Date: 24-Sep-2023 – 27-Sep-2023
Location: Leipzig, Germany
Contact Person: Désirée Kleineberg
Meeting Email: < click here to access email >

Linguistic Field(s): General Linguistics; Historical Linguistics; Semantics; Syntax

Language Family(ies): Romance

Call Deadline: 31-Dec-2022

Meeting Description:

In the domain of nominal determination, Romance languages and dialects vary considerably, compared to each other, but also compared to their Latin base. This is especially true for the presence and absence of determiners, which seems to only be explainable by a complex interplay between semantic and syntactic factors, diachronic tendencies as well as language contact.
In contrast to Latin, nouns in Romance generally require a determiner. Against this background, recent research especially focuses on so-called bare nouns, i.e. nominals without a determiner. In this framework, various research questions and domains have emerged, concentrating on the semantic interpretation and syntactic distribution of this kind of nouns, oftentimes referring to the Nominal Mapping Parameter (Chierchia 1998). These domains comprise research on the referential interpretation bare nouns may take in different syntactic contexts (kind-level vs. existential readings; cf. among others Carlson 1980; Espinal 2010; 2013 Espinal/McNally 2007; Dobrovie-Sorin/Beyssade 2012), the general availability of bare nouns in Romance varieties (especially in the framework of correlative language typology; cf. Körner 1981; Carlier/Lamiroy 2014; Stark 2016) as well as bare nouns and the mass-count distinction (cf. among others Meisterfeld 1998, Laca 1999; Pires de Oliveira/Rothstein 2011; Kleineberg 2022; Mihatsch/Kleineberg in press).
In addition to these domains of variation in the synchrony of contemporary language, there is also variation in the presence and absence of determiners in diachronic evolution since an article system emerges only gradually in Late Latin (Selig 1992) and is (further) grammaticalised in the early Romance languages (cf. e.g. Garachana 2009; Carlier 2020). Although the corresponding grammaticalisation paths are well known (Greenberg 1978; Mulder/Carlier 2011; Lehmann 32015), recent work in various fields of research suggests a refinement of these paths. This is particularly true for the domain of weak referentiality (cf. e.g. Kuguel/Oggiani 2016; Gerards/Stark 2020; Gerards 2020), but also of grammaticalisation of articles with possessives, anthroponyms or toponyms. Not only grammaticalisation, but also pragmaticalisation paths are of interest here as pragmatic markers with nominal origin (e.g. attenuating sp. tipo) lose the ability to be accompanied by determiners in the course of their development (cf. Brems et al. to appear).
Furthermore, work on the ontogenetic formation of determiner systems – and thus language acquisition research – can also provide important insights. This is especially true with regard to favouring or inhibiting acquisition factors of determiners as well as with regard to cross-linguistic typological differences and their effects in the multilingual individual (cf. Bassano 2010; Bassano et al. 2011; Kupisch 2006).
Finally, a wide variety of Romance contact varieties and Romance-based creole languages also offer a fruitful field of research for the study of systems of nominal determination. This is especially true because in such varieties – in contrast to Romance lexifier languages – bare nominals are less restricted. Examples include Brazilian Portuguese (Wall 2017), Afro-Bolivian Spanish (Gutiérrez-Rexach/Sessarego 2011), as well as various creoles (cf. among others Kester/Schmitt 2007; Aboh/de Graff 2014; Baptista 2002, 30-35; Albers 2020; Wiesinger 2017; in press). To what extent such, often unstable nominal systems can also be explained typologically and in terms of grammaticalisation scales, or at least meaningfully interpreted, is still a largely open research question.

Call for Papers:

The panel aims to address the indicated research questions, especially – but not only – in the domains of the syntax-semantics interface, of diachrony and language acquisition, and of language contact. Possible contributions may focus on the following aspects, which are, however, by no means to be understood as exhaustive, and may also be combined:

– Syntax-semantics interface: possibilities and variation of nominal determination in different Romance varieties and their semantic and/or pragmatic functions, optionally also taking into account diastratic and diaphasic restrictions (e.g. use of determinerless nouns in headlines, anthroponyms with determiners as a phenomenon of linguistic immediacy);
– Diachrony and language acquisition: grammaticalisation of determiners, interrupted evolutions or preservation of older stages of a given language, e.g. in phraseologisms, the development of Romance nominal determiner systems from a typological point of view, nominal determiners and language acquisition;
– Language contact: nominal determination in Romance contact varieties and contact languages.

In addition to the empirical investigation and theoretical modelling of the presence and absence of determiners in Romance, the aim of the panel is to create a forum for unbiased, open exchange between researchers working in formal and functional frameworks, who – according to our impression – could benefit much more from each other than is currently the case. The panel thus explicitly wants to create a locus for a critical examination of one’s own and other “research programmes” in order to uncover hitherto unused synergies and thus not only do justice to a heterogeneous, diversified research landscape, but also to unify it with regard to the exploration of its common core questions.
We welcome contributions on all Romance varieties, especially those not representing the major national languages. Talks may be held equally in any Romance variety, English or German.

We invite submissions for talks (25 minutes + 10 minutes discussion). Abstracts should be sent to both organisers by December 31, 2022:

David Paul Gerards (Johannes Gutenberg-University of Mainz): david.gerards(at)uni-mainz.de
Désirée Kleineberg (University of Bielefeld): desiree.kleineberg(at)uni-bielefeld.de

Abstract guidelines:
Abstracts may not exceed 4,000 characters (including spaces and references) and should be submitted in both .pdf and .docx.

Notification: by February 15, 2023.

Please note that the conference will take place in person in Leipzig, Germany.