Part-whole structures across languages
GA20-16107S
GA20-16107S
This project aims for a theoretically guided, cross-linguistic and experimental investigation of part-whole structures in natural language. Specifically, it will attempt to provide novel evidence for a mereotopological approach to nominal semantics, i.e., a theory of wholes that captures not only parthood but also topological relations holding between parts. The project will explore the following empirical domains:
partitive constructions
different types of quantifiers
part-whole adjectives
It will focus on a variety of expressions referring within distinct ontological domains, e.g., concrete and abstract entities, eventualities, and social roles, in typologically diverse languages and will seek to identify universal properties of the part of language faculty dedicated to the notion of parthood. The expected outcome of the project concerns radical rethinking the ontology of models accounting for nominal semantics.
Marcin Wągiel (Masaryk University in Brno): principal investigator
Lucia Vlášková (Masaryk University in Brno): research assistant
Joanna Błaszczak (University of Wrocław): collaborator
Jakub Dotlačil (University of Amsterdam): collaborator
Berit Gehrke (Humboldt University of Berlin): collaborator
Viola Schmitt (University of Graz): collaborator
Yasutada Sudo (University College London): collaborator
Jan Wiślicki (University of Warsaw): collaborator
The research project "Part-whole structures across languages" (GA20-16107S) is funded by the Czech Science Foundation (GAČR). The project started on 1 January 2020 and will end on 31 December 2022. The research will be carried out at the Department of Linguistics and Baltic Languages at the Masaryk University in Brno in co-operation with researchers from the Department of Linguistics at the University College London, Institute for Logic, Language and Computation at the University of Amsterdam, Department of German Studies at the University of Graz, and Center for Experimental Research on Natural Language at the University of Wrocław.
26–27/05/2022 • Workshop on Part-Whole Structures in Natural Language, Masaryk University in Brno. URL: https://sites.google.com/view/part-whole-workshop
Gehrke, Berit & Marcin Wągiel. 2023. On word order and non-conservative percentage quantification in Slavic and German. Glossa: a journal of general linguistics 8(1): 1–48. DOI: 10.16995/glossa.5803.
Wągiel, Marcin & Berit Gehrke. 2023. Non-conservative construals with percentage quantifiers in Slavic. Journal of Slavic Linguistics 31(FASL 30): 1–20. URL: http://ojs.ung.si/index.php/JSL/article/view/181.
Dočekal, Mojmír, Nina Haslinger, Eva Rosina, Magdalena Roszkowski, Iveta Šafratová, Viola Schmitt, Marcin Wągiel & Valerie Wurm. 2022. Cumulative readings of distributive conjunctions: Evidence from Czech and German. In: Gutzmann, Daniel & Sophie Repp (eds.), Proceedings of Sinn und Bedeutung 26. Cologne: University of Cologne. 239–257. DOI: 10.18148/sub/2022.v26i0.998
Gehrke, Berit & Marcin Wągiel. 2022. When a quantifier is not a quantifier: Non-conservative percentage expressions in German. In: Gutzmann, Daniel & Sophie Repp (eds.), Proceedings of Sinn und Bedeutung 26. Cologne: University of Cologne. 303–321. DOI: 10.18148/sub/2022.v26i0.1003
Wągiel, Marcin. 2022. A typology of proportional quantifiers: Evidence from Polish partitives. Acta Linguistica Academica 69(1): 128–159. DOI: 10.1556/2062.2022.00449 [prefinal]
Wągiel, Marcin. 2022. Quantifying over hidden (parts of) events. Glossa: a journal of general linguistics 45(1): 1–26. DOI: 10.16995/glossa.6564
