LINGUIST List 21.4193 Thu Oct 21 2010 Calls: Discourse Analysis, Semantics, Syntax/Spain 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.     Karen Lahousse , New Forays in to Root Phenomena Message 1: New Forays in to Root Phenomena Date: 20-Oct-2010 From: Karen Lahousse <karen.lahoussearts.kuleuven.be> Subject: New Forays in to Root Phenomena E-mail this message to a friend Full Title: New Forays in to Root Phenomena Date: 08-Sep-2011 - 11-Sep-2011 Location: Logroño (La Rioja), Spain Contact Person: Karen Lahousse Meeting Email: karen.lahoussearts.kuleuven.be Linguistic Field(s): Discourse Analysis; Semantics; Syntax Call Deadline: 11-Nov-2010 Meeting Description: Workshop organizers: Cécile De Cat (University of Leeds, U.K.) Karen Lahousse (University of Leuven, Belgium) Root phenomena (or main clause phenomena) typically occur in matrix clauses and in a restricted set of embedded ('root-like') clauses (Heycock 2005). Classic examples for English include subject auxiliary inversion (including negative inversion), argument fronting (both topicalisation and focalisation), VP preposing, preposing around be, locative inversion, left dislocation, tag formation, subject omission and imperatives. Since Emonds (1970), many have attempted to capture root phenomena as a syntactic property of clauses. Recent instantiations of the syntactic approach include the Cartographic analysis (Haegeman 2006), in which root properties are entirely dependent on the presence of a dedicated functional projection in the CP field, and the Movement analysis (Haegeman 2010, to appear), in which root phenomena are allowed by default, but blocked in clauses derived by movement to the CP field of an epistemic operator, over which further movement is impossible because of intervention effects. In their influential paper, Hooper & Thompson (1973) put forward a pragmatic analysis and argue that root phenomena are possible in clauses that are asserted, but not those that are presupposed. Peripheral adverbial clauses (such as because clauses) display a surprising behaviour in that respect. When sentence-initial (1), they are presupposed, and hence unable to host root phenomena. When sentence-final (2), they are asserted, and hence able to host such phenomena. (1) *Because her son, he owns stocks in Xerox, Mildred drives a Mercedes. (2) Mildred drives a Mercedes because her son, he owns stocks in Xerox. (Examples from Larson & Sawada 2010.) As recently pointed out by Larson & Sawada (2010), this contrast is particularly challenging for strictly syntactic approaches: can we postulate different structures depending on the position of the adverbial clause? Larson & Sawada propose to capture the contrast in (1-2) as a consequence of event quantification. This suggests that the interpretive component is involved in the licensing of Root Phenomena, at least in adverbial clauses. Call For Papers The aim of this workshop is double. First, we would like to investigate the extent to which Root Phenomena require the involvement of the interpretive component, and its nature: is it Pragmatics, Semantics, Information Structure? A combination of these? Questions to be addressed under this theme include the following: (i) What is the division of labour between syntax and the interpretive component in capturing root phenomena? (ii) Which root phenomena display information structural or semantic effects? (iii) Can a semantic characterisation of clauses account for the restrictions on all Root Phenomena? Second, we would like to extend the field of investigation to include not only 'standard' Root Phenomena (i.e. those that are strictly (?) impossible in non-root contexts, such as VP preposing, locative inversion, exclamatory inversion, etc. in English) but also phenomena that are not excluded from non-root contexts but nonetheless sensitive to the +/- root distinction. In French, these include verb-subject inversion (Lahousse 2010) and Clitic Left Dislocation (De Cat 2007, 2010). These have been shown to be subject to different constraints depending on the host clause: CLLD is fully acceptable in main clauses and 'embedded roots' such as peripheral adverbial clauses, but much degraded in central adverbial clauses, which have been shown not to allow root phenomena (see e.g. Haegeman 2006, 2009, 2010); verb-subject inversion in French is limited by heavy constraints in main clauses and peripheral adverbial clauses, but not in central adverbial clauses. Questions to be addressed under this theme include the following: (i) Which phenomena are sensitive to the +/- root distinction, across languages? (ii) What can these phenomena tell us about the properties of the clauses hosting them? (iii) Is their sensitivity to the +/- root distinction of a similar nature to that operating in 'standard' Root Phenomena? Guidelines for abstract submission - Abstracts are invited for 20-minute presentations plus 10 minutes for discussion. - The abstract should be anonymous and contain no more than 500 words, exclusive of examples and references. - Send the anonymous abstract to BOTH c.decatleeds.ac.uk AND karen.lahoussearts.kuleuven.be, mention your name, address and title of the abstract in the body of your e-mail. - Deadline for submission = 11 November 2010 We need to submit the workshop proposal by the 15th of November to the SLE Scientific Committee for evaluation. Notification of acceptance will be given by 15 December 2010. If the workshop proposal is accepted, you will be invited to submit your full abstracts by 15 January 2011. Read more issues|LINGUIST home page|Top of issue Page Updated: 21-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.