37.2075, Confs: Workshop on Morphosyntactic Properties of Reduced Nominals in Uralic, Altaic, and Paleoasiatic Languages (Russia)

Tue Jun 16 09:05:02 UTC 2026

LINGUIST List: Vol-37-2075. Tue Jun 16 2026. ISSN: 1069 - 4875.

Subject: 37.2075, Confs: Workshop on Morphosyntactic Properties of Reduced Nominals in Uralic, Altaic, and Paleoasiatic Languages (Russia)

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Date: 13-Jun-2026
From: Aleksandra Belkind [belkind.aleksandra at nytud.elte.hu]
Subject: Workshop on Morphosyntactic Properties of Reduced Nominals in Uralic, Altaic, and Paleoasiatic Languages

Workshopon Morphosyntactic Properties of Reduced Nominals in Uralic,
Altaic, and Paleoasiatic Languages
Theme: Workshop at the 6th Conference on Uralic, Altaic, and
Paleoasiatic Languages

Date: 23-Nov-2026 - 25-Nov-2026
Location: St. Petersburg, Russia
Meeting URL: https://iling.spb.ru/conferences/2026/5061

Linguistic Field(s): General Linguistics; Morphology; Syntax
Language Family(ies): Altaic; Siberian; Uralic (ural1272)

