Dear Colloquium Participants,

It is a special pleasure for me to say a few words at the beginning of this unusual colloquium as speaker of the committee together with my friend Wilfried Kürschner. First of all, I would like to thank everyone who made this colloquium possible, especially Reinhard Rapp. Not only did he have the idea of filling the gap left by the Corona pandemic with an online colloquium, but he also convinced the International Committee and the organizers of the postponed 55th Colloquium in Rzeszów of his idea and actively took over the organization of the content and technical aspects. It is thanks to him and the institutional and personal co-organizers from several countries that in 2020 we will not be able to meet locally, but we will be able to connect across borders. Thanks are also due to the speakers from many countries, who will present their thoughts and results.

Fifty years ago, I took part in a colloquium for the first time, the 6th Linguistic Colloquium in Copenhagen, to which four of us drove from Tübingen across the Baltic Sea to Denmark in my old VW 1500. Wilfried had registered a paper on nominal composition, and the passengers were listeners like me. The memories of the presentations have faded in the meantime, but I gather from the conference proceedings that "the generativists of the second generation" have had their say. Of the 24 papers printed, 23 were in German, only Charles Fillmore wrote in English.

For more than half a century the colloquium has travelled through Germany and Europe from university to university, from Hamburg to Tübingen, from Aarhus to Rhodes, from Alcalá de Henares to Ufa in the Urals. Since Copenhagen, I have attended 38 times, and I wouldn't want to miss the meetings with colleagues, the linguistic contributions and the interesting excursions. Now the colloquium meets for the first time worldwide in virtual space. In terms of the number of registrations, it is one of the largest ever. I am curious to see what new experiences it will offer.

There have been many changes since the beginning. The circle of areas covered has expanded. Generative language theory has receded into the background; topics of applied linguistics such as language didactics and translation play an increasingly important role. In the first years there were only presentations with discussion of 30 minutes, later - like this time - also plenary lectures were held. The next few days will show how the reduction of the presentations with discussion to 15 minutes on the Internet will prove its worth. The number of participants varied between about 30 participants in 1971 in Copenhagen and about 300 participants in 1999 in Germersheim. The conference proceedings and programs bear witness to the decline of German and the triumph of English as a language of science. In the Copenhagen conference proceedings, 96 percent of the presentations were in German, in virtual space the figure is still 17 percent.

At the beginning, the proceedings were duplicated internally, after which they appeared in changing publishing houses. From the 10th to the 31st colloquium, they were included in the series "Linguistische Arbeiten" (Linguistic Works) of Niemeyer Verlag, then, with few exceptions, they appeared in the series "Linguistik International" of Peter Lang Verlag, which was newly founded for this purpose. In recent years there have been repeated discussions about whether to publish on the Internet; I am looking forward to the discussion at the plenary meeting on Saturday.

The liberal, even anti-authoritarian character from the time of the 68-movement, when assistants received modern linguistics without their bosses, has been preserved. To this day there is no society with statutes and membership fees that determines the topics and allows or rejects speakers, even though there may be one or two concessions to state-imposed evaluations. The framework topic only has the character of a recommendation. The local organizers have a great deal of leeway in the program design. The plenary assembly, to which all participants are invited, decides how things will continue in the future. The International Committee for the Linguistic Colloquium, rather a loose group of former organizers, was not formed until 1991 to ensure continuity, when no one was found at the General Assembly to host the next colloquium.

Perhaps it is thanks to the open and liberal character of the colloquium that linguists were always found who continued it 54 times in uninterrupted continuity. There is reason to hope that it will continue in the future, either on site again or virtually. I wish the current colloquium of a new kind every success.

1. At least half an hour before you wish to attend the conference, go to this webpage where you will find instructions on how to get the required Zoom URLs and the latest news. If you have time, download the latest version of the Conference Programme by clicking on "Programme" in the menu. The programme will be continuously updated in case of cancelations.

2. The Programme consists of several tracks, each having its own Zoom-URL. Please click on the Zoom URL of the track you are interested in.

3. Zoom will ask you to get installed on your computer. Please say yes. If you cannot install Zoom for any reason, you can also use Zoom from your browser, but this tends to be less stable and is not recommended.

4. Follow the instructions given by Zoom.

5. Please enter the meeting under your full name as used during registration. For security reasons, the Zoom hosts are advised to remove unsolicited visitors.

6. Note that you can have only one Zoom session per computer.

7. If you do not present, you don't necessarily need a camera or a microphone.

8. For videoconferencing with Zoom, you can use desktop computers, laptops (recommended) or smart devices with any of the major operating systems. The more recent hardware and operating system are, the better.

9. In the Question and Answer sessions after the presentations, questions are asked via the chat function of Zoom. This is the default, but the session chairs can instruct you otherwise (e.g. giving someone the microphone if there is enough time in smaller groups).

10. If you have general questions or comments, please go to the virtual helpdesk (which is another Zoom session, like on the trial day on Nov. 14).

11. If you have tried everything but still cannot connect to the virtual helpdesk, please send an e-mail to lingcoll (at) gmx (dot) de. (Answering times will depend on demand.)

12. Unfortunately, to our knowledge there is no convincing solution for attendees to socialize in large virtual meetings. But, if there is not too much demand, you are most welcome to come for a chat to the virtual helpdesk. We also encourage you to set up your own Zoom sessions and invite other participants to them. There is a free version of Zoom ("Basic"), see https://www.zoom.us. It has a 40 minute limitation, but you can restart your session as often as you wish.

1. For your presentation, you will need a computer with a camera and a microphone, ideally a laptop or a tablet computer.

2. If you have not been able to check out the functionality (e.g. sound quality, sharing screen) on the trial day (Nov. 14), you can do so during conference hours on the virtual helpdesk.

3. For regular papers, the time frame is 15 minutes including discussion time. Please make sure that you prepare your presentation so that it fits this time frame.

4. On the day of your presentation, please check both the conference website (www.lingcoll.de) and your e-mail for updates. As is common in most conferences (both in-person and virtual), some changes may occur at the very last minute, so please make sure to get the latest info.

5. Regardless of your presentation order, please try to be at your session from the very beginning so that the hosts see that you are prepared to present.

6. Please enter each session under your full name (so that the chair can easily identify you).

7. Be ready to share your screen once you are called by the chair (i.e. have your PowerPoint or PDF file opened. (But we recommend not to use full-screen / slide show mode because it will cover up the icons you need to share screen, unmute etc.)

8. Keep an eye on the chat: the chair will use the Zoom chat function to signal to you when your time is running out.

9. Alternatively, we might interrupt one minute before your time is up by announcing "Please wrap up".

10. Since the schedule is very tight, we thank you in advance for your cooperation in keeping to the 15 minute time frame.

11. In Track 1, use the Zoon Q&A icon to ask questions related to the presentations, the chat for other types of questions (e.g. questions to the chair/host).

12. In all other tracks, the Zoonm Q&A icon will not beavailable, so please use the chat for everything.