Call for Papers

General Session

Equal consideration will be given to papers from all areas of generative grammar, which may include syntactic theory, the syntax-semantics interface, the syntax-morphology interface, the syntax-phonology interface, syntactic acquisition, and any other syntax-related interests. Applicants for oral/poster presentations in the general session must submit their abstracts by June 10, 2021.


Special Session - Methodology

Generative linguistics has long relied on introspection in the collection of linguistic data. While introspection has given rise to robust generalizations (Sprouse et al. 2013; Sprouse and Almeida 2017), the role of context in judgement acceptability tasks has been shown to be an important factor in the elicitation of semantic judgements (Matthewson 2004; Tonhauser and Matthewson 2016; Bochnak and Matthewson 2020). Conflicting judgements can arise when two people have differing contexts in mind, highlighting the need to control for context during data collection. To this end, we invite submissions that tackle the following questions in methodology. We also invite submissions that have implemented this kind of methodology.

  • How do we present a context to a speaker when eliciting judgments?

  • How can this methodology be implemented when the linguist does research on their own language?

  • How can we control for context in large-scale experimental tasks, where speakers may have a long list of sentences (and control sentences) to evaluate?

  • How can we best report our methodology in our research to enable faithful replication of our work?

  • Is it best to work with speakers one-on-one or in a large group? Are certain tasks better suited to one or the other?

  • How can we adapt picture tasks to our own research (Bruening 2009; Matthewson and Burton 2015)?


Bochnak, M. Ryan, and Lisa Matthewson. 2020. Techniques in Complex Semantic Fieldwork. Annual Review of Linguistics 6: 261–283. https://doi.org/10.1146/annurev-linguistics-011619-030452.

Bruening, Benjamin. 2009. Algonquian Languages Have A-Movement and A-Agreement. Linguistic Inquiry 40. The MIT Press: 427–445. JSTOR.

Matthewson, Lisa. 2004. On the Methodology of Semantic Fieldwork. International Journal of American Linguistics 70: 369–415.

Matthewson, Lisa, and Strang Burton. 2015. Targeted construction storyboards in semantic fieldwork. In Methodologies in Semantic Fieldwork, ed. Lisa Matthewson and M. Ryan Bochnak, 135–156. Oxford: Oxford University Press.

Sprouse, Jon, and Diogo Almeida. 2017. Setting the empirical record straight: Acceptability judgments appear to be reliable, robust, and replicable. Behavioral and Brain Sciences 40. Cambridge University Press: e311. https://doi.org/10.1017/S0140525X17000590.

Sprouse, Jon, Carson T. Schütze, and Diogo Almeida. 2013. A comparison of informal and formal acceptability judgments using a random sample from Linguistic Inquiry 2001–2010. Lingua 134: 219–248. https://doi.org/10.1016/j.lingua.2013.07.002.

Tonhauser, Judith, and Lisa Matthewson. 2016. Empirical evidence in research on meaning. Lingbuzz. https://ling.auf.net/lingbuzz/002595.


Abstract Submission Guidelines

Abstracts should be submitted using the EasyAbs service of the LINGUIST List. All you need to do is visit http://linguistlist.org/easyabs/SICOGG23 and click on Abstract Submission. Then, follow the online guidelines to upload your abstract in either the .pdf or .doc format. Note, however, that the .doc format is acceptable only if the abstract contains no special fonts or diagrams. Only electronic submissions through the aforementioned link will be taken into consideration. Abstracts should be anonymous and may not exceed 2 pages (A4/US letter), including examples (embedded within the text) and references, with 2.54 cm (1 inch) margin on all four sides and should employ the font Times New Roman 12 pt. Submissions are limited to a maximum of one individual and one joint abstract per author. Please indicate whether the submitted work is proposed for a poster, an oral presentation, or either. Abstracts should be submitted no later than June 10 (Thursday), 2021. Authors will be notified of acceptance or rejection on or after June 24, 2021. Each speaker will be allotted 20 minutes for oral presentation and 10 minutes for discussion. For poster presentations, each presenter will be allotted 10 minutes for presentation and 5 minutes for discussion.

Proceedings Paper Submission

Accepted papers (including poster presentation papers) will be published in The Proceedings of the 23rd Seoul International Conference on Generative Grammar, which will be available online. All presenters will be asked to provide their paper in both .pdf and .doc(x) formats by July 31 (Friday), 2021. The text should be single-spaced and the general page limit is 20 pages, including appendices and references. The page limit for poster presentation papers is 10 pages, including appendices and references.