Wągiel, Marcin. 2022. The linguistic relevance of the distinction between spatial and social collections. In: Özge Bakay, Breanna Pratley, Eva Neu & Peyton Deal (eds.), NELS 52: Proceedings of the Fifty-Second Annual Meeting of the North East Linguistic Society, vol. 3. Amherst, MA: GLSA. 201–210. [prefinal]
Žoha, Lukáš, Marcin Wągiel & Pavel Caha. 2022. The morphology of complex numerals: A cross-linguistic study. Linguistics Beyond and Within 8: 200–217. DOI: 10.31743/lingbaw.14966
Wągiel, Marcin. 2021. Slavic derived collective nouns as spatial and social clusters. In: Mojmír Dočekal & Marcin Wągiel (eds.), Formal Approaches to Number in Slavic and Beyond. Berlin: Language Science Press. 175–205. DOI: 10.5281/zenodo.5082464
Wągiel, Marcin & Pavel Caha. 2021. Complex simplex numerals. Acta Linguistica Academica 68(4): 470–515. DOI: 10.1556/2062.2021.00460 [prefinal]
09/03/2023 • Wągiel, Marcin & Natalia Shlikhutka. Parts of clusters and Ukrainian singulatives. A talk presented at the Deutsche Gesellschaft für Sprachwissenschaft 45 conference (DGfS 45), University of Cologne [slides]
23/02/2023 • Gehrke, Berit, Radek Šimík & Marcin Wągiel. Non-conservative construals with proportional quantifiers: Theoretical and experimental considerations. An invited talk presented at ZAS Semantics Circle, Leibniz-Centre General Linguistics (ZAS) [slides]
19/01/2023 • Wągiel, Marcin & Natalia Shlikhutka. Clustering and declustering things: The meaning of collective and singulative derivational morphology in Ukrainian. An invited talk presented at the Institute of Slavic Languages, Leipzig University [slides]
13/01/2023 • Wągiel, Marcin & Natalia Shlikhutka. Declustering aggregates: A semantic analysis of Ukrainian singulatives. A poster presented at the 53rd Annual Meeting of the North East Linguistic Society (NELS 53), University of Göttingen [poster]
15/12/2022 • Wągiel, Marcin. Slovanská odvozená kolektiva a jazykové vyjádření vztahu část-celek ve fyzikálním a společenském prostoru. An invited talk presented at Jazykovědné sdružení ČR, Charles University in Prague [slides]
09/12/2022 • Gehrke, Berit, Radek Šimík & Marcin Wągiel. Non-conservative construals with proportional quantifiers: Theoretical and experimental considerations. An invited talk presented at Slavic Linguistics Colloquium (SlavLingColl), Humboldt University of Berlin [slides]
10/11/2022 • Wągiel, Marcin. Derived collective nouns in Slavic. An invited talk presented at the Department of Slavic Languages, University of Göttingen [slides]
09/11/2022 • Wągiel, Marcin. Multiplicatives and event-external/internal quantification in English, Mandarin Chinese and Polish. An invited talk presented at the General Linguistics Colloquium, University of Göttingen [slides]
08/11/2022 • Wągiel, Marcin. Adjectival quantification over hidden events. An invited talk presented at the English Linguistics Colloquium, University of Göttingen [slides]
07/10/2022 • Wągiel, Marcin. Clustering events: Event-external/internal quantification in English, Mandarin Chinese and Polish. An invited talk presented at the 15th European Conference on Formal Description of Slavic Languages (FDSL 15), Humboldt University of Berlin [slides]
06/10/2022 • Wągiel, Marcin & Natalia Shlikhutka. A mereotopological account of Ukrainian singulatives. A talk presented at the 15th European Conference on Formal Description of Slavic Languages (FDSL 15), Humboldt University of Berlin [slides]
23/09/2022 • Gehrke, Berit, Radek Šimík & Marcin Wągiel. Non-conservative construals with proportional quantifiers: Theoretical and experimental considerations. An invited talk presented at the Time in Translation final project workshop, Utrecht University [slides]
22/09/2022 • Wągiel, Marcin. A mereotopological account of the event-external/internal distinction. A talk presented at the 15th Conference on Syntax, Phonology, and Language Analysis (SinFonIJA 15), University of Udine [slides]
