Full Title: From associated motion to associated posture in cross-linguistic perspective

Date: 19-Nov-2024 - 20-Nov-2024
Location: Hermosillo, Mexico
Contact Person: ALBERT ALVAREZ
Meeting Email: [email protected]

Linguistic Field(s): Anthropological Linguistics; Morphology; Semantics; Syntax; Typology

Call Deadline: 16-Jun-2024

Meeting Description:

This workshop aims to explore the diversity of associated motion and associated posture systems in the languages of the world.

Associated motion (AM) is a relatively new, although by now well-established comparative concept. Following Guillaume (2016), AM refers to grammatical morphemes (affixes, clitics, particles or auxiliaries) that are associated with the verb and that have among their possible functions the coding of translational motion (spatial displacement). As synthesized in Guillaume & Koch (2021), the main typological parameters relevant to the analysis of AM systems include the argument role of the moving figure (typically subject or object), the temporal relation between the motion and the verb event (typically prior, concurrent or subsequent) and the direction of the motion (typically itive or ventive, one-way or returnative, straight or ambulative). For instance, the Tacana inflectional imperfective circumfixes in (1a) below instantiate a system of five subject concurrent AM markers distinguished according to different combinations of directional values.

Unlike AM, the phenomenon of “associated posture” (AP), lacks an established label and definition in comparative linguistics, and has not been the subject of any typological investigation. The term “associated posture” has recently been employed by analogy with that of AM in a number of descriptive studies, particularly focusing on languages from Central and South America, to account for the morphological expression of postural meanings (Peralta Ramirez 2009; Vuillermet 2017; Tallman 2020; Guillaume 2023; 2024).

One of the aims of this workshop is to explore the relevance and usefulness of AP as a crosslinguistic comparative concept (in the sense of Haspelmath 2010). For this purpose, we will follow Guillaume’s (2024) proposal in defining an AP marker as a grammatical morpheme (affix, clitic, particle or auxiliary) that is associated with the verb and that has among its possible functions the coding of postural meanings (‘sit’, ‘stand’, ‘lie’, ‘bend’, ‘hang’, etc.).

Preliminary investigation suggests that expressions that match (or at least come close to) this definition are found in languages from all over the world. In addition to those listed above in Central and South American languages, such expressions also appear to be present in languages from at least some parts of North America (Watkins 1976; Mithun 1999: 115–116), Africa (Newman 2002: 12–13; Hellwig 2003), Asia (Enfield 2002; Anderson 2006: 344) and Europe (Kuteva 1999; 2001: chap.3; Lemmens 2005).

In this workshop on AM and AP, we are particularly interested in, but not limited to, studies that address the following topics:
• AM and/or AP in languages spoken in or near Northwestern Mexico (Nahuan, Oto-Manguean, etc.): cf. surveys of AM in North- and Central-American languages by Dryer (2021a), in the Otomi branch of Oto-Manguean by Hernández-Green & Palancar (2021), in Nahuan languages by Boeg Thomsen (Forthcoming) and of AM and AP in Zapotec languages by Operstein (2024);
• similarities versus differences between AM and AP: parameters relevant to their description, historical development, semantic overlap, use in discourse (pleonastic/“echo” constructions), etc.:cf. outline of a typology of AP in Guillaume (2024: Section 12);
• overlap between AM and directionals (“path satellites”): cf. cross-linguistic surveys by Dryer (2021b) and Ross (2021), and implicational scale by Belkadi (2016);
• purposive AM (“motion-with-purpose”) – and/or purposive AP, if attested (?) – and the wider question of the degree of event integration between the AM/AP meanings and the verb meanings: cf. diagnostic tests in Jacques et al. (2021) and Silva-Robles et al. (2022);
• interaction of AM/AP with the argument structure of the verb: cf. applicative-like function of AM markers in Tungusic languages described by Pakendorf & Stoynova (2021).

Call for Papers:

General information:
• This is a hybrid conference with options for online presentations.
• Abstracts for 30-minute presentations (20-25 minutes presentations followed by 10-5 minutes
discussion) should not exceed 500 words, including examples but excluding references.
• Abstracts must be anonymous; please include your personal data (name, institution of
affiliation) within the email.
• Abstract should be sent no later than June 16, 2024, to the following email addresses:
[email protected], [email protected], [email protected],
[email protected].
• Notification of acceptance will be sent out by July 1, 2024.