LINGUIST List 14.1819

Mon Jun 30 2003

Calls: Slavic Langs/Slovakia; General Ling/Germany

Editor for this issue: Marie Klopfenstein <marielinguistlist.org>

Directory

1. Benko, Computer Treatment of Slavonic Languages
2. heike.tappe, Argument realization - Conceptual and grammatical factors

Computer Treatment of Slavonic Languages 
Short Title: SLOVKO 2003

Date: 24-Oct-2003 - 25-Oct-2003
Location: Bratislava, Slovakia
Contact: Vladim�r Benko
Contact Email: Benkofedu.uniba.sk 
Meeting URL: http://www.fedu.uniba.sk/slovko03

Linguistic Sub-field: General Linguistics 
Subject Language Family: Slavic Subgroup

Meeting Description:

Deadline for registrations: July 21, 2003 The seminar will provide a
meeting point for people working on various aspects of the
relationship between languages and computers. With this broad thematic
framework in mind, papers are invited describing activities concerning
any Slavonic language, as well as those dealing with bi- and
multi-lingual projects involving at least one Slavonic language. The
topics may include -- but are not limited to:

-	Tools for linguistic text analysis 
-	Creation and use of language resources
-	Linguistic components of information systems
-	Speech analysis and synthesis
-	Computer-aided translation, localization and lexicography
-	Computer-aided language learning

The papers may be presented in any Slavonic language as well as in
English. Please note, however, that no interpretation will be
available.

Argument realization - Conceptual and grammatical factors 

Date: 25-Feb-2004 - 27-Feb-2004
Location: Mainz, Germany
Contact: Heike Tappe
Contact Email: heike.tapperz.hu-berlin.de 
Meeting URL: http://www.uni-mainz.de/dgfs2004/

Linguistic Sub-field: General Linguistics 
Call Deadline: 15-Aug-2003

Meeting Description:

Workshop held during the 26. Annual Meeting of the German Society of
Linguistics(DGfS) 2004 in Mainz (Germany), February 25-27 
ARGUMENT REALIZATION - CONCEPTUAL AND GRAMMATICAL FACTORS

Call for papers

We invite abstracts for presentations at a workshop held during the
26. Annual Meeting of the German Society of Linguistics (DGfS)in Mainz
2004, February 25-27.

Time slots for presentation are 30 (20+10) minutes.
We welcome submissions for presentations in German or in English.

CALL DEADLINE 15-AUG-2003

Workshop description:

Verbs exhibit considerable intra-linguistic and inter-linguistic
variation in the realization of their arguments. This phenomenon is
crucial for investigating the interaction between conceptual
representations and genuinely linguistic structures. While the factors
underlying argument alternations used to be of primary interest to
lexical semantic researchers, we recently find a growing number of
syntactic analyses. Here, the semantic decomposition of lexical
entities is transferred to syntax and consequently different syntactic
heads are held responsible for the varied thematic and event
structural interpretations of arguments.

Lexical semantics assumes that argument realization and the possible
range of diatheses can be derived from a verbs basic lexical
entry. The underlying assumption that conceptually motivates this
perspective is the iconicity of language hypothesis: The unmarked,
morphologically simple verb form corresponds to the unmarked
concept. Language specific variation occurs due to varying grammatical
parametrizations.

In contrast, syntactic analyses propose that meaning aspects which are
traditionally accounted for by the basic entry emerge from syntactic
structure building (e.g., Kratzer 1996, Marantz 1997, Borer
1998). Such approaches bear the danger of duplicating conceptual
information that is already lexically represented. This problem can be
circumvented, if lexical entries are instead associated with poor
concepts, which have to be enriched in syntax. It follows that the
degree of morphological complexity can reflect argument alternating
operations only in those cases where lexically determined information
is enriched (e.g. causativation). Yet, morphologically encoded
operations leading to argument reduction cannot be accounted for in a
straightforward way.

An alternative is proposed by Reinhart (2000) in her conception of the
theta-system. Here, lexical entries are allotted more theta-roles that
a single verb diathesis can contain. Syntactic principles function as
filters restricting the possible argument realizations. This means,
that lexical entries are associated with very rich concepts, from
which smaller units are extracted in syntax.

It is the aim of this workshop to bring together current approaches
from different theoretical frameworks in order to critically discuss
the consequences of the respective analyses for linguistic theory. We
are especially interested in the question what kind of evidence from
typological and empirical investigations may contribute to an
evaluation of theoretical proposals. Phenomena of interest are all
kinds of constructions in which greater morphosyntactic complexity
does not correspond to greater conceptual complexity.

References
Borer, H. (1998) Deriving passives without theta roles. In:
S. Lapointe et al. (eds.) Morphology and Its Relation to
Syntax. Stanford: CSLI Publications, 60-99.
Kratzer, A. (1996) Severing the external argument from its verb. In:
J. Rooryck & L. Zaring (eds.) Phrase Structure and the
Lexicon. Dordrecht: Kluwer, 109-137.
Marantz, A. (1997) No escape from syntax: Dont try morphological
analysis in the privacy of your own lexicon. In: U.Penn Working Papers
in Linguistics 4.2, 201-225.
Reinhart, T. (2000). The theta system: Syntactic realization of verbal
concepts. OTS Working Papers in Linguistics 00,01/TL, Utrecht
institute of Linguistics OTS.

IMPORTANT DEADLINES
Submission of abstracts: August 15th, 2003
Notification of acceptance: September 30th, 2003

Please submit abstracts via e-mail (MS-Word or pdf) to the following
address: heike.tapperz.hu-berlin.de

Heike Tappe
Humboldt University Berlin
English and American Studies (Linguistics) 
Unter den Linden 6, 10099 Berlin
heike.tapperz.hu-berlin.de

Ingrid Kaufmann
University D�sseldorf
Institut for Language & Information
Universit�tsstr. 1, 40225 D�sseldorf
kaufmannphil-fak.uni-d�sseldorf.de