LINGUIST List 23.1248: Confs: Semantics, Typology/Germany

LINGUIST List 23.1248
Mon Mar 12 2012 Confs: Semantics, Typology/Germany Editor for this issue: Amy Brunett <brunettlinguistlist.org>
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Date: 08-Mar-2012 From: Workshop organisers Adrian Czardybon, Lei Li, Syuzan Sachliyan <def12phil.hhu.de> Subject: Semantic and Typological Perspectives on Definites E-mail this message to a friend Semantic and Typological Perspectives on Definites Date: 01-Jun-2012 - 02-Jun-2012 Location: Duesseldorf, Germany Contact: Adrian Czardybon, Lei Li, Syuzan Sachliyan Contact Email: < click here to access email > Meeting URL: http://www.sfb991.uni-duesseldorf.de Linguistic Field(s): Semantics; Typology Meeting Description: The Cooperative Research Centre CRC 991 'The Structure of Representation in Language, Cognition and Science' of the University of Düsseldorf is pleased to announce a workshop on 'Semantic and typological perspectives on definites', to be held on 01 - 02 June 2012 at the Heinrich-Heine University Düsseldorf. The workshop will center on the following topics: -Definiteness and concept types: The view that definiteness is a means of marking a noun's use as a functional concept entails essential semantic aspects such as a classification of nouns into concept types, and shifts among these types. The idea that determination mirrors concept types calls for statistical and psycholinguistic evidence - e.g., can the cognitive effort for accomplishing a type shift be attested? -Article splits: It is common for languages with definite articles to exhibit marking asymmetries according to the conceptual noun type. The opposition of pragmatic uniqueness (most notably anaphorically used sortal nouns) and semantic uniqueness (most notably functional concepts such as size/mother/head of …, and individual concepts such as proper names) has proven to be significant, in that the latter types tend to be marked only if the former are. Likewise, pragmatic and semantic uniqueness are morphosyntactically distinguished by different article forms (typically, phonologically strong vs. weak). Case studies especially cover varieties of German and Frisian. The conditions for fusion of prepositions and definite articles in Standard German have been analysed as one instance. -Grammaticalisation of definiteness marking: Besides the familiar grammaticalisation path (demonstratives 'weaken' their function and develop into definite articles), in, e.g., some Uralic languages the function of possessor agreement suffixes is extended so as to mark uniqueness in non-possessive contexts. -Special uses of (non-)definite descriptions: definite descriptions without unique reference (e.g., German die meisten / die Hälfte von … 'most/half of …'), including configurational uses (take the lift / the bus), and 'bare definites' such as to school, in jail/hospital. List of contributors: Bert Le Bruyn (University of Utrecht), Anne Carlier (University of Charles-de-Gaulle - Lille 3), Maria Cieschinger (University of Osnabrück), Xuping Li (EHESS, Paris), Christopher Lucas (SOAS, London), Ulrike Mosel (University of Kiel), Brigitte Pakendorf (CNRS, Lyon 2), Frans Plank (University of Konstanz), Magdalena Kaufmann (prev. Schwager; University of Göttingen), Erhard Voeltz (University of Frankfurt/Main), Dorothea Brenner, Elizabeth Coppock, Adrian Czardybon, Doris Gerland, Christian Horn, Nico Kimm, Sebastian Löbner, Albert Ortmann, Robert D. van Valin, Jr (all Heinrich-Heine University Düsseldorf). The workshop is organised by the member projects C01 and C02 of the Cooperative Research Centre CRC 991 'The Structure of Representation in Language, Cognition and Science' (http://www.sfb991.uni-duesseldorf.de/), sponsored by the German Research Foundation (DFG). Email: def12phil.hhu.de Workshop organisers: Adrian Czardybon, Lei Li, Syuzan Sachliyan Programme committee: Doris Gerland, Christian Horn, Sebastian Löbner, Albert Ortmann This Year the LINGUIST List hopes to raise $67,000. This money will go to help keep the List running by supporting all of our Student Editors for the coming year. See below for donation instructions, and don't forget to check out Fund Drive 2012 site! http://linguistlist.org/fund-drive/2012/ There are many ways to donate to LINGUIST! You can donate right now using our secure credit card form at https://linguistlist.org/donation/donate/donate1.cfm Alternatively you can also pledge right now and pay later. 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