36.2284, Confs: 5th International Conference on Adverbial Clauses (Germany)

[The LINGUIST List]

LINGUIST List: Vol-36-2284. Wed Jul 30 2025. ISSN: 1069 - 4875.

Subject: 36.2284, Confs: 5th International Conference on Adverbial Clauses (Germany)

Moderator: Steven Moran (linguist at linguistlist.org)
Managing Editor: Valeriia Vyshnevetska
Team: Helen Aristar-Dry, Mara Baccaro, Daniel Swanson
Jobs: jobs at linguistlist.org | Conferences: callconf at linguistlist.org | Pubs: pubs at linguistlist.org

Homepage: http://linguistlist.org

Editor for this issue: Valeriia Vyshnevetska <valeriia at linguistlist.org>

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


Date: 29-Jul-2025
From: Łukasz Jędrzejowski [lukasz.jedrzejowski at uia.no]
Subject: 5th International Conference on Adverbial Clauses


5th International Conference on Adverbial Clauses
Theme: Adverbial clauses as relative clauses: Old questions, new
answers

Date: 23-Oct-2025 - 24-Oct-2025
Location: Hamburg, Germany
Contact: Łukasz Jędrzejowski
Contact Email: lukasz.jedrzejowski at uia.no
Meeting URL: https://www.lukasz-jedrzejowski.eu/adverbial-clauses-2/

Linguistic Field(s): General Linguistics; Historical Linguistics;
Semantics; Syntax

