36.1481, Confs: Modal Particles: cross-linguistic perspectives and multimodal analysis (Italy)

[The LINGUIST List]

LINGUIST List: Vol-36-1481. Fri May 09 2025. ISSN: 1069 - 4875.

Subject: 36.1481, Confs: Modal Particles: cross-linguistic perspectives and multimodal analysis (Italy)

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Date: 06-May-2025
From: Federica Cognola [federica.cognola at unive.it]
Subject: Modal Particles: cross-linguistic perspectives and multimodal analysis


Modal Particles: cross-linguistic perspectives and multimodal analysis

Date: 24-Sep-2025 - 26-Sep-2025
Location: Venice, Italy

Linguistic Field(s): Discourse Analysis; General Linguistics;
Linguistic Theories; Syntax; Text/Corpus Linguistics

Submission Deadline: 15-Jun-2025

The aim of this conference is to bring together scholars working on
modal particles in a variety of approaches, with a special focus on
comparative and multimodal perspectives.
With modal particles (henceforth: MPs) we refer to words such as Germ.
"ja", in "Das ist ja klasse" 'this is ja great'; It. "mai" in modal
(non-temporal) usages such as: "Cosa vorrà mai?" 'What does he want?',
which express the speaker’s attitude towards the proposition in a
similar fashion to epistemic usages of modal verbs and speaker's
oriented adverbs (such as "unfortunately", "frankly", high adverbs in
Cinque 1999). While traditionally the identification of this class of
elements has mostly been confined to German linguistics (cf. Thurmair
1989), recent work has shown that other languages/language families
exhibit elements functionally and formally corresponding to German MPs
(cf. Cognola/Moroni 2024 and references therein for an overview on
Romance). However, despite parallels, there is no one-to-one overlap
between German and other languages' MPs, and factors such as
socio-linguistic variation, TAM contexts and polarity are known to
play a role in favoring non-modal usages of elements in languages
different from German.
Recent work (Schoonjans 2018) has also shown for German that MPs
should be understood as multimodal constructions which has opened a
new very promising line of research on the interaction between MPs,
gestures, and prosody in face-to-face communication. This line of
research remains still unexplored in relation to MPs in Romance
languages.
References
Cinque, Guglielmo (1999): Adverbs and functional heads. Oxford: OUP
Cognola, Federica; Moroni, Manuela Caterina (2024) Modal particles. In
Anna-Maria De Cesare & Giampaolo Salvi (eds), Manual of Romance Word
Classes, Walter de Gruyter, vol. 36, pp. 449-470
Schoonjans, Steven (2018): Modalpartikeln als multimodale
Konstruktionen. Berlin/Boston: De Gruyter.
Thurmair, Maria (1989): Modalpartikeln und ihre Kombinationen.
Tübingen: Niemeyer
We encourage submissions on the following topics:
- description and analysis of potential MPs in single languages;
- cross-linguistic description and analysis of MPs;
- multimodal analysis of MPs in a single language;
- cross-linguistic description and analysis of MPs;
- differences between German MPs and other language's MPs;
- definition of the factors favoring / disfavoring modal usages of
specific elements.
The confirmed keynote speakers are:
Marco Coniglio (Göttingen)
Anna Czypionka (Konstanz)
Gabriele Diewald (Hannover)
Steven Schoonjans (Alpen-Adria-Universität Klagenfurt)
Submission details:
We invite submissions of anonymous abstracts for 40-minute talks
including discussion. Submissions should not exceed two pages, 12pt.
single spaced, with 2.5cm margins on all sides. Abstracts should be in
PDF format and can be written in English or German.
Abstract should be sent via e-mail to federica.cognola at unive.it
by June 15th 2025.
All information concerning the conference including travel information
and programme will be published on the RUM project webpage:
https://www.unive.it/rum
Local organisers
Federica Cognola, federica.cognola at unive.it
Giovanni Palilla, giovanni.palilla at unitus.it
Erika Petrocchi, erika.petrocchi at unive.it
Contacts
federica.cognola at unive.it
*This conference is organized within the PRIN-2022 project Rethinking,
Understanding Modal participants which has received funding from the
Italian Ministry of University and Research (MUR) - PRIN 2022. CUP:
H53D23004410006



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