Category Archives: News

CRISSP at the TIN-dag

Several CRISSP members will give a talk at the TIN-dag:

  • Jolijn Sonnaert: ‘Is there a universal person feature hierarchy?’
  • Will Harwood: ‘Reduced Relatives and Extended Phases: Accounting for the aspectual restrictions on English reduced relative clauses’
  • Will Harwood and Tanja Temmerman: ‘Idioms and Phases: Size limitations on idioms in Dutch dialects and English’

More information, including abstracts and the programme, are available on the TIN-dag website.

Jeroen van Craenenbroeck in Paris

Jeroen van Craenenbroeck will give an invited research seminar talk at the Institut national des langues et civilisations orientales (Paris, France) on February 6, 2015.

The title of the talk is ‘Quantity and quality in linguistic variation: the case of verb clusters’ and more information is available on the following web page:

http://www.vjf.cnrs.fr/sedyl/recherches.php?langue=fr&type=seminaires&programme=theories&no_axe=4

 

Call for Papers SLE Workshop: ‘The Syntax and Semantics of Numerals’

Numerals raise a host of linguistic issues of a syntactic, morphological, and semantic nature. From a syntactic point of view, they sit on the divide between lexical and functional categories, and occupy a fixed position in the extended nominal projection. Morphologically, they often constitute a productive and fairly transparent category, but their categorial status remains under discussion: do they constitute a word class of their own, or are they nominal or adjectival in nature? Semantically, numerals are clearly akin to quantification in general, but at the same time they can differ from regular quantifiers in being more specific or precise in their denotation.

This workshop aims to bring together researchers working on the (morpho)syntax and semantics of numerals and numerical expressions. It will focus on questions including, but not limited to, the following:

The (morpho)syntax of numerals and numerical expressions

Contributions on the syntax of numerals may relate to the following research questions:

  • Are simplex numerals heads or phrases?
  • Are numerals lexical or functional items?
  • What is the category of numerals (cf. Stavrou & Terzi 2008)? Are they a class of their own or are they nouns or adjectives (Corbett 1978)?
  • What is the syntactic structure of complex numerals (cf. Stavrou & Terzi 2008)?
  • What is the syntactic structure of ordinals?
  • What is the syntax of suppletion amongst ordinals (Barbiers 2007)?
  • What is the syntactic status of the numeral one (Barbiers 2007, Borer 2005)?
  • Which silent elements can be contained in numerical expressions (cf. Kayne 2005)?
  • Are ordinals derived from cardinals?
  • Do paucals have the same internal syntax as higher numbers?
  • What is the syntax of vague numerical expressions (cf. Corver 2005)?
  • Does the syntax of numerals occurring in the DP differ from the syntax of numerals used when counting items?
  • What is the syntax of floating numeral quantifiers? (Miyagawa and Arikawa 2007)
  • Is there a relation between ordinals and superlativity?
  • Are degree expressions derived from numerals (cf. Corver 1997)?

The semantics of numerals and numerical expressions

  • What is the semantics of ‘vague’ or modified numerical expressions, such as more than n, at least n, fewer than n? Which part of their meaning follows from their semantics, and which part from general pragmatic principles, such as implicature? (Fox and Hackl 2006, Cummins, Sauerland and Solt 2012, Geurts and Nouwen 2007)
  • What is the semantics of prepositional numerals, like around ten and between ten and thirty? (Corver and Zwarts 2006)
  • What is the semantic difference -if any- between numerals and quantifiers like some, all or both?
  • Is there a semantic relation between ordinals and superlativity?

How to submit your abstract

Please submit your final abstract by the 15th of January 2015, through Easychair (https://easychair.org/conferences/?conf=sle2015).

 These are the requirements:

  •  The abstract should be anonymous
  • It should contain between 400 and 500 words (exclusive of references)
  • It must state:
    • Research questions
    • Approach
    • Method
    • Data
    • (Expected) results

Please note that you are only allowed to present one single-authored paper at SLE 2015. In addition, you may either have a joint paper (but not as a first author) or be a discussant in a workshop. Two co-authored papers are also allowed. The abstracts will be reviewed by the SLE 2015 scientific committee, as well as by the workshop convenors.

All workshop participants pay the conference fee that corresponds to their category – though everybody is invited to become a member and get a reduction. See http://sle2015.eu/fees and http://www.societaslinguistica.eu/membership/join.php. No reduction for one-day participation is possible.

The SLE nor CRISSP have funds for inviting (keynote) speakers within the framework of a workshop. Workshop speakers pay the same conference fee as regular participants.

 If you have any further questions, please do not hesitate to contact us at Jolijn.sonnaert@kuleuven.be.

