Queen Mary University of London (QMUL) and University College London (UCL) are pleased to announce the workshop Semantics of Understudied Languages and Semantic Fieldwork, to be held as a special session of Sinn und Bedeutung 25.

The workshop will take place virtually on 1-2 September 2020.

***Registration for the workshop is now open. Whether you're presenting or just attending, please register!***

Schedule

The schedule, in .pdf format, can be found here .

Invited presentations

Vera Hohaus

Video introduction by Sigrid Beck

"Superlatives without degrees", project page

Jérémy Pasquereau

Video introduction by Rajesh Bhatt and Vincent Homer

“Semantic elicitation in the field: from finding consultants to interpreting results” (roundtable presentation), project page

Regular Presentations (* = eligible for prize for best student presentation)

1. Margit Bowler, “Cross-linguistic variation in conjoined comparatives”, abstract, project page

2. Lisa Bylinina, Natalia Ivlieva & Alexander Podobryaev, “Balkar particle ‘da’ and domain maximality”, abstract, project page

3. Reginald Duah, Mira Grubic, & Agata Renans, “The combination of indefinite and definite ‘determiners’—a cross-linguistic study”, abstract, project page

4. Mira Grubic & Anne Mucha, “Decomposing necessity: the Hausa exclusive particle ‘sai’ as a window into the building blocks of modal meaning”, abstract, project page

5. Ishani Guha, “Dependent numerals in Bengali: a case for covert adverbial D-operators”, abstract, project page

6. Paloma Jeretic & Justin Case, “Modal strengthening in Ecuadorian Siona”, abstract, project page

7. Andrew McKenzie, “Two types of habituals: Kiowa ingredients of a modular imperfective”, abstract, project page

8. *Zahra Mirrazi, “Licensing by modification: existential reading of bare plurals in Farsi”, abstract, project page

9. D. K. E. Reisinger, Marianne Huijsmans & Lisa Matthewson, “Evidentials in the nominal domain: a Speasian analysis of ʔayʔaǰuθəm determiners”, abstract, project page

10. *Deniz Satik, “De se ascription in PRO and logophoric pronouns”, abstract, project page

11. Thuan Tran & Malte Zimmermann, “A unified analysis of Vietnamese mới ‘just/only’ as a scale sensitive particle”, abstract, project page

12. Jenneke van der Wal, “On the use of idioms for testing focus”, abstract, project page

Roundtable on semantic fieldwork methodology

The workshop will feature a live roundtable discussion on methodological issues and challenges of semantic fieldwork led by Jérémy Pasquereau and with invited discussants Seth Cable, Reginald Duah, Suzi Lima and Lisa Matthewson. All members of the audience will be able to participate in the discussion once our guests have made their contributions. The OSF page for the roundtable can be found here.

Information for participants

Presentations are asynchronous for this workshop and can be found, together with all supporting materials, in the OSF project page for each presentation (see links above). Q&A sessions and the roundtable are synchronous (see schedule above, Zoom links tbc).

Instructions for presenters

Presenters should use the same OSF repository as the main session for their project pages. Presentations will consist in a pre-recorded 30min video of the talk, available via the OSF repository (see above), and a scheduled, 40min live Q&A session (see schedule). We ask that, if possible, presenters upload all of their materials to the repository by 26 August 2020. Presenters should have received more specific instructions over email; please let us know at luisa.marti@qmul.ac.uk and/or h.pearson@qmul.ac.uk if if you didn't receive email communications from us.

Financial support is available for presenters at the workshop; more information can be found here.

Registration

Both presenters and attendees of the workshop should make sure they register for SuB25. Important communication about Zoom links, updates, etc. will be carried out over the email that you provide at registration. Registration is free but, just as for the main session, we ask that you consider donating to the Covid-19 Emergency Response Fund for Brazilian Indigenous Peoples, more information about which can be found on the registration page.

Organizers

Luisa Martí & Hazel Pearson (QMUL)

About this workshop

This workshop aims to bring together semanticists doing fieldwork on understudied languages or dialects from around the world. It aims, in particular, to facilitate communication between the TripleA (Semantics of African, Asian and Austronesian Languages) and SULA (Semantics of Under-Represented Languages in the Americas) research communities, as well as to discuss issues surrounding the nature and state of the art of semantic fieldwork methodology.

Talks may focus on a single understudied language or dialect, they may compare two or more such languages or dialects, they may discuss theoretical issues that cut across several language families, or they may directly address issues relating to semantic fieldwork methodology. Questions about cross-linguistic variation that can be studied particularly well from the perspective of understudied languages or dialects are particularly welcome.

In addition to submitted talks, the workshop will include an invited talk by Vera Hohaus, and a roundtable on semantic fieldwork methodology, led by Jérémy Pasquereau.