36.3376, Confs: Workshop at SLE 2026: Body Part Incorporation Cross-linguistically: At the Crossroads of Lexicon, Semantics, and Morphosyntax (Germany)

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LINGUIST List: Vol-36-3376. Wed Nov 05 2025. ISSN: 1069 - 4875.

Subject: 36.3376, Confs: Workshop at SLE 2026: Body Part Incorporation Cross-linguistically: At the Crossroads of Lexicon, Semantics, and Morphosyntax (Germany)

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Date: 04-Nov-2025
From: Anna Bugaeva & Maria Koptjevskaja Tamm [bugaeva at rs.tus.ac.jp]
Subject: Workshop at SLE 2026: Body Part Incorporation Cross-linguistically: At the Crossroads of Lexicon, Semantics, and Morphosyntax


Workshop at SLE 2026: Body Part Incorporation Cross-linguistically: At
the Crossroads of Lexicon, Semantics, and Morphosyntax
Short Title: SLE 2026

Date: 26-Aug-2026 - 29-Nov-2025
Location: Osnabrück, Germany
Meeting URL: https://societaslinguistica.eu/sle2026/

Linguistic Field(s): Morphology; Semantics; Syntax; Typology

Submission Deadline: 15-Nov-2025

The proposed workshop aims to explore and understand what’s special
about body part noun incorporation compared to other types of
incorporation found across the world’s languages. Which particular
body part terms tend to be incorporated, and what might this reveal
about universal patterns in linguistic structure and meaning? By
bringing together researchers working on diverse languages, this
workshop seeks to uncover the distinctive characteristics, functions,
and typological tendencies of body part incorporation. Through
comparative discussion, we will highlight how these constructions
contribute to our understanding of grammar, semantics, and the
interface between language and cognition.
Noun incorporation (NI) is a grammatical process in which a noun
(often the object) becomes bound to a verb, forming a single complex
verb word as in turep ‘lily root’ + ta ‘to dig’  turep-ta ‘to dig
lily roots’ (=‘engage in lily roots digging’) from Ainu (isolate,
Northern Japan). NI is predominantly found in the Circum-Pacific
region as defined by Bickel & Nichols (2006) and encompassing the
Americas, Oceania–New Guinea–Australia, and eastern Asia up to the
main coastal mountain range) (Caballero et al. 2008: 393). NI has
attracted much attention and debate in research on particular
languages and cross-linguistically, among others, on its coverage and
delimitation from other processes (Massam 2009).
Body-part terms (BPTs) are frequently involved in NI (Kroeber 1909;
Sapir 1911; Mithun 1984), and in some languages, they constitute the
only class of incorporable nouns (Dahl 2004: 213–214), e.g., in
Ngan.gikurunggurr (non-Pama-Nyungan; Australia) (Reid 1982), Totonac
(Totonac-Tepehua; Mexico) (Caballero et al. 2008), and Palikúr
(Arawak; Brazil) (Aikhenvald & Green 1998: 451). This pattern is
understandable, given that NI is an effective backgrounding device and
BPTs are often backgrounded in discourse (Mithun 1984; Lehmann 2022).
To cite Dahl & Koptjevskaja-Tamm (1998: 44), “what really matters is
not so much the body part as such but rather the affected person or
animal. This motivates syntactic constructions such as possessor
ascension/external possession and body-part incorporation”.
However, what makes noun incorporation of BPTs noteworthy is the
unique combination of grammatical constraints it displays: when used
independently, BPTs semantically—and, in languages with obligatorily
possessed nouns, syntactically—require a possessor (Bugaeva et al.
2022), whereas incorporated BPTs tend to resist all types of
modification, including possessive. In addition, BPTs even in one and
the same language do not form a homogenous lexical class, and may
differ in their properties, including their propensity to be
incorporated.
Languages vary in how they handle the original possessor-modifier,
with possessor ascension to the subject or object in NI being a
commonly attested strategy in Mohawk (Iroquoian; USA) (Mithun 1996)
(1a, b), Chukchi (Chukchi-Kamchatkan; Russia) (Vinyar 2023), Lakota
(Siouan; USA) (de Reuse 1994), Washo (isolate, USA) (Lemieux 2010),
Palikúr (Arawak; Brazil) (Aikhenvald & Green 1998), Panare (Cariban;
Venezuela) (Payne & Payne 2013), Movima (isolate, Bolivia) (Haude
2006), Paraguayan Guaraní (Tupi-Guaraní) (Velázquez-Castillo 1996),
and many others, though not the only strategy. For example, in Mayali
(dialect of Bininj Kun-Wok; non-Pama-Nyungan; Australia) and a few
other head-marking polysynthetic languages of Australia, body-part
incorporation does not alter argument structure or follow a
possessor-raising pattern; instead, body parts are syntactically in
apposition to their wholes, and incorporation selects one of the two
apposed nominals (Evans 1996: 91) (2a).
Further variation is determined by possessor–subject coreferentiality
options in the case of transitive incorporating verb. While BPTs
incorporated by intransitive verbs can only belong to the subject of
NI (My hands are cold > I am coldhanded) (1a), BPTs incorporated into
the object slot of transitive verbs can either belong to the subject
(possessor–subject coreferentiality: I washed my face > I facewashed)
(4a) or to some other person (no possessor–subject coreferentiality: I
washed his face > I facewashed him) (1b). Thus, in Ainu, incorporation
of BPTs typically results in the promotion of the possessor to subject
