LINGUIST List 21.2805: Slavic Subgroup, Pragmatics, Semantics, Syntax, General Ling/UK

LINGUIST List 21.2805

Sun Jul 04 2010

Calls: Slavic Subgroup, Pragmatics, Semantics, Syntax, General Ling/UK

Editor for this issue: Elyssa Winzeler <elyssalinguistlist.org>

1. Iwona Witczak-Plisiecka, Aspect and Performativity in Slavic Languages IPrA Panel

Message 1: Aspect and Performativity in Slavic Languages IPrA Panel
Date: 02-Jul-2010
From: Iwona Witczak-Plisiecka <iw.plisieckagmail.com>
Subject: Aspect and Performativity in Slavic Languages IPrA Panel
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Full Title: Aspect and Performativity in Slavic Languages IPrA Panel
Date: 03-Jul-2011 - 08-Jul-2011 Location: Manchester, United Kingdom Contact Person: Iwona Witczak-Plisiecka
Meeting Email: < click here to access email >

Linguistic Field(s): General Linguistics; Pragmatics; Semantics; Syntax

Language Family(ies): Slavic Subgroup

Call Deadline: 15-Sep-2010

Meeting Description:

Aspect and Performativity in Slavic Languages (and Beyond)

Iwona Witczak-Plisiecka and Igor Z Zagar – IPrA 2011 Panel

Through discussions gathered in this panel we would like to contrastivelyexplore the relation between formal grammatical features, such as tense, aspect,Aktionsart, mood, voice, and the corresponding (potential) performativity inlinguistic expressions.

Call for Papers

Aspect and performativity in Slavic languages (and beyond)IPrA 2011 panel

We invite papers focused on the relation between performativity and grammar:- the relation between tense, aspect, Aktionsart, mood, voice,and- the corresponding (potential) performativity in linguistic expressions.

Exploration of the topic extends into:- speech-act oriented research traditions outside the Anglo-Saxon world- contrastive analysis of Anglo-Saxon and Continental research on performativity- past and contemporary reflection on the actional nature of languageindependent of the Austinian tradition

Deadlines:

Full texts and proposals in the form of abstracts should be sent by 15 September2010 to the panel conveners:

Igor Z. Zagar (igor.zzagargmail.com),University of Lodz, Poland

Conveners' statement:

We believe that performativity is still an issue worthy of exploration. We wouldlike to emphasize speech-act oriented research traditions outside theAnglo-Saxon world, next to better-known work by Emile Benveniste, contemporaryto Austin, we would also like to draw attention to even earlier independentreflection on the actional nature of language, e.g. that of Skrabec (1911) inSlovenian or Koschmieder (1934) in Polish.

In the Anglo-Saxon world 'the performative' is directly associated with JohnAustin's theory of speech acts, subsequently developed by John Searle, whichconcentrates on the institutional aspect in speech action. In turn our Slavicperspective seems to tend towards grammar and logic-oriented issues and focuseson the syntax-pragmatics, form-function relations.

In describing what is happening, what is going on 'right now' as we speak, allSlavs would use the present tense of an imperfective and not a perfective verb.It, therefore, should not come as a surprise that in all Slavic languagesperformatives usually take the imperfective aspect. Dickey (2000: 177-178),however, quite contentiously observes that the North Slavic languages all allowcoincidence of simultaneous actions with performative verbs and certain verbadicendi (taking the perfective aspect [sic!]) to some degree, 'while the SouthSlavic languages, with the exception of Slovene, almost never do. Within theNorth Slavic languages, West Slavic exhibits a much higher degree of coincidencewith performative verbs [...] than East Slavic does.'

There is thus an unsolved puzzle whether performativity can be directly relatedto tense and aspect and accounted for in a systematic way. Is the form-meaningof a performative necessarily either highly institutional or vague? To quoteStanislav Skrabec, a 19th-century Slovene linguist, '[a]s long as we are onlypromising (imperfective), we have not promised anything yet, and if we are not(doing anything) but promising (imperfective), we cannot take anything as havingbeen promised.'

Faced with such problems, in this panel we would like to focus on Slaviclanguages, whose rich and ramified morphology has not been widely documentedwith regard to the morphology-syntax-semantics-pragmatics interface. However, webelieve that contrasting varied, even potentially contradictory Slavic data (cf.H. Galton's The Main Functions of the Slavic Verbal Aspect (1976) and S.M.Dickey's Parameters of Slavic Aspect (2000)), with related data from otherlanguage families can shed new light on the still mysterious and elusive conceptof the performative value. In particular, we would like to explore the potentialof converging Slavic linguistics research on tense, aspect and mood with theAnglo-Saxon research on related formal features of performativity, e.g. the workon mood such as Robert M. Harnish's.

This call is part of a bigger project whose aim is a separate volume devoted toaspect and performativity in Slavic and other Indo-European languages, which isto be published with John Benjamins' Pragmatics & Beyond New Series.

Additional note:

Please note that, if accepted, abstracts will have to be submitted via IPrAconference site before 29 October 2010, following the instructions available athttp://ipra.ua.ac.be/main.aspx?c=.CONFERENCE12&n=1403 .

You may want to check IPrA membership requirements; please note also theunacceptability of more than one contribution with the same person as first orsingle author and that fact that submitting the abstracts in accordance with thegeneral guidelines is the individual responsibility of contributors and cannotbe rendered by panel conveners.

Page Updated: 04-Jul-2010