The workshop’s title alludes to Chomsky 2005, suggesting that the following factors "enter into the growth of language in the individual": 1) genetic endowment, 2) experience, and 3) principles not specific to the language faculty. Much research since explores the extent to which the third Factor (e.g., principles of computational efficiency) plays a role in determining properties formerly attributed to core syntax, thereby minimizing Universal Grammar (Factor one), cf., e.g., Epstein, Kitahara, Seely (2018, 2021). While it is already challenging to align these theoretical guidelines with descriptive work on natural language phenomena, additional tasks lurk in the background. Accounting for the variation of grammars is one of them, including the right conception of parameters (cf. e.g., Longobardi 2018; Roberts 2019)? How do works on Narrow Syntax square with results from works at its interfaces, roughly: form and meaning? This workshop aims at addressing such, and more, questions with an empirical emphasis on the nominal domain. 

This year marks the 40. anniversary of Szabolcsi’s (1983) seminal work on the peculiar distribution of possessors in Hungarian, possessor agreement, and the influential idea that projections of functional heads dominate the lexical nominal core. Many works since have applied these and comparable ideas across languages and constructions, now commonly known as the DP-hypothesis. This is a great occasion to re-assess these and related themes. Recent work suggests a revived fundamental interest in the syntactic treatment of nominal phrases, develops alternatives to, and highlights problems of, the DP-hypothesis (cf., e.g., Bruening 2009; contributions in Blümel & Holler 2020). Bošković (2005) et seq has persistently developed the idea that UG provides a parameter which makes available the functional head D, separating languages into NP- and DP-languages with many correlates elsewhere in the languages’ grammars. Subsequent works have indicated that a refined, gradual analytical apparatus might be necessary for descriptive adequacy (Talić 2017; Oda 2022) or that the one-way correlation between Left Branch Extraction and the absence articles might be wrong (Pankau 2021; Barrie 2018). Other works explicitly defend or continue employing the hypothesis with or without discussion, emphasizing language- or dialect-specific aspects relevant for it, some with extensive empirical coverage both synchronically and diachronically (cf. Julien 2005; Brandner 2008, 2014; Lander & Haegeman 2014; Syed & Simpson 2017; etc.). Some issues include what decisive empirical criteria for or against the DP-hypothesis might be (Salzmann 2020, 2022), or which analytical alternatives recent theorizing provides for (Blümel to appear). 

All these works in one form or another subscribe to a version of the Borer-Chomsky conjecture of parametric variation as properties of inflectional/functional elements. How does this framework square with the view that "[t]he variety of languages might be localized in peripheral aspects of lexicon and in externalization; perhaps completely, we might someday learn" (Chomsky 2021: 11-12)? Do peripheral aspects of lexical items affect syntactic computation? Within the Borer-Chomsky view, the answer is "yes" (assuming "peripheral" means inflectional features). In the perspective expressed in the quote, it is less clear that syntactic computation is directly sensitive to properties of lexical items. 

A related field of research investigates typological universals. One area has been investigated particularly: the serialization of demonstratives, numerals, adjectives, and nouns (Greenberg 1963; Cinque 2005; Dryer 2018). Some results indicate a shift of the explanatory burden from Factor 1 to Factor 3, i.e., from syntactic encoding to outsourcing to language independent cognitive principles (cf. e.g., Martin et al 2019). Where do we stand in this domain? What are some of the empirical or theoretical challenges?

References:

Abney, Steven (1987): The English Noun Phrase in Its Sentential Aspect. PhD thesis, MIT, Cambridge, Mass.

Barrie, Michael, (2018): The Northern Iroquoian Nominal Phrase and Linguistic Variation, Talk at Current Issues in Comparative Syntax Singapore, Mar 1-2, 2018, Sogang University.

Blümel, Andreas (to appear): Labeling Theory and the Nominal Phrase, Proceedings of WCCFL 40.

Blümel, Andreas & Anke Holler (2020): New perspectives on the NP/ DP debate, Special Collection of Glossa: a journal of general linguistics.

Bošković, Željko (2005): On the locality of left branch extraction and the structure of NP, Studia Linguistica 59: 1-45.

Brandner, Ellen (2008): Patterns of doubling in Alemannic. Microvariation in syntactic doubling. Emerald, Syntax and Semantics series.

Brandner, Ellen (2014): On possessive (reflexive) pronouns, equatives, and the structural basis of Principle A. Talk at the workshop „Understanding Possession“, GLOW, Brussels.

Bruening, Benjamin (2009): Selectional Asymmetries between CP and DP Suggest that the DP Hypothesis is Wrong. In L. MacKenzie (ed.), U. Penn Working Papers in Linguistics 15.1: Proceedings of the 32nd Annual Penn Linguistics Colloquium, 26–35.

Chomsky, Noam (2021): Minimalism: Where Are We Now, and Where Can We Hope to Go. Gengo Kenkyu, 160: 1–41.

Chomsky, Noam (2005): Three Factors in Language Design, Linguistic Inquiry, Vol. 36, No. 1.

Cinque, Guglielmo (2005): Deriving greenberg’s universal 20 and its exceptions. Linguistic Inquiry 36(3). 315–332.