06/08/2022 • Wągiel, Marcin & Pavel Caha. One analysis of three Mandarin 'two's. A talk presented at the 13th Generative Linguistics in the Old World in Asia (GLOW in Asia 13), The Chinese University of Hong Kong [slides]
25/06/2022 • Wągiel, Marcin & Jan Wiślicki. Semantic recursion in numerical expressions: Evidence from Polish and Japanese. A talk presented at the 31st Annual Meeting of Formal Approaches to Slavic Linguistics (FASL 31), McMaster University [slides]
24/06/2022 • Wągiel, Marcin. Against the view that the quantifying meaning is the semantic core of numerals. A poster presented at the 31st Annual Meeting of Formal Approaches to Slavic Linguistics (FASL 31), McMaster University [slides]
27/05/2022 • Wągiel, Marcin. Event-internal and external quantification and the mereotopology of events. A talk presented at the workshop on Part-Whole Structures in Natural Language, Masaryk University in Brno [slides]
19/05/2022 • Wągiel, Marcin & Pavel Caha. Grammatical gender meets classifier semantics: Cross-linguistic investigations into the morphosemantic complexity of numerals. An invited talk presented at Department of Chinese, Zhejiang University [slides]
12/05/2022 • Wągiel, Marcin. Clustering events for event-external quantification. An invited talk presented at Department of Linguistics, University College London [slides]
10/05/2022 • Wągiel, Marcin. Annihilating atoms with entity partitives. An invited talk presented at Department of Linguistics, University College London [slides]
26/04/2022 • Wągiel, Marcin. Mereotopology across domains: Spatial and social collectives in Slavic. An invited talk presented at Topics in Syntax and Semantics: Nominal Semantics, University of Rochester [slides]
23/04/2022 • Wągiel, Marcin. Labeling things with numerals in Maltese, Japanese and Wymysorys. A talk presented at the 58th Annual Meeting of the Chicago Linguistic Society (CLS 58), University of Chicago [slides]
06/03/2022 • Wągiel, Marcin & Jan Wiślicki. Numerical expressions involve semantic recursion within syntactic terminals. A talk presented at the 22nd Workshop on Roots of Pragmasemantics (Szklarska Poręba Workshop 22) [slides]
03/03/2022 • Wągiel, Marcin & Jan Wiślicki. Deriving a terminal-internal recursion in numerical expressions. A talk presented at the Theoretical Linguistics at Keio Semantics Conference (TaLK 2022), Keio University, Tokyo [slides]
11/12/2021 • Wągiel, Marcin. Slavic derived collective nouns as spatial and social clusters. A talk presented at the Syntax and Semantics Conference in Paris 2021 (CSSP 2021), University of Paris [slides]
11/12/2021 • Wągiel, Marcin. Polish indefinites: Some puzzles. A talk presented at A Memorial Workshop in Honor of Prof. Joanna Błaszczak, University of Wrocław [slides]
24/11/2021 • Wągiel, Marcin. Part-whole structures across domains: Slavic derived spatial and social collective nouns. An invited talk presented at the Slavic Linguistics Colloquium (SlavLingColl), Humboldt University of Berlin [slides]
31/10/2021 • Wągiel, Marcin. Mereotopology in an abstract domain: Evidence from Slavic derived collective nouns. A poster presented at the 52nd Meeting of the North East Linguistics Society (NELS 52), Rutgers University [slides]
22/10/2021 • Wągiel, Marcin. Klasyfikacja polskich konstrukcji partytywnych w świetle danych korpusowych, typologicznych oraz kognitywnych [A classification of Polish partitives from a corpus-based, typological and cognitive perspective]. A talk presented at the University of Wrocław, VII Światowy Kongres Polonistów. [slides]
