LINGUIST List 25.2858
Tue
Jul 08 2014
Calls: Syntax, Lang
Acquisition, Ling Theories, Computational Ling,
General Ling/Germany
Editor for this issue:
Anna White <awhitelinguistlist.org>
Date: 08-Jul-2014
From: Dennis Ott
<dennis.ott
post.harvard.edu>
Subject: DGfS 2015 Workshop:
What Drives Syntactic Computation? Alternatives
to Formal Features
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Full Title: DGfS 2015 Workshop: What Drives
Syntactic Computation? Alternatives to Formal
Features
Date: 04-Mar-2015 - 06-Mar-2015
Location: Leipzig, Germany
Contact Person: Dennis Ott
Meeting Email:
< click here to access email >
Web Site:
http://conference.uni-leipzig.de/dgfs2015/index.php?id=10
Linguistic Field(s): Computational Linguistics;
General Linguistics; Language Acquisition;
Linguistic Theories; Syntax
Call Deadline: 31-Aug-2014
Meeting Description:
Formal features (FFs) continue to figure
prominently in various areas of syntactic
theorizing. Displacement in particular is
widely held to be effected by FFs or their
properties (EPP, discourse-related features,
etc.); External Merge, too, is commonly taken
to satisfy featural requirements. However,
various researchers have expressed skepticism
toward this reliance on oftentimes arbitrary
triggers and the 'Last Resort' character of
syntactic computation in general (e.g., Chomsky
2001:6, Fanselow 2006, Zwart 2009), and some
have sought more principled replacements. This
workshop aims to explore and assess such
alternative approaches to the causal forces
underlying syntactic operations and their
effects on interpretation and
externalization.
Various lines of research have emerged that all
seek to minimize the role of featural triggers.
Reinhart (1995, 2006) argues that notions such
as referentiality, scope, or focus cannot be
reduced to FFs, despite their close association
with syntactic operations (e.g., scrambling,
QR, focus fronting). Instead, these operations
are taken to apply freely in syntax, with
variable effects on interpretation and
externalization (see, e.g., Fox 1999, Szendroi
2001, Neeleman & van de Koot 2008). Moro
(2000, 2004) and Ott (2012) argue that movement
creates structural asymmetries required at the
interfaces, an approach which Chomsky (2013)
extends to the elusive 'EPP' and the vexing
problem of intermediate movement steps. Even
the traditional assumption that movement of
wh-phrases is triggered by corresponding FFs in
the C-system has not gone unquestioned (Simik
2012).
Borer's (1984) conjecture that parameters are
exclusively expressed in terms of features of
functional heads traditionally assigns FFs a
central role in linguistic variation. Deviating
from this tradition, some researchers now
speculate that variation may be restricted to
the morphophonological (PF) component (e.g.,
Berwick & Chomsky 2011). An illustration is
provided by Richards (2010), who argues that
the wh-movement parameter is derivative of the
prosodic requirements of wh-phrases and
wh-questions in a given language, which can be
achieved by either syntactic or prosodic means.
As a result, stipulations of 'feature strength'
and the like become obsolete.
Below the word level, frameworks such as
Nanosyntax likewise emphasize the role of
morphophonology in driving syntactic
computation (Starke 2011). Sublexical movement
is motivated indirectly, by the need to arrive
at syntactic configurations for which there is
a matching lexical item: what feature-based
systems would take to be a 'crashing'
derivation here corresponds to the
impossibility of lexicalizing a syntactic
subtree -- an independent output condition (cf.
Bobaljik & Thrainsson 1998 on
V-raising).
These promising developments notwithstanding,
featural triggers of syntactic operations
continue to reign supreme in various domains of
syntactic theory despite questionable
explanatory success; however, in most cases
more principled explanations have yet to be
articulated. This workshop will seek to explore
the prospects, scope and limits of alternative
ways of motivating syntactic computation and
locating crosslinguistic variability in natural
language.
Invited Speakers:
- Gereon Müller (U Leipzig)
- Norvin Richards (MIT)
- Kriszta Szendroi (UCL)
2nd Call for Papers:
We invite submissions addressing issues related
to the workshop topic from any domain of formal
linguistics, including computational modeling
of syntax and acquisition research. Pertinent
research questions include (but are not limited
to) the following:
- Can syntactic theory avoid recourse to FF
triggers entirely in favor of general
efficiency principles and interface conditions,
or is their postulation inevitable -- and
perhaps even desirable -- in at least some
domains (e.g. to capture parametric variation,
minimality/intervention effects, idiosyncratic
selectional properties, etc.)?
- Can a model without featural constraints on
Merge be sufficiently restrictive? Is a syntax
that is blind to FFs appropriately equipped to
capture optionality vs. obligatoriness of
operations, including crosslinguistic
variability (e.g., with regard to ''EPP
effects,'' free word order, or verb
movement)?
- Can putative constraints on Merge be
beneficially restated in terms of their effect
on output, and (how) can such effects be
evaluated without ''look ahead''? Do output
conditions, if not syntax itself, make
reference to FFs, assigning them the role of
''indirect triggers''?
- What are the computational implications of
abandoning FFs as restricting the application
of Merge, as e.g. in Minimalist Grammars? What
role do FFs play in the acquisition of syntax,
and what are the implications of a free-Merge
system for learnability?
Talks will be 20 minutes, followed by 10
minutes of discussion. Submissions are limited
to two per author, at most one of which can be
single-authored. Abstracts must not exceed two
single-spaced pages (letter or A4, one
inch/2.5cm margins, minimum font size 11pt),
including data and references. Abstracts must
be fully anonymized.
Submission via EasyAbs only:
http://linguistlist.org/easyabs/alternatives
Page Updated: 08-Jul-2014