LINGUIST List 34.3141

Mon Oct 23 2023

Calls: Origin of Discourse Particles: Borrowing and Grammaticalization

Editor for this issue: Zackary Leech <zleechlinguistlist.org>



Date: 23-Oct-2023
From: Marili Tomingas <marili.tomingasut.ee>
Subject: Origin of Discourse Particles: Borrowing and Grammaticalization
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Full Title: Origin of Discourse Particles: Borrowing and Grammaticalization

Date: 21-Aug-2024 - 24-Aug-2024
Location: Helsinki, Finland
Contact Person: Marili Tomingas
Meeting Email: [email protected]
Web Site: https://dipu.ut.ee

Linguistic Field(s): Pragmatics
Subject Language(s): English (eng)

Call Deadline: 15-Nov-2023

Meeting Description:

Discourse particles (henceforth DiPs) are short, usually unstressed items, sometimes clitic, which
are more prominent in oral rather than in written speech, typically have no propositional meaning
and display textual and interpersonal pragmatic functions. These functions may include connecting
current with prior talk, claiming the hearer’s attention, organizing discourse – e.g. indicating a new
topic, initiating or closing discourse, denoting old and new information, initiating repair – , and
indexing the speaker’s stance, attitudes and evaluation towards the addressee and their contribution
(e.g. Zimmermann 2011, Forker 2020: 340–342, see also Fischer 2006). Due to their phonological
shortness and their complex semantics, their origin is more than often non-transparent. This is
especially true for languages without a long written history.

Just like any other lexical item, a DiP may have a language-internal source or be borrowed through
language contact. Instances of the latter alternative have been identified and discussed in great
numbers, a fact that has a natural explanation. In borrowing hierarchies, DiPs together with
connectors occupy high places (Matras 2009: 193–194), and borrowed DiPs are often easily
identifiable, e.g. Russian DiPs like ved’, zhe, or vot in contact languages of Russian (Majtinskaja 1982:
138–139). Language contact and the transfer of DiP-related linguistic matter and patterns can have
several dimensions beyond the mere identification as a loanword.

A complicating factor are misleading cases of homonymy. The particles uk in Tatar and Udmurt
provide an example: what looks like (and has been claimed to be) a case of borrowing at first glance
is in fact the result of language-internal grammaticalization in Udmurt (Arkhangelskiy forthc.).
More famous cases of grammaticalization are German modal particles like auch, denn, doch, ja, wohl,
which are often characterized as overlapping with and/or originating from other functional
categories like adverbs or interjections (Burkhardt 1994, Zimmermann 2011), or Estonian ikka
‘always; contrary to what was thought in the meanwhile’ < *ikä ‘time, lifetime’ (Pajusalu & Pajusalu
2011: 78), or Russian ved’ from a verb ‘to know’ (Panov 2020: 16) (see more in Majtinskaja 1982:
124–125).

The focus of this workshop is on explanations of small DiPs as the result of grammaticalization
and/or borrowing or calquing. We are particularly interested in:
–grammaticalization paths of DiPs
–identification of a DiP as a borrowed or calqued element
–differences in the use of a DiP in the donor and the borrowing language
–repeated borrowing of particles at different times
–influence of a borrowed DiP on the genuine system of DiPs in a language, functional changes
–interaction and competition of borrowed and genuine DiPs in a language
–double marking and mixing of autochthonous and borrowed particles
–contrast between borrowed and native particles in a language
–parallel formation of DiPs with the same meaning in contacting languages
–identification of routes of wider distributed DiPs
–stable use of one and the same particle in the different languages of a multilingual speaker
While we are principally interested in these phenomena from a cross-linguistic perspective, we can’t
deny a special interest in Uralic and families in contact with Uralic like the Baltic, Slavic, Germanic,
Turkic, Tungusic, and Yeniseic.

Please also find the full description of the workshop and call for papers in the following link: https://owncloud.ut.ee/owncloud/s/dARZcErgfXpr5Gx

Call for Papers:
Preliminary abstracts of no more than 300 words (excluding references) in .doc,
.docx, .rtf or .odt format should be sent before November 16, 2023, to one of the workshop
organizers:
Timofey Arkhangelskiy: [email protected]
Gerson Klumpp: [email protected]
Elena Markus: [email protected]
Iuliia Zubova: [email protected]
Marili Tomingas: [email protected]

Please also find the full description of the workshop and call for papers in the following link: https://owncloud.ut.ee/owncloud/s/dARZcErgfXpr5Gx




Page Updated: 23-Oct-2023


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