LINGUIST List 21.2729
Sat Jun 26 2010
Calls: Syntax, Historical Linguistics, Pragmatics, Typology/Germany
Editor for this issue: Elyssa Winzeler
<elyssalinguistlist.org>
1. Augustin
Speyer,
The German Middle Field: Comparative and Diachronic
Message 1: The German Middle Field: Comparative and Diachronic
Date: 24-Jun-2010
From: Augustin Speyer <speyerstaff.uni-marburg.de>
Subject: The German Middle Field: Comparative and Diachronic
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Full Title: The German Middle Field: Comparative and Diachronic
Date: 23-Feb-2011 - 25-Feb-2011
Location: Goettingen, Germany
Contact Person: Augustin Speyer
Meeting Email: < click here to access email >
Linguistic Field(s): Historical Linguistics; Pragmatics; Syntax; Typology
Language Family(ies): Germanic; Slavic Subgroup
Call Deadline: 15-Aug-2010
Meeting Description:
This workshop is part of the 33rd Annual Meeting of the DeutscheGesellschaft für Sprachwissenschaft (DGfS). Organizers: Kristine Bentzen(Tromsø), Roland Hinterhölzl (HU Berlin/Venice), Augustin Speyer (Marburg),Luka Szucsich (HU Berlin).
We will focus on pragmatically/semantically triggered word order variation(WOV) in the middle field (MF) in German (= scrambling) from a comparativeand diachronic perspective, addressing the issue of how scrambling inGerman is similar to and different from related phenomena in otherlanguages.
In this respect, some of the most urgent questions are the following:
According to Haider & Rosengren (1998), scrambling should be restricted toOV-languages with verb-class specific base orders.
A) What is the nature of word order variation in Slavic and Scandinavianlanguages, which are generally analysed as VO-languages?
In Mainland Scandinavian, object shift is dependent on verb movement,restricting WOV to the postverbal field. Yiddish, which has preserved mixedOV/VO word orders, allows for WOV only in the preverbal field.
B) What triggers object shift? Which factors decide whether object shift isrestricted to pronouns as in Mainland Scandinavian or may also target fullDPs as in Icelandic?
C) Do the Slavic languages show WOV only in the preverbal field or also inthe postverbal field? Is word order freedom in Slavic similar to word orderfreedom in German or is it of a different nature?
D) Is there a connection between the side of WOV and the head complementparameter or which other factors, including prosody could be held responsiblefor this property?
Like in modern Yiddish, in OHG and OE (languages with mixed OV/VO order)discourse-given constituents moved to the top of the MF. Except for OE (cf.Pintzuk & Taylor 2006), little is known about how indefinite NPsquantificational phrases are ordered with respect to each other and withrespect to the verb in older Germanic.
E) Are indefinite pronouns and indefinite NPs placed differently in OHG asdefinites are?
In modern German genitive objects and dative objects of Acc-Dat-verbs maynot be scrambled.
F) How behave genitive objects in OHG and MHG? How do the different casearguments in Slavic fit in?
G) Is there a connection between scrambling of NPs and the aspect type ofthe verb in Slavic as there is a connection between scrambling and the(in)definiteness of argument NPs in German?
Invited speakers include Hubert Haider (Salzburg) and Helmut Weiß(Frankfurt).
Call for Papers
We welcome abstracts for 20-minute papers (plus 10 minutes for discussion)which address one or more of the various properties of scrambling in Germanand similar phenomena in other languages, most prominently other Germaniclanguages and Slavic languages, from a diachronic or synchronic comparativeperspective, as expressed in (but not confined to) the leading questions in theconference description.
Abstracts (1 page, Times New Roman 12 dpi, plus 1 page for tables, figures,references) should be sent to speyerstaff.uni-marburg.de, preferably in pdf-format (alternatively: doc).
Deadline: August 15, 2010Notification of acceptance/rejection: September 15, 2010
Page Updated: 26-Jun-2010
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