CALL FOR CHAPTERS
(Post)classical and medieval Greek multi-word expressions: Data, methodology, and analysis

Phrases such as pay attention, in spite of, and United Kingdom are multi-word expressions. The signifier is complex but the signified is not, i.e. pay attention is a verb phrase, in spite of a preposition, and United Kingdom a noun phrase. The Ancient Greek working group annotates these in classical literary Attic oratory, historiography, and philosophical prose using the PARSEME 1.3 guidelines (see https://parsemefr.lis-lab.fr/parseme-st-guidelines/1.3/index.php?page=home). The PARSEME 1.3 guidelines define comparative concepts for verbal multi-word expressions. A comparative concept is a concept ‘specifically designed for the purpose of comparison’ and ‘independent of descriptive categories’ (Haspelmath 2010: 664; Savary et al. 2018: 96; Hoffmann 2023: 29–31; Schafroth 2020). A descriptive category is a category that is used to describe a language and is language-specific (Haspelmath 2010: 664). The Ancient Greek working group has translated the comparative concepts of the PARSEME guidelines into descriptive categories for classical literary Attic historiography, oratory, and philosophical prose. Furthermore, we push the boundaries as to what types of structures should perhaps be included in future but are not currently (see www.ancientgreekmwe.com).

The proposed volume has three focal areas:
[Data] Multi-word expressions in datasets representing different genres, registers, and styles vis-à-vis the PARSEME Ancient Greek corpus (both other Greek corpora and other language corpora) (Fendel 2024)
[Methodology] Comparative concept vs. descriptive category and the PARSEME 1.3 guidelines for (post)classical Greek
[Analysis] Interfaces and blurry lines between categories especially with regard to the working group’s NotMWE category

While the obvious disciplines addressed are perhaps Linguistics (corpus linguistics), Classics (philology), and Computer science (natural language processing), we encourage creative minds to surprise us. We explicitly welcome proposals from those that are not part of either the UniDive COST action or the PARSEME Ancient Greek working group.

We are especially interested in under-represented data types such as papyrological and epigraphic sources and the role multi-word expressions play in these along with the challenges for identification and/or discovery.

We do not expect everyone to apply a computational approach but rather would like to see approaches that are data-appropriate. If you are building a tool or conversely sitting on the theoretical side of things, we ask that there is a clear (direct or comparative) application to the PARSEME data and methodology.

Abstracts of max. 350 words (excluding bibliography) with author-date references (but no page numbers) and a list of references providing a clear indication of the methodology, analysis, and interpretation as well as the relevance to any of the three focal areas should be sent to the team leader under [email protected].

Deadline for abstracts: 14 February 2025

Notification of outcome: by 28 February 2025

(Tentative) submission deadline for full drafts: 31 July 2025 (with marginal flexibility if agreed with the editor in advance)

References
Fendel, Victoria (ed.). 2024. Support-verb constructions in the corpora of Greek: Between lexicon and grammar? (Phraseology and Multiword Expressions 7). Berlin: Language Science Press.
Haspelmath, Martin. 2010. Comparative concepts and descriptive categories in crosslinguistic studies. Language 86(3). 663–687.
Hoffmann, Roland. 2023. Latin support-verb constructions: a view from language typology. In José Miguel Baños, María Dolores Jiménez López, María Jiménez Martínez & Cristina Tur (eds.), Collocations in theoretical and applied linguistics: from classical languages to Romance languages, 21–56. Madrid: SEEC.
Savary, Agata, Marie Candito, Verginica Mititelu, Eduard Bejček, Fabienne Cap, Slavomír Čéplö, Silvio Cordeiro, et al. 2018. PARSEME multilingual corpus of verbal multiword expressions. In Stella Markantonatou, Carlos Ramisch, Agata Savary & Veronika Vincze (eds.), Multiword expressions at length and in depth: Extended papers from the MWE 2017 workshop, 87–147. Berlin: Language Science Press.
Schafroth, Elmar. 2020. Überlegungen zu Funktionsverbgefügen aus sprachvergleichender Sicht. In Sabine De Knop & Manon Hermann (eds.), Funktionsverbgefügen im Fokus: Theoretische, didaktische und kontrastive Perspektiven, 179–210. Berlin; Boston: Mouton De Gruyter.

Linguistic Field(s): Computational Linguistics
Historical Linguistics
Text/Corpus Linguistics

Subject Language(s): Ancient Greek (to 1453) (grc)
Classical Sanskrit (cls)
Latin (lat)

Language Family(ies): Indo-European