LINGUIST List 6.514

Thu 06 Apr 1995

Calls: Typology, Derivational residue in phonology

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1. Edith A Moravcsik, ALT-1 Call for Papers
2. "Marc van Oostendorp", Tilburg Conference on Derivational Residue

 CALL FOR PAPERS

 Inaugural meeting
 of the Association for Linguistic Typology (ALT)

 Vitoria-Gasteiz, (Spanish) Basque Country
 Euskal Herriko Unibertsitatea
 8-10 September 1995
 (Friday, Saturday, Sunday)

 Everybody - whether a member of ALT or not - is invited to attend this
 event and encouraged to consider getting on the program.

 - IF YOU WISH TO PRESENT A PAPER ...
 ... send a one-page summary of your proposed talk along with your name
 and address (snail-mail and e-mail if any) to:
 Edith Moravcsik (Chairperson of the ALT-1 Programme Committee)
 - e-mail: edithcsd.uwm.edu
 - fax: +1-414-229-6258
 - regular mail (seven copies please):
 Department of Linguistics
 University of Wisconsin-Milwaukee
 Milwaukee, WI 53201-0413
 USA
 Please specify how much time you need (30, 45, or 60 minutes; possibly
 more if you are putting on a symposium). Abstracts must be received
 by Wednesday, May 31 1995.

 - IF YOU WANT TO FIND OUT MORE ABOUT THE CONFERENCE AND/OR THE ASSOCIATION
 FOR LINGUISTIC TYPOLOGY ...
 ... contact either Frans Plank
 - e-mail: frans.plankuni-konstanz.de
 - fax: +49-7531-882741
 - regular mail: Fachgruppe Sprachwissenschaft
 Universitaet Konstanz
 Postfach 5560
 D-78434 Konstanz
 Germany
 or Johan van der Auwera
 - e-mail: auwerareks.uia.ac.be
 - fax: +32-3-8202776
 - regular mail: Linguistiek (GER)
 Universiteit Antwerpen (UIA)
 B-2610 Wilrijk
 Belgium

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 Call for Papers

 Tilburg University Conference on

 The Derivational Residue
 in Phonology

 5-7 October 1995

The Grammatical Models Group of Tilburg University plans to organize a
conference on the Derivational Residue in Phonology. In this
conference we hope to discuss all topics which were dealt with in
standard generative phonology by derivational means such as level
ordering, (strict) cyclicity and rule ordering, in the light of the
recent shift of attention towards theories that are more
representational (or substantial) in nature. Can all the
derivational tools mentioned be replaced by representational
instruments? If they can, what should the `optimal' representational
theory look like? If they cannot, what exactly is the residue of
derivationalism that we still need?

We invite all papers with these or related topics (a more complete
description of the conference topic can be found below) both for and
against purely representational approaches to phonology.

We expect to be able to (partially) reimburse travelling expenses and
lodging for our speakers. Furthermore we are proud that Bruce Hayes,
Rene Kager and Geert Booij have already agreed to be our invited
speakers.

Deadline

Those interested in presenting a paper (40 minutes talks, 15 minutes
discussion) should send 5 copies of a two page abstract (4 anonymous;
1 camera-ready, with name(s), affiliation(s) and contact address,
including e-mail) to: Marc van Oostendorp or Ben Hermans,
Grammaticamodellen, Tilburg University, Postbus 90153, 5000 LE,
Tilburg, The Netherlands.

Abstracts must be received by 1 May 1995. Abstracts with page text
considered too condensed to be read will be rejected without review.
No email submissions accepted. For information contact
B.J.H.Hermanskub.nl or M.vOostendorpkub.nl.

Topic of the Conference

During the past few years the main focus of attention in phonology
seems to have been shifted from derivational to representational
models, such as Prince and Smolensky's Optimality Theory, Goldsmith's
Harmonic Phonology and Burzio's PES-Model.

Yet generative phonologists have accumulated substantial evidence for
derivational analysis. In standard Lexical Phonology, for instance,
derivationalism plays a role in several ways: the model is divided
into a lexical and a postlexical component, the lexical component
itself is divided into several lexical levels, some lexical levels
are cyclic and every affix starts its own cycle and, finally, the
phonologicals rule within every cycle are ordered. The question is
how we have to evaluate all these derivational instruments in a
representational theory of phonology.

The distinction between Lexical and Postlexical Phonology seems to be
least controversial. Most Optimality Theory analyses, for instance,
seem to accept at least this remnant of derivationalism. Yet one
could imagine a more radical version of a purely representational
theory in which the distinction between word-level and phrasal
phonology is accounted for in an appropriate theory of phonological
domains. In any case, the question remains as to how we have to
evaluate the traditional criteria for lexical-postlexical distinction
(exceptions, sensitivity to morphological and syntactic boundaries,
etc.) in a theory of constraints and constraint ranking.

Similar questions could be asked about the internal level ordering
within the Lexical component. Can all analyses which used to be
framed in terms of lexical levels be reframed in representational
terms? And to what extent can a theory which makes extensive use of
lexical levels still be called `representational'?

Most discussion on derivationalism within Optimality Theory seems to
have been concentrated on the issue of cyclicity. It has been
demonstrated that some cyclic analyses can be replaced by an adequate
theory of Alignment between phonological and morphological structure.
Is this everything that needs to be said about this issue? Are, for
instance, cyclic versions of OT feasible and desirable?

Similarily, considerable effort has been put by several researchers
into showing that strict cyclicity as a theoretical concept is
superfluous or that it can be replaced by a theory of
underspecification. Whether this is an adequate answer to all derived
environment effects is another topic we hope to address.

Finally, we expect that even at the finest grained level of
derivationalism, viz. phonological rule ordering (both intrinsic and
extrinsic) interesting questions remain unanswered. In particular all
cases of what used to be known as counter-feeding and counter-
bleeding relations seem to us still to be open for discussion.

All of these questions have considerable conceptual import, yet it
seems to us that they can ultimately be answered empirically. The
issue of derivationalism is one of the interesting challenges that
Optimality Theory and the other models mentioned earlier pose. We
hope to receive many abstracts dealing with it.