Subject: glow ' 99

call for papers : glow 1999 the glow 99 colloquium will be organized by the research center for general linguistics ( zas ) in berlin from 29th to 31st march 1999 . the conference will then continue in potsdam on 1st april with parallel workshops organized by the potsdam university and lot ( netherlands graduate school of linguistics ) . themes of the conference main colloquium : universals workshops : phonetics in phonology sources for universals technical aspects of movement calls : the colloquium : universals the search for universals has always been at the center of interest in generative linguistics . fundamental claims about universal properties of language are what we build into the very architecture of the theory of ug : primitives ( features etc . ) , combinatorial operations ( merge ) , the operation ' move ' , interfaces with extralinguistic systems ( lf , pf ) , etc . alongside such formal universals , we also seek substantive universals in inventories , markedness patterns , feature hierarchies etc . such facts may reflect properties of ug itself or derive from extralinguistic sources . recent growth in crosslinguistic study opens new opportunities for extending the empirical base , confirming or challenging old generalizations and establishing new ones . at the same time , recent theoretical developments in both phonology and syntax lead to important questions concerning the formal and / or substantive nature of universals in language , and the quest for the exact sources of variation between languages . in phonology , universals have typically been assumed to exist in many different subcomponents , e . g . features , prosodic constituents . only in recent years , with the emergence of output-based evaluation systems , has the focus of interest in universals shifted to the study of constraints and their interaction . hence new questions arise : are all constraints universal in the sense that they are constitutive of grammar ? should we conceive of constraints as being exhaustive and ordered ? are there universals that constraint orderings have to obey ? are there different domains ( i . e . lexical and postlexical level ) where constraints apply ? are there language-specific constraints ? syntactic theory in the early 80 's assumed principles common to all languages to interact with various types of ' macro-parameters ' : one deep property from which several other properties derive ( e . g . pro-drop parameter ) . later , variation was attributed to ' micro-parameters ' . now , with the emergence of minimalism and optimality , basic issues like what constitutes a universal principle / constraint , and what constitutes a parameter , need to be re-addressed . is there a universal inventory of functional heads / features ? as to the autonomy of , or the division of labour between syntax and morphology : is parametrized variation confined to inflectional systems ? is syntactic variation restricted to the choice of overt or zero realization of a given feature ? if all movement takes place in a single cycle , does variation reduce to the presence of affixes or the lack thereof ? are there universal constraints in morpho-syntax ? moreover , in recent years it has been argued that thematic relations are features . what are their characteristics ? do these have a universal inventory ? could they be parametrized ? many typological-descriptive generalizations await theoretical integration - e . g . greenbergian ' universals ' of word order patterns , cross-categorial harmony effects , etc . in this respect , kayne 's proposal for a universal ordering merely shifts the burden from phrase structure to movement . a guiding heuristic of generative grammar has been that parsimonious ( redundancy-free ) theories are to be preferred ; but minimalism goes further in suggesting that economy is built into ug itself . to what extent can the hypothesis that ug principles instantiate notions of economy be upheld ? in studying ug , we take the external systems with which it interfaces to be invariant in linguistically significant senses across individuals and languages . thus we posit universal interpretation mechanisms ( and uniformity across languages at lf ) , ' universal phonetics ' ( invariant articulatory / perceptual mechanisms ) , a universal parser , etc . ; so that variation is confined to grammars , in particular phonology / morphology and&nbsp ; aspects of the lexicon . yet properties of external systems may have far-reaching consequences for our view of ug . as we learn more about them , universals attributed to ug may have to be reassigned . what if ug - compatible grammars determine languages that cannot exist because they are unuseable ( unparseable ; unlearnable ; etc ) ? are there universal patterns in the acquisition process , in parsing strategies , etc . , that can be brought to bear ? the colloquium will consist of 20 talks of 45 minutes each plus discussion . abstracts may not exceed 2 pages with at least a 1 inch margin on all four sides and should employ a font not smaller than 12 pt . they should be sent anonymously in tenfold , accompanied by a camera-ready original with the author 's name , address and affiliation to : glow selection committee c / o artemis alexiadou zentrum fr allgemeine sprachwissenschaft , typologie und universalienforschung jgerstr . 