Full Title: Unlocking Evaluative Morphology II: Semantic Values and Pragmatic Motivations
Short Title: EvalMo II

Date: 20-Apr-2026 - 22-Apr-2026
Location: Alicante, Spain
Contact Person: Muriel Norde
Meeting Email: [email protected]
Web Site: https://site.unibo.it/unlocking-evaluative-morphology/en/evalmo-ii/call-for-papers

Linguistic Field(s): Morphology; Pragmatics; Semantics; Text/Corpus Linguistics

Call Deadline: 30-Jan-2026

Convenors:
José A. Sánchez Fajardo (University of Alicante)
Francesca Masini (University of Bologna)
Muriel Norde (Humboldt University Berlin)
Kristel Van Goethem (F.R.S.-FNRS & Université catholique de Louvain)
Tijana Vesić Pavlović (University of Belgrade)

Organizing Team:
Andrés Muñoz García (University of Alicante)
Julio Torres Soler (University of Alicante)

Plenary speaker:
Elisa Mattiello (University of Pisa)

Call for Papers:
This workshop is a follow-up to the first EvalMo Workshop held in Berlin in 2024 and is partially funded by the SLE Joint Initiative Scheme. The main focus of the Unlocking Evaluative Morphology series is the morphological expression of evaluative semantics (Grandi & Körtvélyessy 2015), such as diminution (Dressler & Merlini Barbaresi 1994), intensification (Rainer 2015), pejoration (Finkbeiner, Meibauer & Wiese 2016), or approximation (Masini, Norde & Van Goethem 2023). These are not discrete categories: in fact, many evaluative morphemes express more than one evaluative value. Approximation, for example, often intersects with pejoration (Amiot & Stosic 2022, Van Goethem & Norde 2020). This is evident in suffixes such as –ish in apish and girlish (Eitelmann, Haugland & Haumann 2020), or in prefixes such as pseudo- in pseudo-beer (Van Goethem, Norde & Masini 2025). Likewise, metonymization also underlies pejorative nuances, as observed in suffixoids derived from body parts, such as –head in gearhead (Sánchez Fajardo & Mattiello 2025; Mattiello & Sánchez Fajardo 2025), where the body part gains evaluative connotations linked to its functions. Notably, pejorative morphology should also be approached from a morphopragmatic perspective, which focuses on pragmatic meanings emerging through morphological rules (Merlini Barbaresi & Dressler 2020: 406).

EvalMo II aims to zoom in more specifically on semantic and pragmatic properties of evaluative morphology, addressing the following Research Questions:
RQ1: Which evaluative values can be expressed morphologically and how are they distributed cross-linguistically?
RQ2: How do evaluative functions intersect?
RQ3: What are the pragmatic motivations for evaluative morphology?

For this workshop, we invite empirically-based studies addressing one or more of the above RQs. While the workshop will cover different evaluative values, it will place particular emphasis on pejorative morphology. Case studies on understudied languages are particularly welcome.
The workshop fee is 40 € (free of charge for PhD students) and will be held on site (with the possibility to participate online if you are unable to travel to Alicante).

Abstract Submission:
If you are interested in participating in this workshop, please send an anonymous abstract of max. 500 words (excluding examples and references) to Tijana Vesić Pavlović ([email protected]). In a separate file, send us a cover sheet including your name, affiliation, title and presentation preference (oral paper or poster). The deadline for submissions is January 30, 2026; notification of acceptance will be sent out by February 20, 2026.