call for papers
Pronominal elements form an elusive, but all the more interesting category that has received central attention in modern linguistic research. They show a wide array of variation in morphophonological shape from null pronouns to highly complex personal pronouns or anaphors, and this variation in form is concomitant with substantial variation in meaning that ranges from bound variable interpretations to strong referential readings. The primary aim of this workshop is to address this diversity by focussing on recent developments in the study of the syntax and semantics of pronominals.
The questions we aim to address include, but are not restricted to, the following. What is the syntactic category of pronouns? If they are smaller than a canonical noun phrase (DP), then just how small can they be and how does this affect their syntax? What are the syntactically relevant features that different types of pronominals bear? How do prosodic processes, such as focussing or deaccenting, affect the licensing and interpretation of pronouns? Does verbal argument structure have a real effect on pronoun licensing or is the special behaviour of pronouns in, say, psych-contexts just a conspiracy of non-syntactic factors? What kind of meaning do reflexives and reciprocals contribute to the interpretation of the sentence? How do variation in pronominal form and variation in interpretation correlate? What non-linguistic factors may affect the choice of one pronominal form over the other? It is these and related issues that we aim to discuss at the workshop.
We welcome contributions on these or other aspects of the grammar of pronominals. Ideal submissions (i) discuss novel facts or constructions that may have received slight or no attention in the literature, or (ii) revisit and reconsider well-known data and assumptions, or (iii) investigate features that play a direct role in the syntax of pronominals, or (iv) address the relation between pronominal form and interpretation. We also welcome experimental work on pronominal data and work on the processing and acquisition of pronominals that draws on advances in theories of syntax and semantics.
The language of the workshop is English and we welcome work on any natural languages.
We intend to publish a volume of selected papers from the workshop.
INVITED SPEAKERS
Huba Bartos (Research Institute for Linguistics of the Hungarian Academy of Sciences)
Katalin É. Kiss (Research Institute for Linguistics of the Hungarian Academy of Sciences)
Giorgos Spathas (Humboldt-Universität zu Berlin & Universität Stuttgart)
Anne Temme (Universität Stuttgart)
Elizabeth Verhoeven (Humboldt-Universität zu Berlin)
Huba Bartos
Péter Csatár
Éva Dékány
Marcel den Dikken
Katalin É. Kiss
Éva Kardos
Tibor Laczkó
György Rákosi
Giorgos Spathas
Anne Temme
Enikő Tóth
Elizabeth Verhoeven
extended deadline for the submission of abstracts: 4 December, 2016
notification of acceptance: 13 December, 2016
workshop dates: 24-25 February, 2017
Abstracts should be submitted as pdf files. They should not exceed two pages (A4, custom margins, font size 12, data and references are included in the two-page limit). The title appears at the top of the first page and the abstract should be anonymous.
Submit your abstract in EasyChair at this link:
https://easychair.org/conferences/?conf=2017dwp
Department of English Linguistics
University of Debrecen
Hungary
György Rákosi (head)
Péter Csatár
Réka Jurth
Éva Kardos
Tibor Laczkó
Margarita Németh
Péter Szűcs
Enikő Tóth
homepage: https://sites.google.com/site/debrecenpronouns/
email: hungram@unideb.hu