37.2150, Confs: Workshop at DGfS 2027: Small Primitives, Big Syntax (Germany)

Tue Jun 23 12:05:02 UTC 2026

LINGUIST List: Vol-37-2150. Tue Jun 23 2026. ISSN: 1069 - 4875.

Subject: 37.2150, Confs: Workshop at DGfS 2027: Small Primitives, Big Syntax (Germany)

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Date: 19-Jun-2026
From: Emir Berber, Rebecca Jarvis, Mariia Privizentseva, Francesca Ziegler, Stanislao Zompì [jarvis1 at uni-potsdam.de]
Subject: Workshop at DGfS 2027: Small Primitives, Big Syntax

Workshop at DGfS 2027: Small Primitives, Big Syntax

Date: 03-Mar-2027 - 05-Mar-2027
Location: Jena, Germany
Meeting URL:
https://sites.google.com/view/potsdam-msl/events/dgfs-2027-in-jena-ag-small-primitives-big-syntax

Linguistic Field(s): Syntax; Typology

Submission Deadline: 24-Jul-2026

One of the central goals of syntactic typology is to reduce complex
linguistic phenomena—and the often fine-grained variation they exhibit
across languages—to a set of simpler underlying mechanisms. This
enterprise involves deriving a wide range of syntactic constructions
from constrained sets of features or other syntactic primitives that
can combine in different constellations across languages. In this
workshop, to be held at DGfS 2027 in Jena, we zoom in on these
primitives and ask two interrelated questions: (i) To what extent are
more complex phenomena in a given language determined by the presence
of simpler ones, or by specific combinations of these elements? (ii)
How much cross-linguistic variation can be accounted for through the
parametrization of simpler elements?
On the one hand, we invite work on what particular combinations of
features underlie larger syntactic phenomena. This line of
argumentation is exemplified by Sichel's (2018) claim that exceptional
extraction from some Hebrew relative clauses results from a conspiracy
of features, namely when the clause both exhibits a particular
derivational structure and occupies a particular position in the
sentence. A similarly-flavored, long-standing debate concerns whether
the availability of a correlative structure in a language can be
predicted by its word order profile.
We also encourage work that takes as its focus a on how a small number
of primitives and how they can expand parametrically to capture a
range of syntactic variation in a factorial typology. Such an approach
to a type of verbal inflection in the Algonquian language family is
pursued by Oxford (2022), who argues that all and only the twelve
patterns of inverse agreement attested in these languages can be
captured through a parametrization of two agreement-related syntactic
features. Similarly, Lohninger (2023) identifies subtypes of so-called
“mixed” A/A'-behavior across languages and proposes that each can be
represented through a constrained combination of syntactic features.
Through such investigations, this workshop aims to shed new light on
the small building blocks that form the basis of complex syntactic
phenomena. For more information, visit the workshop website.
Invited Speakers:
Klaus Abels (University College London)
Asia Pietraszko (University of Rochester)
Submission Guidelines:
Abstracts should be submitted via the workshop’s OpenReview page
(https://openreview.net/group?id=DGfS.de/2027/Workshop/small-primitives-big-syntax)
by July 24, 2026. Abstracts, including references and data, must not
exceed two A4 pages, have 2.5cm (=1-inch) margins on all sides, be set
in Times New Roman (or equivalent) with a font size of 12pt, and be in
PDF format. Examples, graphs, tables, etc., must be interspersed into
the text of the abstract, and not collected at the end. The submission
must not reveal the identity of the author(s) in any way. Note that,
at DGfS conferences, delegates are not permitted to present their work
at multiple workshops, though they may be listed as co-authors of
talks in other workshops at the conference.

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