SLE 2024 Workshop: Spatial (a)symmetries across languages

This workshop aims to bring together scholars addressing topics related to spatial (a)symmetries in the expression of motion events (e.g., source- vs. goal-oriented motion, fast vs. slow motion, itive vs. ventive orientation).
Topics include but are not limited to:
– structural, semantic, and discursive manifestations of spatial asymmetries in the expression of motion events;
– the relation between Slow vs. Fast motion and Source-oriented vs. Goal-oriented motion in (i) the conflation of fine-grained semantic components of Path and Manner in verbs, and (ii) the semantic congruence and co-occurrences of Slow vs. Fast motion expressions and Source vs. Goal expressions;
– the relation between deictic expressions, itive (centrifugal) vs. ventive (centripetal) and Source-oriented vs. Goal-oriented motion in terms of combinations and language use;
– diachronic changes in motion verb lexicon and/or grammatical systems, specifically concerning the evolution of spatial (a)symmetries over time and their interaction with various semantic features linked to the description of space.

We invite submissions that investigate both well described and less studied languages using different methods and data sources (e.g., field data, text and corpus-driven data; experimental and stimulus-based data), and including spoken and/or written modality.

A detailed description of the workshop can be found at the following link:
https://societaslinguistica.eu/sle2024/wp-content/uploads/sites/6/2023/10/Spatial-asymmetries-across-languages.pdf

Call for papers
We invite abstracts of 300 words max. (including examples but not references) that should be sent to the workshop organisers by November 15, 2023. If the workshop proposal is approved by the SLE Scientific Committee, authors will be asked to submit revised full 500-word abstracts to EasyChair for external evaluation by January 15, 2024.

Workshop convenors
Anetta Kopecka (Laboratoire Dynamique du Langage, CNRS & Université Lyon 2, France)
anetta.kopecka[at]univ-lyon2.fr
Benjamin Fagard (Laboratoire Lattice, CNRS, ENS|PSL & Sorbonne Nouvelle| University of Indiana)
benjamin.fagard[at]cnrs.fr