Modality in the Indigenous languages of Australia and PNG

Fri May 13 03:56:25 UTC 2011

Apologies for cross-postings
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Call for papers
*Workshop 'Modality in the Indigenous languages of Australia and PNG'*

To be held at the Australian Linguistic Society conference 2-4 December 
2011, Canberra

/Meeting description/:

Modality remains one of the most understudied topics in research on the 
majority of Indigenous languages. Two primary reasons for this situation 
are that modal categories are notoriously hard to elicit and that their 
morphological realisation is often highly heterogeneous. The fact that 
modality tends to interact in complex ways with other grammatical 
categories such as tense, aspect and mood further adds to the difficulty 
of providing a comprehensive account of modality in newly described 
languages.

In recent years, however, modality has received increased interest from 
both field researchers and theoretical linguists working on Indigenous 
languages, especially for languages in the Americas (see e.g. Matthewson 
et al., 2007; Rullmann et al., 2008; Davis et al., 2009; Faller, 
forthcoming; and at a recent workshop on this theme held at Leiden 
University (March 25-26, 2010)). Indigenous languages in Australia and 
Papua New Guinea are also becoming a major focus of attention, however 
(see e.g. Rumsey, 2001; Verstraete 2005, 2006; McGregor & Wagner, 2006; 
Klamer (to appear);  and ongoing work by members of the TAMEAL project: 
(http://tameal.linguist.univ-paris-diderot.fr).

The workshop aims to bring together researchers working on modality in 
Indigenous languages, to build on this emerging research and to indicate 
new directions for studying modality in the languages of Australia and PNG.

The workshop will specifically address the problems of 'discovering' 
modal categories: How to discuss modality in the field (see e.g. 
Matthewson, 2004; San Roque et al., in prep.)? How to elicit modality in 
a systematic way? Secondly, the workshop will tackle the problem of the 
theoretical/typological identification and study of modal forms. What 
are the categories most frequently found in the languages of Australia 
and PNG? What are their semantics and pragmatics? And how do they relate 
to other grammatical categories?

Although the focus of the workshop is on languages from Australia and 
Papua New Guinea, more typologically and methodologically/theoretically 
oriented papers are also invited.

Topics for presentation may include (but are not restricted to):

     * The functions of irrealis marking in a particular linguistic area;
     * The polysemy of mood and modality markers, and how to treat it at 
the semantics/pragmatics interface;
     * Interactions between modality and other TAM marking in a 
particular language, or in a crosslinguistic perspective;
     * Experience with fieldwork tasks for eliciting modality;
     * Patterns and frequency of modal marking in spontaneous speech;
     * Historical reconstructions of modal paradigms in a particular 
linguistic area;
     * Typological parallels between individual languages and 
cross-linguistic observations outside of Australia/PNG;
     * Semantic domains of possibility, necessity, intention, desire 
etc. and their encoding.

/Abstracts:/

Abstracts should be anonymous, no longer than 200 words + 100 words for 
examples and references and should be submitted through the ALS 
conference website: 
http://langfest.anu.edu.au/index.php/als/ALS2011/schedConf/cfp (please 
note the submission guidelines there).

/Deadline:/

The deadline for abstract submission is *31 May*.

Presenters of abstracts accepted for presentation will be asked to 
distribute 5-page short versions of their papers among participants of 
the workshop one week before the conference and the conveners intend the 
contributions to the workshop to be included in a publication on the 
workshop's theme.

