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lpl.univ-aix.fr>SPoSS Sound Patterns of Spontaneous Speech : Production and Perception Aix en Provence, France, 24-25-26 September 1998 The European Speech Communication Association (ESCA) has identified the area of sound patterns of spontaneous speech as an important area of current research. An ESCA Workshop is being organised in Aix en Provence with this focus. Contributions should describe and explain spontaneous speech processes and their perception at the word, phrase and sentence level in a wide variety of languages. Workshop theme : During the last decades, descriptions of spontaneous speech mainly focused on the reduction and assimilation of speech segments to adjacent segment. Reduction and assimilatory processes of spontaneous speech are the products of gesture economy and physical constraints. They are also constrained by the phonetic, phonological, and prosodic specificities of languages and dialects. Therefore, this workshop is aimed at contributing to the description and the understanding of the production and perception of spontaneous speech processes in various languages. The workshop will be centred around the following topics : - Acoustic and articulatory analysis of spontaneous-speech processes - Prosodic information and spontaneous-speech processes - Perception of reduction and assimilatory processes - Modelling Format of the workshop : This will be an international workshop within a limited number of active participants, i.e. priority will be given to persons with accepted papers. Each session will be introduced by a tutorial presentation by an invited expert. Most papers will be presented in plenary sessions with time for demonstration and discussion. other papers will be presented in poster sessions followed by plenary discussions. Workshop site : SPoSS will take place in a conference centre located in the area of Aix en Provence in ten minute`s drive from Aix en Provence. Bus transportation to and from the centre will be provided every day. Detailed logistic information will be distributed to all registered participants. Proceedings and languages : The contributions to the workshop will be published in a Workshop Proceedings which will be available to participants at the time of the workshop. As the new French law (loi Toubon) requires, they will include French abstracts. The official languages of the workshop will be English and french. Registration fees : The fee for the workshop, including proceedings, lunches, bus tranportation to and from the conference centre and the SPoSS reception is 1700 FF, with a 300 FF reduction for ESCA members. Students with a certificate of their status will pay 750 FF with a 100 FF reduction for ESCA student members. Registration for non-ESCA members includes a complementary membership for 1998. Important dates : March 31, 1998 : Preliminary registration and deadline for submission of title and abstract. May 15, 1998 : Notification of acceptance, imstructions for authors, information on accomodation. September 1, 1998 : Imperative deadline for early registration and for 4 page camera-ready paper. September 10, 1998 : Preliminary program e-mailed. September 24-25-26 : Worshop. European Speech Communication Association (ESCA) : ESCA is a non-profit organisation for promoting Speech Communication Science and Technology in a European context. A limited number of grants for participation is available. More information is available though : e-mail : escaMail to author|Respond to list|Read more issues|LINGUIST home page|Top of issue
rullet.LeidenUniv.nl>Call for Papers, SLE 31, St Andrews, Scotland, 26-30 August 1998 Workshop on MODALITY IN GENERATIVE GRAMMAR The description and analysis of modality is of central interest to the study of human language. Modality interacts with many subsystems of syntax and a better understanding of modality would further our understanding of these subsystems greatly. The relevant subsystems play a role in the existing analyses of the epistemic-deontic dichotomy. This has been attributed to: (i) Argument structure (e.g. Ross 1969): epistemic modals are one-place predicates (corresponding to raising verbs syntactically), whereas deontic modals are two-place predicates (corresponding to control verbs syntactically). (ii) Insertion position: epistemic modals are generated in I, deontic modals in V (e.g. Picallo 1990). (iii) LF position: epistemic modals are in C, deontic modals in VP (e.g. McDowell 1987). (iv) Nature of the complement of a modal: a definite verbal complement with epistemic modals and an indefinite verbal complement with deontic modals (e.g. Barbiers 1995). v) Pragmatics: the dichotomy is contextually determined and does not correspond to a syntactic difference (Kratzer 1989). Many questions still need to be answered before a sufficiently adequate analysis can be developed. As for argument structure, it should be asked what evidence we have that each modal has two different argument structures. If such evidence exists, are these argument structures represented in the lexicon, as in theta-theoretic accounts, or only syntactically? Related questions concern the categorial status of modals (a special category AUX in English, but main verbs in German and Dutch), the selectional restrictions they impose on their complement (semantically uniform, but not syntactically: only verbal complements in English, no categorial restrictions in Dutch, verbal and certain prepositional complements in German and Afrikaans). As for their syntactic position at surface structure or LF, we need to know more about the (scopal) interaction of modals with negation. It is clear that there is a tight connection between modality and negation/affirmation: many languages have a modal that behaves as an Negative Polarity Item (English `need', German `brauchen', Dutch `hoeven'). A related issue is the interaction of modals with focus particles, especially those that have a negative or affirmative import, such as English `only' or French `bien'. It seems that such focus particles can alter the syntactic and semantic behaviour of modals. The (scopal) interaction of modals with other quantifiers and modals with question operators is also in need of a better description and analysis. It has been claimed that question formation and epistemic modality exclude each other. Although this does not seem to hold in general, question formation and epistemic modality do seem to restrict each other in ways that are poorly understood. The interaction of modal verbs with modal adverbials is also relevant for the determination of the syntactic position of modals, particulary in view of Cinque's (1997) hypothesis that every sentence contains two modal projections that must be either filled by a modal adverbial in the specifier or by a modal verb in the head. Many languages have a construction with `have to' or `be to' that involves a modal interpretation. Such constructions do not generally have an epistemic interpretation (but consider English `He was never to see her again', Dutch `Het is te verwachten dat...' `It is to be expected that...'). There are a great many cross-linguistic peculiarities on this point, which are worth exploring. For example, one question is how this type of construction, lacking a visible modal element, yields a modal interpretation. There is a more general question concerning modality: which properties of modals are necessary for modality and which are accidental? Cross-linguistically, modals often have a irregular present tense inflection paradigm. It is unclear whether this is a necessary property of modals and if so, why. The fact that English modals are auxilaries but modals in other languages are not is presumably an accidental property, and so is the fact that English modals lack infinitives and participles in their paradigm, whereas Dutch modals do have infinitival and participial forms (except for the verb `zullen' `will'). As it seems that the bulk of generative studies of modality involves Germanic languages, we particularly invite papers on modality in Romance and Central European languages. Organizers: Sjef Barbiers (Leiden), Frits Beukema (Leiden), Olga Tomic (Novi Sad), Milena Milojevic Sheppard (Ljubljana), Marija Golden (Ljubljana). Please submit abstract (1 A4 max) to: Professor Olga Miseska Tomic Bulevar Avnoja 109/III, stan 16 Beograd YU 11070 Yugoslavija E-mail: efilb01Mail to author|Respond to list|Read more issues|LINGUIST home page|Top of issue