15/10/2021 • Žoha, Lukáš, Marcin Wągiel & Pavel Caha. The morphology of compound numerals: A cross-linguistic study. A talk presented at the 8th Meeting of Linguistics Beyond And Within: International Linguistics Conference in Lublin, John Paul II Catholic University of Lublin [slides]
28/09/2021 • Wągiel, Marcin. Decomposing form and meaning of cardinal numerals across languages. An invited talk presented at Center for Research in Syntax, Semantics, and Phonology (CRISSP), KU Leuven [slides]
23/09/2021 • Wągiel, Marcin. Structured part-whole relations in Slavic derived collectives. A talk presented at the 14th Conference on Syntax, Phonology, and Language Analysis (SinFonIJA 14), University of Novi Sad [slides]
22/09/2021 • Dočekal, Mojmír, Nina Haslinger, Eva Rosina, Magdalena Roszkowski, Iveta Šafratová, Viola Schmitt, Marcin Wągiel & Valerie Wurm. Cumulative readings of distributive conjunctions: Evidence from Czech and German. A talk presented at the 14th Conference on Syntax, Phonology, and Language Analysis (SinFonIJA 14), University of Novi Sad [slides]
17/09/2021 • Wągiel, Marcin. Decomposing Polish proportional partitives. A talk presented at the 50th Poznań Linguistic Meeting (PLM 50), University of Poznań [slides]
16/09/2021 • Wągiel, Marcin & Pavel Caha. Putting parts of numerals together. A talk presented at the 50th Poznań Linguistic Meeting (PLM 50), University of Poznań [slides]
09/09/2021 • Dočekal, Mojmír, Nina Haslinger, Eva Rosina, Magdalena Roszkowski, Iveta Šafratová, Viola Schmitt, Marcin Wągiel & Valerie Wurm. Cumulative readings of distributive conjunctions: Evidence from Czech and German. A talk presented at the 26th Sinn und Bedeutung conference (SuB 26), University of Cologne [slides]
08/09/2021 • Gehrke, Berit & Marcin Wągiel. Non-conservative readings with percentage quantifiers in Slavic and German. A poster presented at the 26th Sinn und Bedeutung conference (SuB 26), University of Cologne [poster]
30/07/2021 • Wągiel, Marcin. Subatomic quantification. An invited talk presented at the 32nd European Summer School in Logic, Language and Information (ESSLLI 32), Utrecht University [slides]
11/06/2021 • Wągiel, Marcin & Pavel Caha. Building numerals: Some are part of others. A talk presented at the 5th Olomouc Linguistics Colloquium (Olinco 5), Palacký University in Olomouc [slides]
10/06/2021 • Wągiel, Marcin. Parts, quarters and halves: Polish proportional quantifiers. A talk presented at the the 5th Olomouc Linguistics Colloquium (Olinco 5), Palacký University in Olomouc [slides]
04/06/2021 • Wągiel, Marcin & Pavel Caha. Gendered numerals in Slavic, Arabic and Abkhaz. A talk presented at the 14th European Conference on Formal Description of Slavic Languages (FDSL 14), Leipzig University [slides]
03/06/2021 • Wągiel, Marcin. Examining parts in Polish proportional partitives. A talk presented at the 14th European Conference on Formal Description of Slavic Languages (FDSL 14), Leipzig University [slides]
26/05/2021 • Wągiel, Marcin & Pavel Caha. Decomposing cardinal numerals: Cross-linguistic evidence. A talk presented at the 28th Meeting of the Austronesian Formal Linguistics Association (AFLA 28), McGill University and National University of Singapore [slides] [video]
16/05/2021 • Gehrke, Berit & Marcin Wągiel. Non-conservative construals with percentages in Slavic. A talk presented at the 30th Annual Meeting of Formal Approaches to Slavic Linguistics (FASL 30), Massachusetts Institute of Technology [slides]
16/05/2021 • Wągiel, Marcin. The structure and meaning of label numerals in Slavic and Japanese. A talk presented at the 30th Annual Meeting of Formal Approaches to Slavic Linguistics (FASL 30), Massachusetts Institute of Technology [slides]