References

  • Barbiers, S. (2007) Indefinite numerals ONE and MANY and the cause of ordinal suppletion. Lingua: 117 (5), 859-880.
  • Borer, H. (2005) In Name Only. Oxford: Oxford University Press.
  • Corbett, G. G. (1978) Problems in the syntax of Slavonic numerals. The Slavonic and East European Review 56:1.
  • Corver, N. (1997) The internal syntax of the Dutch extended adjectival projection. Natural Language and Linguistic Theory 15, 289-368.
  • Corver, N. (2005) Approximative of zo as a diagnostic tool. In: Broekhuis, H. et al. (eds.) Organizing grammar. Linguistic studies in honor of Henk van Riemsdijk. Berlin/New York: Mouton de Gruyter, 74-82.
  • Corver, N. and J. Zwarts (2006) Prepositions numerals. Lingua 116:6, 811-835.
  • Cummins, C., U. Sauerland and S. Solt (2012) Granularity and scalar implicature in numerical expressions. Linguistics and Philosophy 35:2,105-169.
  • Fox, D. and M. Hackl (2006) The universal density of measurement. Linguistics and Philosophy 29, 537-586.
  • Geurts, B. and R. Nouwen (2007) At least et al.: the semantics of scalar modifiers. Language 83:3, 533-559.
  • Kayne, R. (2005) Silence and Movement. Oxford: Oxford University Press.
  • Miyagawa, S. and K. Arikawa (2007) Locality in syntax and floating numeral quantifiers. Linguistic Inquiry 38:4, 645-670.
  • Stavrou, M. & A. Terzi (2008) Cardinal numerals and other numerical expressions. Talk presented at GLOW 2008. Workshop on DP types and Feature Syntax, University of Newcastle. March 25, 2008.

LNAT3 – Second Call for Papers

CRISSP is happy to announce the the third edition of Logic Now and Then (LNAT3), which will take place on February 5-6, 2015.

The conference will be devoted to the relationship between the semantics and pragmatics of logical constants (connectives, quantifiers, modal operators). Its aim is to critically assess and contribute to semantic and pragmatic theories developed for constructions containing such operators in natural language. On the one hand, we hope to bring together cutting edge contributions to debates that are currently in full swing, but at the same time, we very much invite contributions of a more historical nature, which shed light on antecedents of current views and issues, thereby placing them in a wider diachronic perspective. In short, the semantics and pragmatics of logical constants now and then.

Invited speakers

> Read the Call for Papers

Submit an abstract for our SLE workshop!

CRISSP invites provisional abstracts (300 words) for a Numerals workshop at next year’s SLE conference, which will take place in Leiden on September, 2-5, 2015. We are currently looking for provisional participants for our workshop.

The deadline for the submission of workshop proposals with SLE is 25 November 2014. This proposal needs to be accompanied by a topic description, as well as a (provisional) list of workshop participants and their provisional abstracts (max. 300 words per abstract). Please send your provisional abstract to jolijn.sonnaert@kuleuven.be by 23 November at the latest.

Notification of acceptance/rejection of a workshop proposal will be by 15 December 2014. After a workshop proposal has been accepted, the convenors will be requested to invite their participants to submit their full abstracts by 15 January 2015. These full abstracts will be evaluated individually by the SLE Scientific Committee and the convenors.

> Download the Call for Papers

The Roberts Lectures: Parameter Hierarchies and Comparative Syntax

Ian Roberts

CRISSP is happy to announce a CRISSP Lecture Series with Ian Roberts (University of Cambridge) on December 16-19, 2014. The title of the Lecture Series is ‘Parameter Hierarchies and Comparative Syntax’.

Abstract

This course looks at a way to break new ground in syntactic theory by reconceptualising the principles-and-parameters approach to comparative syntax, retaining its strengths and attempting to deal with its perceived weaknesses. The central idea is to organise the parameters of Universal Grammar (UG) into hierarchies, which define the ways in which properties of individually variant categories may act in concert; this creates macroparametric effects from the combined action of many microparameters. The highest position in a hierarchy defines a macroparameter, a major typological property, lower positions define successively more local properties. Parameter-setting in language acquisition starts at the highest position as this is the simplest choice; acquirers will “move down the hierarchy” when confronted with primary linguistic data (PLD) incompatible with a high setting. Hence the hierarchies simultaneously define learning paths and typological properties.

In this way, the criticism that formal comparative syntax has little to offer typological studies can potentially be answered. Lastly, a more purely theoretical component of the talk aims to show that the nature of the hierarchies is determined, not directly by UG, but by UG interacting with domain-general principles of simplicity and efficiency. The lectures will focus on the cross-linguistic analysis of null arguments, head movement and Case/agreement phenomena.

Research funded by the ERC Advanced Grant No. 269752.

More information

LNAT3 Call for Papers

CRISSP is happy to announce the the third edition of Logic Now and Then (LNAT3), which will take place on February 5-6, 2015.

The conference will be devoted to the relationship between the semantics and pragmatics of logical constants (connectives, quantifiers, modal operators). Its aim is to critically assess and contribute to semantic and pragmatic theories developed for constructions containing such operators in natural language. On the one hand, we hope to bring together cutting edge contributions to debates that are currently in full swing, but at the same time, we very much invite contributions of a more historical nature, which shed light on antecedents of current views and issues, thereby placing them in a wider diachronic perspective. In short, the semantics and pragmatics of logical constants now and then.

Invited speakers

> Read the Call for Papers