/Scientific committee:/

Prof. Dr. Johan van der Auwera (University of Antwerp)
Dr. Patrick Caudal (C.N.R.S./Université Paris Diderot-Paris 7/U.W.A)
Prof. Dr. Alan Dench (University of Western Australia)
Prof. Dr. Nicholas Evans (Australian National University)
Dr. Martina Faller (University of Manchester)
Prof. Dr. William Foley (University of Sydney)
Prof. Dr. William McGregor (Aarhus University)
Dr. Lila San Roque (Max Planck Institute for Psycholinguistics)
Prof. Dr. Alan Rumsey (Australian National University)
Dr. Jean-Christophe Verstraete (Katholieke Universiteit Leuven)

/Conveners:/

Patrick Caudal (C.N.R.S./Université Paris Diderot-Paris 7) 
pcaudal_at_linguist.jussieu.fr
Tom Honeyman (ANU) tom.honeyman_at_anu.edu.au
Stef Spronck (ANU) stephan.spronck_at_anu.edu.au

/Further information:/

Please contact one of the convenors or visit the ALS 2011 modality 
workshop website (available soon):

http://www.als2011-modality.linguist.univ-paris-diderot.fr

/References/
Davis, Henry; Lisa Matthewson; Hotze Rullmann (2009). "'Out Of Control' 
Marking as Circumstantial Modality in St'át'imcets". In: Hogeweg, Lotte; 
Helen de Hoop; Andrej Malchukov (eds.), Cross-linguistic Semantics of 
Tense, Aspect, and Modality, 205-244. Amsterdam/Philadelphia: John 
Benjamins.
Faller, Martina (forthcoming). "A possible worlds semantics for Cuzco 
Quechua evidentials". In: Li, Nan; David Lutz (eds.), Proceedings of 
SALT 20, University of British Columbia / Simon Fraser University, 
Vancouver, British Columbia (April 29 - May 1, 2010). Ithaca: CLC 
Publications, Cornell University.
Klamer, Marian (to appear). 'Reality status in Teiwa (Papuan)". To 
appear in Language Sciences, Special issue on "What do languages code 
when they code reality status?", guest-editors Caterina Mauri & Andrea 
Sansò.
Matthewson, Lisa (2004). "On the Methodology of Semantic Fieldwork". 
International Journal of American Linguistics 70(4):369-415.
Matthewson, Lisa; Henry Davis and Hotze Rullmann (2007). "Evidentials as 
Epistemic Modals: Evidence from St'át'imcets". In Van Craenenbroeck, 
Jeroen (ed.), Linguistic Variation Yearbook 7, 201-254. Amsterdam: John 
Benjamins.
McGregor, William and Tamsin Wagner (2006). "The Semantics and 
Pragmatics of Irrealis Mood in Nyulnyulan Languages". Oceanic 
Linguistics 45(2):339-379
Rullmann, Hotze, Lisa Matthewson, and Henry Davis (2008). "Modals as 
Distributive Indefinites". Natural Language Semantics 16(4):317--357.
Rumsey, Alan (2001). "On the syntax and semantics of trying" In: Jane 
Simpson, Nash, David, Laughren, Mary, Austin, Peter and Alpher, Peter 
(eds.), Forty years on: Ken Hale and Australian languages, 
353-363.Canberra: Pacific Linguistics},
San Roque, Lila, Lauren Gawne, Darja Hoenigman, Julia Miller, Stef 
Spronck and Nicholas Evans (in prep.) "Getting the story straight: 
Language fieldwork using a narrative problem-solving task".
Verstraete, Jean-Christophe (2006). "The Nature of Irreality in the Past 
Domain: Evidence from Past Intentional Constructions in Australian 
Languages". Australian Journal of Linguistics 26(1):59-79.
Verstraete, Jean-Christophe (2005). "The semantics and pragmatics of 
composite mood marking: The non-Pama-Nyungan languages of northern 
Australia". Linguistic Typology 9(2):223-268.
-- 
Stef Spronck - PhD Candidate
Linguistics, CHL, College of Asia and the Pacific (Coombs Building #9), 
The Australian National University, Canberra, ACT 0200 Australia
t: + 61 2 6125 3288 f: + 61 2 6125 1463 w: 
http://people.anu.edu.au/stef.spronck/ 
<http://people.anu.edu.au/stef.spronck/>
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