07/05/2021 • Wągiel, Marcin & Pavel Caha. The architecture of basic cardinal numerals. A talk presented at the 57th Annual Meeting of the Chicago Linguistic Society (CLS 57), University of Chicago [slides]
28/04/2021 • Gehrke, Berit & Marcin Wągiel. Non-conservative construals with percentages in Slavic and German. An invited talk presented at LinG Colloquium, University of Göttingen [slides]
26/04/2021 • Gehrke, Berit & Marcin Wągiel. Non-conservative construals with percentages in Slavic and German. An invited talk presented at LingORG, University of Oslo [slides]
16/04/2021 • Wągiel, Marcin. Quantifying over hidden (parts of) events. A talk presented at GLOW 44, online [slides]
18/03/2021 • Gehrke, Berit & Marcin Wągiel. Non-conservative construals with percentages in Slavic and German. An invited talk presented at LingLunch, Paris Diderot University (Paris 7) [slides]
01/03/2021 • Wągiel, Marcin. Against atomicity: Evidence from subatomic quantification. An invited talk presented at LingORG, University of Oslo [slides]
24/02/2021 • Gehrke, Berit & Marcin Wągiel. Non-conservativity with percentages in Slavic and German. An invited talk presented at Slavic Linguistics Colloquium (SlavLingColl), Humboldt University of Berlin [slides]
26/11/2020 • Wągiel, Marcin. Parts, wholes and clusters: Italian irregular plurals and a unified notion of parthood. A talk presented at Going Romance 34, French National Centre for Scientific Research (CNRS) / Université Paris-8 / Université Paris Lumières [slides] [video]
23/11/2020 • Wągiel, Marcin. On counting wholes and parts: Cognitive and linguistic perspectives. An invited talk presented at Charles University in Prague [slides] [video]
26/09/2020 • Wągiel, Marcin & Pavel Caha. Complex simplex numerals. A talk presented at the 13th Conference on Syntax, Phonology, and Language Analysis (SinFonIJA 13), Research Institute for Linguistics in Budapest [slides]
25/09/2020 • Wągiel, Marcin. A typology of proportional quantifiers: Evidence from Polish partitives. A talk presented at the 13th Conference on Syntax, Phonology, and Language Analysis (SinFonIJA 13), Research Institute for Linguistics in Budapest [slides]
22/09/2020 • Wągiel, Marcin. Nowe metody w slawistyce językoznawczej. An invited talk presented at the Palacký University in Olomouc [slides]
15/09/2020 • Wągiel, Marcin. Quantifying over hidden (parts of) events. A talk presented at the Events and Event Structure at the Limits of Grammar workshop (EESLiG), University of Oxford [slides]
02/09/2020 • Wągiel, Marcin. Polskie konstrukcje partytywne w świetle danych korpusowych, typologicznych kognitywnych oraz ontologicznych. An invited talk presented at the University of Warsaw
22/07/2020 • Wągiel, Marcin & Pavel Caha. Building cardinal numerals across languages. A talk presented at the 7th conference on the Semantics of African, Asian and Austronesian Languages (TripleA 7), University of Tübingen [slides]
03/04/2020 • Wągiel, Marcin & Pavel Caha. Universal semantic features and the typology of cardinal numerals. An invited webinar talk presented at Nanolab [slides]
28/02/2020 • Caha, Pavel & Marcin Wągiel. Abstract counting and object counting across languages. A poster presented at the 21st Workshop on Roots of Pragmasemantics (Szklarska Poręba Workshop 21), Szrenica [poster]
Institutions:
Department of Linguistics and Baltic Languages, Masaryk University in Brno
Department of Linguistics, University College London
Institute for Logic, Language and Computation, University of Amsterdam
Department of Slavic and Hungarian Studies, Humboldt University of Berlin
Department of German Studies, University of Graz
Center for Experimental Research on Natural Language, University of Wrocław
Department of Formal Linguistics, University of Warsaw