Submission Deadline: 20-Sep-2025

Meeting Description:
Subordinate clauses are among the most prominent linguistic phenomena
illustrating the capacity of a computational mechanism to generate
recursive structures. A central question in this domain is whether all
subordination strategies can be reduced to a single abstract
structure. This issue has inspired several productive lines of
inquiry. One influential hypothesis is that complement clauses,
particularly those embedded under factive predicates, may be analyzed
as a subtype of (co-)relative clauses (cf. Aboh 2005; Kayne 2008,
2010; Arsenijević 2009; Krapova 2010, among others).
Building on these insights, recent synchronic research has extended
similar structural analyses to adverbial clause linkage. A growing
number of studies suggest that many adverbial clauses exhibit key
syntactic features traditionally associated with (co-)relative
clauses. This challenges the long-standing binary distinction between
relative and adverbial clause types (cf. Geis 1970; Larson 1985, 1990,
2016; Geis & Lycan 1993; Donati 1997; Bhatt & Pantcheva 2006; Kayne
2008; Haegeman 2010; Hall & Caponigro 2010; Arsenijević 2021, among
many others). From a diachronic perspective, individual case studies
provide further support for this view. For instance, Axel-Tober (2012)
traces the development of temporal "da"-clauses in German to (co
)relative origins, while Sanfelici & Rodeghiero (2024) offer a similar
account for causal "siccome"-clauses in Italian.
Despite these converging lines of evidence, recent work has raised
critical questions about the validity and explanatory power of these
analyses. De Cuba (2017, 2023) argues that many (co )relative clause
analyses lack detailed syntactic elaboration and are often driven more
by theoretical considerations than empirical necessity. He underscores
the fundamental differences between complement clauses and relative
clauses, noting that the former do not involve operator movement and
differ in their use of complementizers, the possibility of
complementizer omission, agreement patterns, and the licensing of main
clause phenomena. Similar critiques have been leveled against the
analysis of adverbial clauses as (co-)relative structures. Adverbial
clauses, in contrast to relative clauses, are typically found in
peripheral positions, show no clear evidence of operator movement, do
not give rise to the same island effects, and are not characterized by
obligatory gaps (cf. Cinque 2008; Haegeman 2012). Moreover, while
Heine and Kuteva (2002, 2007) document cases in which adverbial
subordinators such as when, because, or if develop from relative
clause structures, they also show that in many languages, these forms
arise from other sources, including speech act verbs, discourse
markers, nominalized verbs, and aspectual constructions.
Against this backdrop, the main aim of the conference is to bring
together recent theoretical and experimental research exploring the
analysis of adverbial clauses as (co-)relative structures from both
synchronic and diachronic perspectives. By revisiting this
long-standing question, we hope to contribute novel theoretical
insights into the extent to which a (co-)relative clause analysis can
account for the syntactic and semantic properties of adverbial
subordination.
The international conference "Adverbial clauses as relative clauses:
Old questions, new answers" is organized as part of the scientific
network Adverbial Clauses and Subordinate Dependency Relationships,
funded by the German Science Foundation (grant number 455700544) and
granted to Łukasz Jędrzejowski. The network is currently led by
Andreas Pankau. The conference will be hosted by the Institut für
Germanistik at the University of Hamburg on October 23-24, 2025, and
is organized by Stefan Hinterwimmer and Łukasz Jędrzejowski.
Invited Speakers (all confirmed):
Boban Arsenijević (University of Graz)
David Pesetsky (MIT)
Emanuela Sanfelici (University of Padova)
David Willis (University of Oxford)
Call for Papers:
Topics for the conference include, but are not limited to, the
following questions:
– To what extent can adverbial clauses be uniformly analyzed as
(co-)relative structures across different syntactic environments and
languages? Does this analysis account for all types of adverbial
clauses? What are the limits of such an approach? In what ways do the
structures of adverbial clauses overlap with those of (co-)relative
clauses?
– In what ways do the distributional properties and structural
positions of adverbial clauses differ from those of relative clauses?
What do these differences imply for unified analyses? Can the
variation in complementizer use, agreement, and main clause phenomena
across complement, adverbial, and relative clauses be accounted for
using a single abstract pattern, or do they point to fundamentally
distinct derivational mechanisms?
– How do diachronic pathways of adverbial subordinators support or
undermine the hypothesis of their origin in relative clause
structures? Which types of adverbial clauses (e.g., temporal, causal,
conditional) show the strongest historical connection to relative
clause structures? What kinds of morphosyntactic evidence (e.g., case
marking, word order) suggest a relative clause origin? What role do
contact-induced changes or areal patterns play in shaping the
evolution of adverbial subordinators from relative structures?
The conference aims to provide a theoretical perspective on the
analysis of adverbial clauses within the framework of various
relativization strategies. It will be preceded by an international
workshop on verb-first adverbial clauses from a cross-linguistic
perspective, which will take place at the University of Hamburg on 22
October 2025.
We invite the submission of abstracts for 40-minute oral presentations
(plus an additional 20 minutes for questions) on topics that address
issues related to the analysis of adverbial clauses as relative or
correlative clauses. These may include case studies as well as formal
theories of specific types of adverbial clauses. We also welcome
research at the interfaces with semantics and other areas, as long as
it contributes to the core question of the conference.
Abstracts should be submitted in PDF format to and
lukasz.jedrzejowski at uia.no, with all non-standard fonts embedded.
Abstracts must not exceed two pages, including data. An additional
third page may be used for references. Submissions should be in letter
or A4 format, with 1 inch (2.5 cm) margins on all sides,
single-spaced, and in a font no smaller than 11 pt. Abstracts must be
anonymous. Please ensure that PDF files do not contain any identifying
metadata. Each author may submit one individual and one joint
abstract, or two joint abstracts.
Please submit abstracts to and lukasz.jedrzejowski at uia.no no later
than September 20, 2025.
Notification: 30 September 2025
For inquiries, please send an e-mail to lukasz.jedrzejowski at uia.no
For full list of references, please see the meeting's website.
The conference is funded by a German Research Foundation grant to
Łukasz Jędrzejowski (grant number 455700544).



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

********************** LINGUIST List Support ***********************
Please consider donating to the Linguist List, a U.S. 501(c)(3) not for profit organization:

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

LINGUIST List is supported by the following publishers:

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

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

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

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

MIT Press http://mitpress.mit.edu/

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

Narr Francke Attempto Verlag GmbH + Co. KG http://www.narr.de/

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

Peter Lang AG http://www.peterlang.com


----------------------------------------------------------
LINGUIST List: Vol-36-2284
----------------------------------------------------------