Workshop Description

The nominal domain is as rich in its structural composition as the clausal domain. It is well established that the order of nominal modifiers varies both across and within languages; nonetheless, compared to the extensive literature exploring word order phenomena in the clausal domain, the nominal counterparts of such phenomena have received less attention. Moreover, specific aspects of nominal word order – such as the ordering of adjectives – have been explored more extensively than others. Even in these cases, many questions still remain open and word order phenomena in the nominal domain in general remain ill-understood.

Of central interest to this workshop is the exploration of different factors that are relevant to word order in the nominal domain. In the existing literature, a number of such factors have been identified, relating to typology, syntax, semantics, phonology, morphology, psycholinguistics and cognition i.a., as well as their interfaces. As a result, different views have been expressed on the causes and effects of word order patterns across languages. However, these views are typically discussed independently and, consequently, there is little or no consensus among existing approaches.

Hence, the aim of this workshop is twofold:

(i) to investigate – both formally and experimentally – a variety of factors that interact with the placement and ordering of nominal modifiers intra- and cross-linguistically; and

(ii) to offer a forum for exchanging views on the factors influencing word order phenomena in the nominal domain.

Topics of particular interest to this workshop are factors related to: