Editor for this issue: Marie Klopfenstein <marielinguistlist.org>
Workshop on the Form and Function of Pronouns Date: 19-Sep-2003 - 21-Sep-2003 Location: Vancouver, British Columbia, Canada Contact: Martina Wiltschko Contact Email: wmartinaMail to author|Respond to list|Read more issues|LINGUIST home page|Top of issueinterchange.ubc.ca Linguistic Sub-field: Syntax Call Deadline: 25-Apr-2020 Meeting Description: Workshop on the Form and Function of Pronouns University of British Columbia Department of Linguistics Organizers: Martina Wiltschko, Rose-Marie D�chaine Invited Speakers: Norbert Hornstein (University of Maryland) Paul Kroeber (Indiana University) Elizabeth Ritter (University of Calgary) Hotze Rullmann (University of Calgary) Ken Safir (Rutgers University) Leslie Saxon (University of Victoria) Edwin Williams (Princeton University) Although pronouns are present in all natural languages, pronoun inventories of specific languages vary considerably in terms of their morphology and their semantic function. This raises the following two questions. First, what formal property of human language accounts for the fact that all languages have pronouns? Second, what determines the variation that observed in pronominal elements as regards their internal and external syntax? On one view, function drives form: a pronoun is an element which can replace another noun and its function is to avoid repetition of the same noun-phrase ("what universally characterizes a pronoun are its referential role and function" Bresnan 2001: 4). Such functionally based accounts are challenged by the fact that within and across languages there may be several pronominal forms. For example, the formal properties of English personal pronouns like she and he differ significantly from that of demonstrative pronouns like that or this, both in terms of their internal composition (internal syntax), and their occurrence in different positions (external syntax). Although these differences are widely acknowledged in both the descriptive and the theoretical literature, there is no analysis which adequately accounts for the problem of unity and diversity as it manifests itself in the domain of pronoun inventories. On another view, the function of a pronoun is a by-product of its form; i.e. form drives function. On this view, the fact that pronouns are universally present in human languages follows from their status as nominal expressions. That they are nominals can be seen from the classical structuralist criterion of substitution: since pronouns are used as substitutes for other nominals (e.g. A girl came into the room. She sat down.), they must themselves be nominal expressions. Since nominal expressions (e.g. the girls, those cats) seem to be present in all languages, and since pronouns are a sub-type of nominal expression (they are not content words), we then expect pronouns to be present in all languages. The form/function debate has broad implications since pronouns are an important diagnostic tool (e.g. the criterion of substitution mentioned above). In addition, pronouns have been used to test more general claims about the structure of language (syntax), the relation of structure to meaning (syntax-semantics and syntax-pragmatics interface), the relation of structure to internal composition (syntax-morphology interface). We invite abstracts for that address these issues from a theoretical and/or empirical perspective. Each of the refereed presentations will be 30 minutes followed by a discussion period. Abstract requirements: Preferably by e-mail send anonymous abstracts in the following format: 2 pages (including data), 12 point type, 1 inch margins Please send your abstract as a pdf or word attachment to the following address: wmartina
interchange.ubc.ca The subject of the message should read: abstract In the body of the message include the following information: 1. Name of author/s 2. Title of abstract 3. Institutional affiliation 4. Mailing address 5. e-mail address 6. telephone number 7. fax number If you wish to be considered for a travel subsidy, pleas indicate your academic status (faculty, student, post-doc) If you have to send your abstract by regular mail please send 5 anonymous copies to the following address: Martina Wiltschko (Pronoun workshop) Department of Linguistics UBC E 270 - 1866 Main Mall Vancouver, BC V6T 1Z1 Canada The workshop program will be announced in the middle of May 2003 Information about the workshop will soon be up at the website of the department of linguistics (UBC)at: http://www.linguistics.ubc.ca (Note the site is not yet in place). If you have any questions regarding this workshop, please contact the organizers at the above e-mail address.
This is a RE-POST of the CFP for the NASSLLI Student Session. By popular demand the deadline has been extended until APRIL 12th 2003. Please extend the word to colleagues who may not have received the first CFP. C a l l f o r P a p e r s NASSLLI-2003 Second North American Summer School in Logic, Language, and Information http://www.indiana.edu/~nasslli/ June 17-21, 2003, Bloomington, Indiana NASSLLI '02 Continues North American Summer School Tradition - ------- Following last year's founding of a North American counterpart to the European Summer School for Logic, Language and Information, this year's NASSLLI will be at Indiana University. It will again feature a Student Session where students can network and get feedback on their work -- both from faculty and student attendees. This CFP solicits submissions to the student session. Topics of Interest - ----- The areas of interest are Logic -- including work on problems of mathematical or philosophical interest Language -- including descriptive or theoretical work in formal linguistics Language and Logic -- applications of logic to natural language Language and Computation -- theoretical and empirical work in computational linguistics Logic and Computation -- automated theorem-proving and related fields Computation -- artificial intelligence or related areas of computer science Work integrating several of these areas is of particular interest. Requirements - --- The Student Session papers should describe original, unpublished work that has been completed. However, no previously published papers should be submitted. All authors must be at the pre-doctoral level; submissions co-authored by non-students will be discarded. Format of Submission - --- Full papers, not to exceed 10 pages, are to be submitted by email as Adobe Portable Document Files (PDF). This file must include a separate identification page including the following pieces of information: Title: title of the submission First author: firstname lastname Address: address of the first author ...... Last author: firstname lastname Address: address of the last author Short summary: abstract (5 lines) Subject area (one or two of): Logic | Language | Computation Other Conferences Submitted To: Neither this identification page, nor any bibliography counts towards the 10 page limit. Since reviewing will be blind, the body of the paper should omit author names and addresses. Furthermore, self-references that reveal the author's identity (e.g., "We previously showed (Smith, 1991)... ") should be avoided. It is possible to use instead references like "Smith (1991) previously showed..." The PDF of the paper is to be enclosed in an email duplicating the information on the identification page. Use US Letter paper and LaTeX if possible; accepted papers will need to be resubmitted without page numbers. Please email submissions to John Hale <haleMail to author|Respond to list|Read more issues|LINGUIST home page|Top of issuecogsci.jhu.edu> by the extended deadline of APRIL 12th 2003. NASSLLI '03 - --- At least one author needs to register for NASSLLI '03 in order to be in the student session. Accepted papers will be available at the Summer School in the Student Session Proceedings (tentative plans exist for on-line dissemination as well). One of the authors will give a 20-minute talk with up to 10 minutes for discussion. Dates - -- ***EXTENDED*** Submissioin deadline : April 12th, 2003 Author notifications : May 1st, 2003 Revisions in accepted papers due by : June 1st, 2003 NASSLLI-2003 Student Session : June 17-21, 2003. Confirmed Student Session Program Committee Members - -- Julia Hockenmaier, University of Edinburgh Gerhard Jaeger, Potsdam University Greg Kobele, UCLA Yevgeniy Makarov, Indiana University Gideon Mann, Johns Hopkins University Jens Michaelis, Potsdam University Rachel Sussman, University of Rochester Please direct any questions about the NASSLI-03 student session to John Hale <hale
cogsci.jhu.edu>.