Call for Papers: Workshop - Agreement from a diachronic perspective
Date: October 4th-6th, 2012
Location: University of Marburg, Germany
Typologically oriented synchronic research on agreement systems has led to empirically well-founded generalizations such as the Agreement Hierarchy (Corbett 1979, 2006). However, up until now a diachronic perspective is missing in most accounts regarding agreement. This is regrettable since language change can provide interesting insights when it comes to assess the explanative power of our theoretical concepts. In the workshop “Agreement from a diachronic perspective”, we want to fill this gap by addressing research questions such as the following:
- Are our synchrony-based concepts on agreement also valid in a diachronic perspective? E.g., is change in agreement systems structured by the Agreement Hierarchy?
- Can change in agreement systems be accounted for by referring to the concepts well-known from synchronic research?
- How does the diachronic data change our understanding of the functioning of agreement systems?
We invite original contributions addressing any kind of agreement phenomena from a diachronic or variationist perspective. Since the workshop is part of a three year research project on the development of agreement in four Indo-European languages (German, Ancient Greek, Hittite, Welsh) sponsored by the Deutsche Forschungsgemeinschaft, papers with a comparative perspective or dealing with “exotic” language families are especially welcome. We would also like to encourage young academics to contribute.
The following colleagues have agreed to provide key notes:
- Balthasar Bickel & Alena Witzlack-Makarevich (Zürich)
- Greville G. Corbett (Surrey)
- Michael Cysouw (Marburg)
- Antje Dammel (Mainz)
- Olav Hackstein (München)
- Michele Loporcaro (Zürich)
- Silvia Luraghi (Pavia)
- Damaris Nübling (Mainz)
- Horst Simon (FU Berlin)
Please send your abstract (containing 500 words at maximum, references excluded) by June 1st, 2012 to the following address: birkenem@staff.uni-marburg.de
There might be a possibility to fund participation.
In case you have any questions, please feel free to contact us.
