LINGUIST List 21.3855 Sat Oct 02 2010 Calls: Germanic, General Ling, Historical Ling/USA Editor for this issue: Di Wdzenczny <dilinguistlist.org> LINGUIST is pleased to announce the launch of an exciting new feature: Easy Abstracts! Easy Abs is a free abstract submission and review facility designed to help conference organizers and reviewers accept and process abstracts online. Just go to: http://www.linguistlist.org/confcustom, and begin your conference customization process today! With Easy Abstracts, submission and review will be as easy as 1-2-3! Directory         1.    Justin Glover, 8th Biennial Graduate Student Conference Message 1: 8th Biennial Graduate Student Conference Date: 30-Sep-2010 From: Justin Glover <germconfindiana.edu> Subject: 8th Biennial Graduate Student Conference E-mail this message to a friend Full Title: 8th Biennial Graduate Student Conference Date: 25-Feb-2011 - 27-Feb-2011 Location: Bloomington, Indiana, USA Contact Person: Justin Glover Meeting Email: germconfindiana.edu Web Site: http://www.indiana.edu/~germconf/ Linguistic Field(s): General Linguistics; Historical Linguistics Language Family(ies): Germanic Call Deadline: 15-Nov-2010 Meeting Description: This conference concerns itself with opacity and meaning in Germanic linguistics, language, and culture. Potential topics may include, but are not limited to, the following areas of inquiry, with a special focus on matters relevant to the Germanic languages: 1. Historical Linguistics: comparative methods/reconstruction; limitations of manuscript/inscription evidence; gaps in the data and their implications; principles and models of historical change 2. Phonology/Phonetics/Morphology: underlying representations; opacity phenomena (underapplication/overapplication); rules of (supposed) absolute neutralization 3. OT: Paradigm Uniformity; Stratal OT; models of variation 4. Syntax: Transformation/Movement (with and without traces); barriers to movements 5. Second Language Acquisition: learnability problems; overgeneralization and undergeneralization; positive & negative evidence 6. Psycholinguistics: evaluation of measurement instruments and their potential to indicate 'competence' rather than only 'performance' 7. Sociolinguistics: principles and mechanisms of variation and dialect change 8. Pragmatics: discourse analysis; 'reading between the lines' for linguistic generalizations Call For Papers The Critical Blot: Opacity and Meaning in German Linguistics, Literature, and Culture Keynote Address: Benjamin Bennett (University of Virginia) Plenary Address: Joe Salmons (University of Wisconsin-Madison) Modern linguistics has turned from mere etymologies to the search for the abstract laws of languages, beginning as early as August Wilhelm von Schlegel's 1815 condemnation of the philological irregularities in Grimms' Altdeutsche Wälder. Linguists such as the German Jacob Grimm and the Dane Rasmus Christian Rask began to answer this call. This path arguably led to the advent of the Neogrammarian hypothesis at the University of Leipzig in the late 19th-century, which is associated with names such as Verner, Sievers, Braune, Behagel, Osthoff, Paul, Noreen, Brugmann, Delbrück and Leskien. The surface form, i.e., what we actually see and hear of language, is relatively easy to observe. On the other hand, what lies behind the surface has driven analyses and entire theories of linguistics and has led to the development of myriad scholastic and empirical methods. These in turn have led to reconstructed historical forms, abstract underlying forms, conspiracies of rules, and constraints that suggest linguistic objects that never appear on the surface. At what point do the data block us from deeper inquiry beyond speculation? Is a better, more perceptive method of inquiry or type of evidence possible? What paths lie before us, as yet unexplored, in our continuous quest to quantify and formalize languages? Deadline for Abstracts: November 15, 2010 Please send a 1-2 page anonymous abstract, with a separate cover sheet indicating the author's name, affiliation, address, and e-mail address to: germconfindiana.edu For more information, visit: http://www.indiana.edu/~germconf/ Read more issues|LINGUIST home page|Top of issue Page Updated: 02-Oct-2010       About LINGUIST    |   Contact Us       While the LINGUIST List makes every effort to ensure the linguistic relevance of sites listed on its pages, it cannot vouch for their contents.