Dryer, Matthew (2018): The order of demonstrative, numeral, adjective, and noun. Language 94. 798–833.

Epstein, Samuel; Hisatsugu Kitahara & Daniel Seely (2021): A Minimalist Theory of Simplest Merge. Routledge.

Epstein, Samuel; Hisatsugu Kitahara & Daniel Seely (2018): Explorations in Maximizing Syntactic Minimization. Routledge.

Greenberg, Joseph (1963): Universals of language. Cambridge, Massachusetts: MIT Press.

Julien, Marit (2005): Nominal phrases from a Scandinavian perspective. John Benjamins, Amsterdam.

Lander, Eric & Liliane Haegeman (2014): Old Norse as an NP Language: With Observations on the Common Norse and Northwest Germanic Runic Inscriptions. Transactions of the Philological Society, 112(3), pp. 279–318.

Martin, Alexander;Theeraporn Ratitamkul; Klaus Abels; David Adger & Jennifer Culbertson (2019): Cross-linguistic evidence for cognitive universals in the noun phrase. Linguistics Vanguard 5(1)

Oda, Hiromune (2022): The NP/DP-language distinction as a scale and parameters in Minimalism. PhD thesis, UConn.

Pankau, Andreas (2021): Left Branch Extraction in Lower Sorbian. Journal of Slavic Linguistics, vol. 29, no. FASL 28 extra issue.

Pullum, Geoffrey K. & Philip Miller (2022): NPs versus DPs: Why Chomsky was right. LingBuzz archive, paper no. 6845. Online at https://lingbuzz.net/lingbuzz/006845

Salzmann, Martin (2022): The NP vs. DP-debate and notions of headedness. In Ulrike Freywald, Horst Simon, & Stefan Müller (eds.), Headedness and/or grammatical anarchy?, 55-71. Berlin: Language Science Press.

Salzmann, Martin (2020): The NP vs. DP debate. Why previous arguments are inconclusive and what a good argument could look like. Evidence from agreement with hybrid nouns. Glossa: a journal of general linguistics 5(1), 83.

Syed, Saurov & Simpson, Andrew, (2017): On the DP/NP status of nominal projections in Bangla: Consequences for the theory of phases. Glossa: a journal of general linguistics. 2(1), p.68.

Szabolcsi, Anna (1983): The Possessor that Ran Away from Home. Linguistic Review, 3(1), 89–102.

Talić, Aida (2017): From A to N and Back: Functional and Bare Projections in the Domain of N and A. PhD thesis, UConn.

Željko Bošković (University of Connecticut) 

Ellen Brandner (University of Stuttgart) 

Benjamin Bruening (University of Delaware) 

Marit Julien (University of Lund) 

Hisatsugu Kitahara (Keio University) 

Daniel Seely (Eastern Michigan University)

Directions

Train connections from various airports to Göttingen:

from Hanover: 1-1,5 hours

from Munich: 5,5-6 hours

from Bremen: 2,5-3 hours

from Frankfurt: 2,5-3 hours

from Berlin: 3-4 hours

from Stuttgart: 4,5-5 hours

from Düsseldorf: 3-4 hours

Accommodation

Hotels near the conference venue

·   B&B Hotel Göttingen-City, ~76 Euro

·   Eden-Hotel, ~99 Euro

·   Freigeist Göttingen, ~120 Euro

·   Ghotel hotel & living, ~80 Euro

·   Hotel Central, ~89 Euro

·   Hotel Stadt Hannover, ~189 Euro

·   Leine-Hotel, ~66 Euro

·   Romantik Hotel Gebhards, ~125 Euro

Hostels

·       Hostel 37, ~35 Euro (booking only with e-mail info@hostel37.de/Whatsapp +491636296665)

·       BoxHotel Göttingen, ~35 Euro

A full list of accommodations in Göttingen please visit the homepage of the Tourist Information https://www.goettingen-tourismus.de/uebernachten/hotel-uebersicht/ (in German) or https://www.booking.com/index.de.html

Deadline of abstract submission: September 10, 2023 

Notification of acceptance: around mid-September

Workshop dates: December 11-12, 2023

This 2-day workshop takes place in connection with the DFG-funded project “Revisiting Phrasal Units in the Nominal Domain” / “Neue Wege zur Nominalgruppe” at the University of Göttingen, one of the most vibrant places in Germany for formal linguistics (see e.g. the RTG "Form-Meaning Mismatches"). We invite contributions that address and explore some of the pressing theoretical and empirical issues regarding the syntactic structure of nominal phrases, including their interfaces at the form and meaning side, the role processing and acquisition play, and the like. We also welcome contributions on Factor 3 beyond the nominal domain.

We invite abstracts for 20-minute talks, followed by 10 minutes Q&A. Everybody may submit maximally two abstracts, only one of which may be single-authored.

Submission homepage:

https://easychair.org/conferences/?conf=find2023

Max. 2 pages of A4 paper, including references, examples, tables and figures 

12pt Times New Roman font or similar  

1in (2.54cm) margins on all sides 

The abstract must not reveal the identity of the author in any way 

PDF format

Organizer

Andreas Blümel

Student assistants

Yichen Ding 

Leonard Herbst

Contact

andreas dot bluemel at phil dot uni-goettingen dot de