[Ura-list] CfP: The size of Uralic nominals (CIFU14)

[Ekaterina Georgieva]

*Apologies for cross-posting!*

Dear Colleagues,

We would like to draw to your attention to the following call for abstracts.

The symposium "The size of Uralic nominals" will take place as part of  
the programme of the XIV International Congress for Finno-Ugric  
Studies to be held in Tartu, Estonia between 18-23 August 2025.

Despite the extensive research on noun phrases, their morphosyntax  
still poses several empirical and theoretical questions from a  
cross-linguistic perspective. When it comes to minor Uralic languages,  
hardly any attempts have been made to analyze the internal structure  
of nominals. While some specific phenomena, such as the morphosyntax  
of possessive constructions and the non-possessive uses of possessive  
morphology have been discussed in more detail (see e.g. de Smit &  
Janda 2023 for a recent overview on definiteness or the contributions  
in Kuznetsova 2012 for other aspects of nominal syntax), most of the  
phenomena are far from being well-understood. Accordingly, we are  
particularly interested in the size of various types of noun phrases  
from a structural point of view: is there a dedicated layer in their  
functional sequence to encode referentiality (i.e. can they be  
analyzed as DPs and when can they  be analyzed as such); what is the  
syntactic status of plural markers and the different types of  
quantifiers and modifiers; what factors determine the actual size of  
nominal dependents (e.g. lexico-semantic properties, syntactic  
position, etc.); do derived nominals contain projections of another  
category (verbal or adjectival) and how do the parts of such complex  
‘mixed’ structures interact with each other?

We invite in particular presentations that address questions related  
to the following topics, or their combined examination, based on data  
from Uralic languages.
- Syntactic status and distribution of bare nouns
- Constructions with numerals and quantifiers
- Nominals in plural and the status of plural markers
- Syntactic reflexes of mass-count distinction
- Syntax and semantics of generic noun phrases
- Syntactic status and structural positions of demonstratives
- Evidence for the presence or absence of DP in Uralic nominals
- Nominals used as predicates
- Deverbal and deadjectival nominalizations and their internal structure

The symposium aims to generate a productive conversation about these  
and related phenomena and to bring together original research on the  
(morpho)syntax of nominal expressions in Uralic. As a result, we hope  
to fill in the descriptive gaps in the literature on Uralic syntax, to  
explore the less studied aspects of the functional nominal domain, and  
to achieve a better understanding of the internal structure of such  
constructions in general. The working language of the symposium is  
English.

References
de Smit, Merlijn and Gwen Eva Janda. 2023. Definiteness in Uralic. In  
Daniel Abondolo & Riitta-Liisa Valijärvi (eds.), The Uralic Languages.  
Routledge.
Kuznetsova, Ariadna I. (ed.). 2012. Finno-ugorskie jazyki: fragmenty  
grammaticheskogo opisaniya. Formal’nyj i funkcional’nyj podxody.  
Moskva: Rukopisnye pamyatniki drevney Rusi.

Organizers: Irina Burukina, Barbara Egedi, Ekaterina Georgieva  
(HUN-REN Hungarian Research Centre for Linguistics)

*Important dates*
Call deadline: *September 30, 2024*
Notification of acceptance: December 1, 2024
Conference: 18–23 August 2025, Tartu, Estonia

The abstract submission guidelines are available on the website of the  
congress: https://cifu14.ut.ee/2nd-circular/
-- 
Dr. Ekaterina Georgieva
Hungarian Research Centre for Linguistics
Benczúr utca 33
H-1068 Budapest
ekaterina.georgieva at nytud.hun-ren.hu
https://sites.google.com/view/egeorgieva

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