37.2044, Confs: Workshop at DGfS 2027: Non-Canonical Questions under the Microscope (Germany)

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LINGUIST List: Vol-37-2044. Thu Jun 11 2026. ISSN: 1069 - 4875.

Subject: 37.2044, Confs: Workshop at DGfS 2027: Non-Canonical Questions under the Microscope (Germany)

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Date: 10-Jun-2026
From: James Griffiths [james.griffiths at uni-tuebingen.de]
Subject: Workshop at DGfS 2027: Non-Canonical Questions under the Microscope


Workshop at DGfS 2027: Non-Canonical Questions under the Microscope

Date: 02-Mar-2027 - 05-Mar-2027
Location: Jena, Germany
Contact Email: ncq.workshop2027 at gmail.com
Meeting URL: https://uni-tuebingen.de/en/298455

Linguistic Field(s): General Linguistics

Submission Deadline: 15-Jul-2026

Call for papers: "Non-Canonical Questions under the Microscope",
workshop at the 49th annual conference of the Deutsche Gesellschaft
für Sprachwissenschaft (DGfS), (Lang-AG)
Organizers: Ebrar Beşinci, Timo Buchholz, Robin Edds, James Griffiths,
Paula Menéndez Benito (Universität Tübingen), Ilaria Frana (University
of Enna Kore)
Non-canonical questions (NCQs) override the default settings
associated with ordinary information-seeking questions (Farkas 2022,
to appear). Canonical questions present an open issue, signal that the
speaker does not know how to resolve it, and that she assumes that the
addressee can (and will) provide an answer.´Instead, rhetorical
questions (Is the Pope Catholic?) can raise already solved issues.
Biased questions (Aren’t you hungry?) signal that the speaker favors
one of the answers and is thus not fully ignorant. Conjectural
questions (Where could the key be?) override the addressee’s knowledge
assumption. Probing questions (He does WHAT for a living?) heighten
the expectation that the addressee can provide an informative answer,
and echo-questions (She loves auteur cinema?!) indicate the need to
resolve an issue in the conversation itself while suspending
acceptance of the preceding move.
In recent years, a substantial body of work on NCQs has emerged (see,
e.g., Eckardt et al to appear, Trinh et al. 2025, Trotzke 2023). Some
of the key issues addressed in this research are:
1.  How should the discourse properties of NCQs be modelled?
2.  How do the formal (morphosyntax, prosody) properties of NCQs
impact on their pragmatic profile?
3.  How do NCQs interact with other linguistic devices that switch
default conversational parameters (e.g., evidential or mirative
markers)?
This workshop aims to bring together researchers that investigate
these and related issues. A focal point of the workshop will be
micro-variation in the form-function correspondence, also across
languages, dialects, and registers. This microscopic perspective is
crucial for developing fine-grained responses to the questions in
(1-3). For instance, the syntactic position of the verb of 'wohl'
questions in German has been shown to subtly impact their discourse
effect (Eckardt 2020). Similarly, the difference between
information-seeking wh-in-situ questions and mishearing and indignant
wh-echo questions was found to consist mostly of gradient differences
in duration and pitch alignment and scaling in production (Repp &
Rosin 2015) that interact with word order to achieve recognition above
chance in perception (Biezma et al. 2021).
We invite contributions for talks of 20(+10) minutes on empirical or
theoretical projects investigating how such small variations in form
may lead to different pragmatic uses, and how different methodologies
can bring out this variation. We are especially interested in results
arising from linguistic varieties that are underrepresented in the
previous literature. Contributions from doctoral students and early
career researchers are particularly welcome.
Please note that a speaker at DGfS 2027 may be presenting author only
on a single contribution, but may be co-author on several
presentations at the conference.
For evaluation, initial abstracts must be anonymous and should not
exceed 2 pages of text (A4, minimum font size 12pt, 2.5 cm margins),
including figures, examples and references. Be aware that for the
official book of abstracts of the DGfS, after acceptance you will be
asked to submit a final version of the abstract where everything
(including references) has to fit on a single page.
Please send your anonymous abstract as a pdf via mail to
ncq.workshop2027 at gmail.com. In the email, please provide your own name
as well as those of any contributors and indicate who of you will be
presenting at the workshop.
For further information, please visit
https://uni-tuebingen.de/en/298455.
Important Dates:
Deadline for initial abstract submission: July 15, 2026
Notification: August 31, 2026
Deadline for final abstract submission after acceptance: November 15,
2026
Workshop time and place: March 2-5 2027, University of Jena (at the
49th annual conference of the Deutsche Gesellschaft für
Sprachwissenschaft (DGfS))



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