelling out pieces of the question act.
This workshop aims to bring together work that continues this line of
research by looking closely into expression strategies of polar
questions. We invite abstracts that formally address aspects of
polar(-like) question forms across languages, and theorize on polar
question form and its relation to meaning based on a wide range of
data (of forms as well as languages). We are particularly excited to
hear about formal grammatical phenomena such as clausal structure,
embedding, negation, focus and intonation driving certain pragmatic
effects, the nature of those effects and their analysis, and emerging
crosslinguistic generalizations once we look at polar question marking
components at this level of detail.
Please limit abstracts of max. 2 pages to two abstracts per
(co-)author and send to poqal.amsterdam at gmail.com.
Invited speakers:
 ⁃ Variation: Andreas Hölzl (Universität Potsdam)
 ⁃ Syntax: Martina Wiltschko (Universitat Pompeu Fabra)
 ⁃ Prosody: TBA
Important data:
 • Abstracts due: February 15, 2025
 • Decisions announced: February 20, 2025
 • WS Date: April 24-25, 2025 
 • WS location: University of Amsterdam Humanities Labs room F0.01.
https://www.uva.nl/en/locations/binnenstad/bushuis.html?origin=uq5cmYnUS0mTwIPG0l%2FQxA
 • Website (please check for any updates):
https://sites.google.com/view/poqal-2/home
 • Contact person: Beste Kamali (poqal.amsterdam at gmail.com,
b.c.kamali at uva.nl)
This workshop is sponsored by the Marie Skłodowska Curie fellowship
EPOQ-101067203 granted to Beste Kamali.



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

********************** LINGUIST List Support ***********************
Please consider donating to the Linguist List to support the student editors:

https://www.paypal.com/donate/?hosted_button_id=87C2AXTVC4PP8

LINGUIST List is supported by the following publishers:

Bloomsbury Publishing http://www.bloomsbury.com/uk/

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

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

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

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

Language Science Press http://langsci-press.org

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

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

Wiley http://www.wiley.com


----------------------------------------------------------
LINGUIST List: Vol-36-320
----------------------------------------------------------