with intransitives (3b), deletion of the coreferential possessor with
transitives (4b) (cf. base clauses in (3a) and (4a)), and no
incorporation when the possessor is not coreferential with the
transitive subject (i.e., it is impossible to incorporate a BPT when
it does not belong to oneself) (4c) (Bugaeva & Koptjevskaja-Tamm
2025).
In contrast, in Mayali, “the incorporated body part is never construed
with the transitive subject. …the incorporated form ‘hand’ must be
construed as the object’s; to specify that the subject used his hand,
a free nominal plus the ‘from’ suffix must be used” (Evans 1996: 84)
as in (2b). In Nadëb (Nadahup; Brazil), too, the possessor
coreferential with the transitive subject in NI requires special
reflexive marking, whereas non-coreferential possessors behave
differently: first- and second-person possessors are easily promoted
to object position as in typical possessor ascension, while a
non-coreferential third-person possessor is simply deleted, with its
reference being recoverable from context (Weir 1990: 325, 328).
Another feature that makes BPT noun incorporation distinctive is that,
in some languages, incorporated body-part nouns may be referential, as
in Ainu (Satō 2012, 2016; Bugaeva 2017) (see -e (POSS) in (3b)), Washo
(Lemieux 2010: 153), Nadëb (Weir 1990), Panare (Payne 1995: 309), or
Bininj Kun-Wok (Evans 2003: 235), which is not the case with other
incorporation types.
Further parameters of BPT NI variation include the possibility of
incorporating arguments only as in Ainu (Bugaeva 2022), or arguments
and adjuncts as in Chukchi (Vinyar 2023) with different semantic
roles, which include not only Patients but often Instruments and
Locations (Olthof 2020).
And finally, it has long been noted that some BPT lexemes are more
prone to incorporation than others: “Most incorporating languages do
incorporate such terms as ‘body’ and ‘mind’, since they provide a
device for qualifying V’s which pertain to the physical or mental
aspect of a person or animal.” (Mithun 1984: 856). However, this too
appears to be subject to linguistic variation: in Ainu, the most
frequently incorporated lexemes are ‘mind’, ‘eye’, and ‘hand’ (Bugaeva
& Koptjevskaja-Tamm 2025), i.e., not ‘body’. Moreover, in Paraguayan
Guaraní, ‘body’ even resists incorporation since “the whole body
functions as an active zone indicating complete identification between
body and person,” and only BPTs that “are attributed some sort of
cultural importance” are allowed to incorporate (Velázquez-Castillo
1996: 157).
While it is clear that certain BPT lexemes are more prone to certain
semantic role interpretations in NI, which is accommodated by
language-specific morphosyntax (Lexicon > Semantics > Morphosyntax),
the cross-linguistic variation and possible interdependencies have not
been consistently described so far. The present workshop, which is
primarily concerned with illuminating the above-described and other
features that make BPT NI special compared to other types, aims at
bringing this into focus.
(1)     a.      tewakahsyó:tanos
(Mohawk)
                te-wak-absyot-anos
                 DUALIC-1:SG:PAT-hand-cold:STATIVE
                ‘My hands are cold.’ (Literally: ‘I am coldhanded.’)
        b.      wahikųhsohareʔ
                wa-hi-kųhs-ohare-ʔ
                PAST-l:SG:AGT/3.M:SG:PAT-face-wash-PUNCTUAL
                ‘I washed his face.’ (Literally: ‘I facewashed him.’)
(Mithun 1996: 643)
(2)     a.      A-bid-garrme-ng                 daluk.
(Mayali)
                1/3-hand-grasp-PP               woman
                ‘I touched the woman on the hand.’
        b.      Gun-bid-be      nga-garrme-ng   daluk.
                IV-hand-from            1/3-grasp-PP    woman
                ‘I touched the woman with my hand.’ (Evans 1996: 84)
(3)     a.      a-tek-e                                 páse
(Ainu)
                4.(A)/POSS-hand-POSS    heavy
                ‘My hands are heavy.’
        b.      tek-e-pase-an
                hand-POSS-heavy-4.S
                lit. ‘I (=the protagonist) am hand-heavy.’ = I feel as
if I’ve aged. (Satō 2022: 558, modified)
(4)     a.      a-kema-ha                               a-huraye
(Ainu)
                4.(A)/POSS-foot-POSS    4.A-wash
        ‘I (=the protagonist) washed my feet.’ (Kokuritsu C0008L00018)
     b. kema-huraye-an
               foot-wash-4.S
                ‘I (=the protagonist) washed my feet.’ (Tamura 1996:
292) (modified)
    c.         e-kema-ha                           a-huraye
               2.(A)/POSS-foot-POSS        4.A-wash
               ‘I (=the protagonist) washed your feet.’ (constructed
example)
We welcome contributions on any language (family).
If you want to be part of this workshop, please send your abstract of
max. 300 words to Anna Bugaeva (bugaeva at rs.tus.ac.jp) & Maria
Koptjevskaja Tamm (tamm at ling.su.se) by 15 November 2025.
NB: Notification of acceptance/rejection of workshop proposals by the
SLE workshops committee will be by 15 December 2025. In the second
step, abstracts for presentations – also those for workshops – should
be submitted via EasyChair by 15 January 2026, for which
acceptance/rejection will be announced by 31 March 2026
For full list of references, please see the workshop URL:
https://societaslinguistica.eu/sle2026/wp-content/uploads/sites/9/2025/11/SLE-59-proposal_Body-Part-NI_11042025.pdf



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