10 / 11 , 10117 berlin germany phone : + 49-30 - 20192404 / 1 fax : + 49-30 - 20192402 e-mail : glow99 @ zas . gwz-berlin . de url : http : / / www . zas . gwz-berlin . de / events / glow / index . htm the workshops 1 . sources for universals recent developments in syntax and phonology such as the minimalist program or optimality theory have led to new insights into the structure of the human linguistic capacity . in the context of such theoretical developments , the conviction has grown that recourse to innate properties of language cannot be the only explanation for the existence of certain generalizations of formal linguistic structure . the idea of the workshop " sources for universals " is to bring together researchers from various fields inside and outside of syntax and phonology in order to identify possible sources for formal universals of natural language . such possible sources could come from the following domains , semantic universals consideration of processing difficulty considerations of laws of historical development for languages considersations of constraints on language acquisition biological constraints in the sense of a " universal grammar " constraints inherent in the computational mechanisms serving language , this list is not meant to be exhaustive . contributions which link formal universals as discussed in recent grammatical models to any of such sources are particularly welcomed . 2 . technical aspects of movement filler - gap dependencies ( fgd ) belong to the most intriguing properties of natural language grammatical theories have to deal with . finding the right approach continues to be a matter of no little controversy . capturing the core properties of fgds , concepts of strictest c-command , which require fillers and their gaps to be immediately attached to the same projection line , arguably possess a high amount of naturalness or simplicity . this type of constraint is directly reflected by linear indexed grammars and has been implemented in the minimalist extension condition on structure building . ( attempts to derive the c-command relation from the minimalist operation merge take this strategy even further . ) yet , head-movement configurations , analyzed as adjunction in the principles and parameters variant of generative grammar , seem to require weaker versions of c-command , such that the adjoined head ' inherits ' the c-command domain of the head adjoined to . it is an open question , whether there are alternatives that do not - one way or the other - employ similar auxiliary devices . as is well known , fgd - patterns ( nested / crossed ) have consequences for the generative power of the grammars describing them . it is not properly understood , however , which devices of which systems capture less orderly patterns best . systems using slash-categories or similar techniques seem to run into considerable difficulty here . feature - lists integrated into a checking theory of movement may be considered one of various alternatives . most recently , the minimalist adoption of the " copy theory of movement " opened up another array of related issues . how , for example , do checking resources get eliminated if each step leading to elimination is preceded by a step of copying these resources ? are copies of np / wh - moved constituents assumed to retain properties of empty anaphors and syntactic variables respectively , or has any reference to empty categories ( e . g . ecp ) and their potential link to binding theory become undefined ? if the latter , could this change be motivated by complexity results concerning the powerful device of free indexation , as employed by gb binding theory ? indeed , a general ban on the use of indices has been accompanying the " copy theory of movement " . this calls for a demonstration how chains , the standard " legitimate lf - objects " , which in alternative versions of syntax are supposed to fully supplant movement , get handled without such devices . primary properties to be defined on chains of copies , for example , would be pf - realizability as well as the distinction between operator , variable , and descriptive content status at lf ( nontrivial consequences for the analyses of qr and acd being directly implied ) . alternatively , it would be helpful to be able to appreciate how far any worked-out proposals deviate from structure-sharing techniques as used in hpsg / lfg ( a . o . ) , index percolation devices from variants of indexed grammar , and other structure generating systems like tree adjoining grammar or categorial grammar . this workshop invites submissions of papers shedding light on the above questions from both technical / formal and linguistic angles . abstracts for both workshops are invited for 45 minute presentations ( plus 15 minutes dicussion ) . they should not exceed one page / 500 words . please send five anonymous copies plus a camera ready original ( with author 's name , address , and affiliation ) to the address specified below . speakers will be partially reimbursed for their expenses on the scale that applies to the colloquium . glow workshops c / o matthias schlesewsky institut fuer linguistik universitt potsdam postfach 60 15 53 d 14415 potsdam germany phone : x49 - 331-977 - 2016 fax : x49 - 331-977 - 2761 e-mail : glow _ workshop @ ling . uni-potsdam . de url : http : / / www . ling . uni-potsdam . de / ik / glow . html 3 . phonetics in phonology invited speakers : edward flemming , donca steriade organizers : carlos gussenhoven , ren kager the workshop is broadly concerned with the relevance of articulatory and perceptual facts for phonological theory . more specifically , it intends to focus on such questions as the extent to which functional factors determine phonological grammars , the status of the distinction between phonological representation and phonetic implementation , the issue of multiple ( articulation-based as well as perception-based ) phonological representations , and the universality and ` groundedness ' of phonological constraints . the workshop will consist of approximately 7 talks of 45 minutes each , followed by 15 minutes of discussion . abstracts may not exceed one page with at least a 1 inch margin on all four sides and should employ a font no smaller than 12 pt . they should be sent anonymously in threefold , accompanied by a camera-ready original with the author 's name , address and affiliation , to glow phonology workshop c / o . ren kager utrecht institute of linguistics / ots trans 10 3512 jk utrecht netherlands phone : + 31-30 - 2538064 fax : + 31-30 - 2536000 deadline for submission of abstracts : december 1 , 1998 submission by fax or e-mail will not be accepted .