Submission Deadline: 12-Jul-2026

Workshop at 6th Conference on Uralic, Altaic, and Paleoasiatic
Languages (The Institute for Linguistic Studies of the Russian Academy
of Sciences, St. Petersburg)
Organizers: Aleksandra Belkind, Polina Pleshak
The aim of this workshop is to discuss theoretical ideas regarding the
range of morphosyntactic characteristics of (potentially) reduced
nominals across Uralic, Altaic and Paleoasiatic languages. Under
reduced nominals we understand nominals that disallow overt
realization of definiteness, number or possessive marking, including
contexts where they get a clear definite, plural, possessed
interpretation. We are particularly interested in scenarios, in which
such nominals bear case morphology otherwise unexpected in this
syntactic position or do not bear a morphological case marker in the
context where it is otherwise expected.
While our final goal is to explore how such nominals can be
accommodated in the current state of the formal generative theory of
C/case and nominal licensing, we do not restrict our workshop to any
particular theoretical paradigm. We expect reduced nominals to fall
into two broad classes. The first consists of bare nominals (no overt
case morphology), while the second includes nominals marked with an
oblique case. Both types are relevant to the workshop.
Bare nominals are nominals that appear without overt case marking in
contexts where case marking would otherwise be expected. In many
languages, such nominals additionally exhibit restrictions on the
expression of nominal categories and on adnominal modification (e.g.,
Danon 2006, Lyutikova & Pereltsvaig 2015, Pleshak 2025). From a
theoretical perspective, they raise important questions about the
relationship between case, licensing, and the internal size of nominal
projections. A growing body of work has argued that nominals may vary
structurally, with only fully projected nominals requiring the
licensing mechanisms (e.g., Kalin 2018 and references above). Whether
structurally reduced nominals can receive case when the grammar
permits it, or whether they are inherently incompatible with case
marking, remains an open question (e.g., Irimia 2022 for discussion on
case-marked small nominals in Romanian).
At the same time, the absence of overt case marking does not
necessarily imply structural reduction. Zero realization of a default
case, or a zero allomorph of an otherwise overt case marker, may
produce superficially similar patterns (e.g., Glushan 2010, Keine &
Muller 2015, Bárány 2018). Distinguishing between these possibilities
is therefore an important empirical and theoretical task.
The second class comprises nominals that are overtly marked with an
oblique case but nevertheless display restrictions on overt
realization of other nominal categories, such as definiteness,
possession, agreement, or exhibit restrictions on modification. Such
patterns have been described for theme argument in secundative
alignment in some languages (Belkind 2025), and for object in
antipassive constructions (Polinsky 2017, Burukina & Polinsky 2025),
or oblique marking of direct object in Kolyma Yukaghir (Maslova 2003).
We welcome submissions addressing the morphosyntactic properties of,
but not limited to, the following types of potentially reduced
nominals:
 - complements of adpositions
 - possessors (in a broad sense), unmarked or with non-canonical
marking
 - Demoted arguments, marked as oblique or unmarked
 - Adnominal dependents marked with oblique cases
 - Unmarked direct objects in asymmetrical differential object marking
We are also interested in contributions on:
 - Complements unexpectedly not indexed on the head in head-marking
languages (languages with no overt case morphology for the position in
question)
 - Non-agreeing non-theme arguments and non-theme arguments exhibiting
restrictions on definiteness, number, possession marking,
modification, and/or having adjacency requirement
 - Evidence that nominals seemingly exhibiting properties of reduced
nominals are not structurally reduced
We are particularly interested in the following characteristics:
 - Presence/absence of case-marking
 - Availability of definite interpretation of structurally reduced
nominals
 - Availability of overt possessors combined with the block on
possessive marking on the head noun
 - Restrictions on adnominal modification
 - The placement of possessive agreement morphology outside of the
immediate nominal head (e.g., agreement of the postposition with the
possessor of its complement; object agreement of the verb with the
possessor of its DO)
The following terminologically similar phenomena are out of the scope
of our interest:
 - Bare nominals understood as nominals lacking articles in
articleless languages (Bošković 2008) or bare plurals
 - Well-behaved arguments in languages with a zero-exponent for
nominative/absolutive)
We equally welcome submissions focusing on a particular language and
larger comparative/typological surveys. We also welcome studies in
diachronic and areal perspectives, as well as research on variation
and change and acquisition.
Please send your abstract (in English or Russian, up to 3600
characters, excluding the list of references and glosses) or a short
annotation of the talk to polinapleshak at gmail.com and
belkind.aleksandra at nytud.elte.hu before July 12, 2026.
See the full conference call including guidelines for abstracts here:
https://iling.spb.ru/conferences/2026/5061
References:
Bárány, András. 2018. DOM and dative case. Glossa: a journal of
general linguistics 3(1). DOI: 10.5334/gjgl.639
Belkind, Aleksandra. 2025. Inherent Case Features and Case Assignment
in Double Object Constructions in Kazym Khanty. Leipzig university
dissertation.
Bošković, Željko. 2008. What will you have, DP or NP? Proceedings of
NELS 37:101–114.
Burukina Irina, & Polinsky Maria. 2015 The antipassive and verbal
projections. Journal of Linguistics 61(4):689-722.
doi:10.1017/S0022226725000064
Danon, Gabi. 2006. Caseless nominals and the projection of DP. Natural
Language & Linguistic Theory 24:977–1008.
Glushan, Zhanna. 2010. Deriving case syncretism in differential object
marking systems.
Irimia, Monica Alexandrina. 2022. DOM and nominal structure: Some
notes on DOM with bare nouns. Languages 7:175.
Kalin, Laura. 2018. Licensing and differential object marking: The
view from Neo-Aramaic. Syntax 21(2). 112–159.
doi:https://doi.org/10.1111/synt.12153.
Keine, Stefan, & Gereon Muller. 2015. Differential argument encoding
by impoverishment. In Scales and hierarchies: A cross-disciplinary
perspective, ed. Ina Bornkessel-Schlesewsky, Andrej Malchukov, &Marc
D. Richards, 75–130. Berlin: Mouton de Gruyter.
Lyutikova, Ekaterina A., & Asya Pereltsvaig. 2015. The Tatar DP.
Canadian Journal of Linguistics/Revue canadienne de linguistique
60:289–325.
Maslova, Elena. 2009. A grammar of Kolyma Yukaghir (Vol. 27). Walter
de Gruyter.
Pleshak, Polina. 2025. Diagnosing small nominals: Theoretical
implications from Moksha and Hill Mari: University of Maryland
dissertation.
Polinsky, Maria. 2017. Antipassive.

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