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eva.mpg.de>Call for papers LANGUAGE CONTACT AND AREAL CONVERGENCE (Sprachkontakt und areale Konvergenz), a workshop as part of the 2001 annual meeting of the DGfS (Deutsche Gesellschaft fuer Sprachwissenschaft), Leipzig, 28 Feb - 2 Mar 2001 Workshop organizers: Walter Bisang (Uni Mainz) and Martin Haspelmath (MPI Leipzig) Contact is a well-known source of language change. Contact-induced structural convergence of languages from different families within a coherent geographic area often results in a linguistic area or Sprachbund. Finally, Dryer (1989, 1992) discusses large linguistic areas of continental size in the context of word-order typology. If there exist large zones of convergence such as those discussed by Dryer, the next question is to what extent it is possible to draw conclusions about universals given the actual statistical distribution of the structural features of the world's languages. The workshop deals with the areal distribution of one or more linguistic phenomena and their interrelations. Moreover, we wish to discuss the following motivations for structural convergence: Sociolinguistics: Which sociolinguistic conditions favour the propagation of linguistic structures? The following sociolinguistic motivations are often discussed in the literature: Maxims of linguistic activities, constellations of political dominance (substrate, superstrate, adstrate), social networks. After Thomason & Kaufman (1988) as well as in recent findings on language intertwining, it has also been shown that in extreme contact situations language change does not only affect the lexicon but also central parts of morphosyntax. Cognition: Are there structures of particular cognitive attractiveness which are recurrent in a number of contact areas? If one understands grammaticalization as part of language change, the considerable degree of unidirectionality as observed in paths of grammaticalization may hint at cognitive factors determining language change. Discourse pragmatics: Elements of higher structural levels seem to be borrowed more easily than those of lower levels. Thus, the connector 'but' is borrowed more frequently than adverbial subordinators such as 'because' or 'if'. Send an abstract of 200 to 400 words to one of the following addresses (preferably by e-mail) by 15 August 2000: Walter Bisang e-mail: wbisangMail to author|Respond to list|Read more issues|LINGUIST home page|Top of issue
wins.uva.nl>2000 FoLLI Dissertation Award Call for Nominations The European Association for Language, Logic and Information (FoLLI) is inviting nominations for the 2000 edition of the FoLLI Dissertation Award to be awarded annually to an outstanding dissertation in the fields of Language, Logic and Computation. FoLLI gratefully acknowledges sponsorship of this prize by funds from the Spinoza Prize awarded to Johan van Benthem. We are happy to announce that an amount of 1000 EURO will be allocated to one or more award recipients. It is at the discretion of the Prize Committee to allocate the prize money to a single nominee or to divide the prize among two recipients. Eligibility Ph.D. theses in the fields of Language, Logic and Computation by authors who completed the Ph.D. degree between 1/1/99 and 12/31/99. Submission Details 1. A letter of nomination by the thesis supervisor. (N.B. Self-applications by Ph.D. holders are not possible. Each application must be sponsored by the thesis supervisor.) The letter from the student's Ph.D. advisor should verify that the degree was conferred between 1/1/99 and 12/31/99. 2. Two additional letters of support, including at least one letter from a referee not affiliated with the academic institution that awarded the Ph.D. degree. 3. An abstract of the thesis, prepared by the author of the thesis and not to exceed five pages in length 4. A hard copy of the dissertation All materials have to be sent as hard-copy to Mr. Marco de Vries, FoLLI Secretary, Plantage Muidergracht 24, 1018 TV Amsterdam, The Netherlands. Authors are advised to have their Ph.D.thesis available on the Web, if possible. Submissions Deadline All materials have to be received by June 10, 2000. Prize Committee Anne Abeille Natasha Alechina Patrick Blackburn Nissim Francez Paul Gochet (chair) Valentin Goranko Markus Kracht Larry Moss Francesco Orilia Manfred Pinkal Christian Retore Rob van der Sandt Further Details Please consult the FoLLI web site at http://www.folli.uva.nl for further details.Mail to author|Respond to list|Read more issues|LINGUIST home page|Top of issue