The workshop aims at bringing together linguists working on morphosyntactic, lexico-syntactic, semantic and pragmatic aspects of verbal valency change.
The idea of organizing this workshop is the result of a growing interest in understanding how languages deal with argument realization in the context of verb valency change, and in knowing what types of languages use what kind of constructions involving the valency change.
This two-day workshop will allow us to discuss a number of questions about different phenomena related with the increase or decrease in verb valency from different sub-fields in linguistics and different theoretical perspectives.
Main topics
- Argument structure and verb alternations
- Morphosyntactic derivations:
- Increase derivations: applicative and causative constructions
- Decrease derivations: passive, anti-passive and middle constructios, syntactic incorporation, syntactic pseudo incorporation, etc.
- Semantic valency changing operations: restriction, thematic unification, semantic incorporation, semantic pseudo incorporation, etc.
- Discursive sources of valency change: object demotion and topicalization.
Another important objective for this workshop is to integrate all the contributions in a single volume concerning the topic of change in the verb valency.
Finally, this workshop also pretends to be an opportunity for students in the linguistic field to observe and learn from the work presented and to enrich their own investigation and learning process.
Call for papers
We invite candidates to present abstracts for a 40-minute presentation and a 20 page paper on any topic that is within the workshop’s scope.
Submission of Abstracts:
The languages of the workshop will be Spanish and English. Candidates must submit abstracts for oral presentations in Spanish or English (although we ask handouts and slides to be in English), and paper contributions, in English only.
Abstracts should not to exceed one page including name(s), affiliation, title and references (using 2.5 cm margins, single spacing, and 12pt font size); even though these may be written in Spanish, we recommend English. Please send your submission as a PDF document electronically to the organization:
Publication of contributions:
The output of the workshop will be published in a volume. The submissions will be considered for this purpose and, if your submission is selected, you will be asked for a 20 page paper in English.
Financial support:
The University of Sonora’s Literature and Linguistics Department offers financial support for the organization, publication of the contributions and diffusion of the event. Each participant will need to cover its own travel, food and accommodation expenses.
Deadline for submissions: 10 January 2013
Selected authors are informed: 01 february 2013
Workshop: 21-22 March 2013
Deadline for accepted and revised papers submission: 21 September 2013
Invited speakers
Maria Teresa Espinal (Universitat Autònoma de Barcelona)
Jaume Mateu (Universitat Autònoma de Barcelona)
Andrej Malchukov (Max Planck Institute Leipzig)