Call for papers

The verbal systems of Australian languages.

Organiser: Patrick Caudal et al
Awareness of the complexity and typological interest of the semantics of verbal systems in Australian languages has dramatically grown over the past ten years, as testified by a flurry of recent works exploring it in two main directions:

(i) The grammatical, lexical or lexico-grammatical make-up of verbal predicates; see e.g. the notion of “verb classifier” in Schultze-Berndt (2000) and McGregor (2002), the semantic study of languages possessing rich derivational verbal systems (Caudal et al. (2012); Singer (2011)) or recent studies of complex predicate systems in Australian languages, cf. e.g. Baker & Harvey (2010); Nordlinger (2010b), be they realized through morphologically complex verb templates as in e.g. Murrinh-Patha, or via syntactically realized coverb systems, as in e.g. Jaminjung, or other syntactictally realized complex predication mechanisms (aspectual light verbs playing a special role in the verbal system, serial verb constructions…);

(ii) TAME grammatical markers, be they inflexional/derivational, see e.g. Nordlinger & Caudal (2012); Schultze-Berndt (2012); Verstraete (2005)) or discourse particles, discourse connectives or clitics (cf. e.g. Ritz et al. (2012).

The present workshop aims at fostering further this still relatively new field of research by bringing together works related to the semantics or morpho-semantics of verbal predicates in Australian languages, or their analysis at the syntax/semantics interface. Submissions bearing on the three following sub-topics are particularly welcome :

1. The lexical and grammatical basis of event descriptions in Australian languages, including:

1.1 Simplex vs. complex event descriptions (complex predicate systems, light verbs / serial verb / co-verb systems)...);

1.2 Verbal derivation systems (including works on conjugation class marking with a possible semantic basis – see e.g. Caudal et al. (2012) on Panyjima);

1.3 Comparative/typological and historical approaches to verbal predicate formation in Australian languages, as there might exist several development paths relating morphologically complex vs. simple and semantically complex vs. simple verbal predicate formation systems among Australian languages.

2. Descriptive, comparative/typological, historical and theoretical studies of TAME systems of Australian languages, either derivational or inflexional, including :

2.1 Studies of TAME markers in isolation (i.e. studies of individual TAME markers);

2.2 Studies of TAME markers in combination ; the interaction of tense/aspect with modality and evidentiality or the modality/evidentiality inter-relation has thus become one of the most explored, and also most debated topics in the general semantic community (see e.g. Homer (2011); Matthewson (2011); Squartini (2008)) as well as in the Australianist community (see e.g. McGregor (2009); Nordlinger & Caudal (2012) on the TA/modality interaction);

2.3 Studies of complete TAME inflexional/derivational systems (within a grammatical perspective).

3. Grammatical means of modifying or altering (via e.g. presuppositions etc.) event descriptions, including:

3.1 Aspect or time-related discourse connectives;

3.2. Clitics taking scope over event descriptions, or playing a key role in their contextual interpretation;

3.3 Adverbial modifiers.

This workshop is officially supported by the TAMEAL Marie-Curie project, “The interrelation of Tense, Aspect and Modality with Evidentiality in Australian Aboriginal languages”, http://tameal.linguist.univ-paris-diderot.fr/, as well as by the Empirical Foundations of Linguistics (EFL) Labex project (http://www.labex-efl.org/)
A session on aspect in Australian languages is envisaged to be held jointly with the workshop Aspect across languages: divergence and convergence.

References

Baker, Brett; Mark Harvey (2010). "Complex predicate formation". In Amberber, Mengistu; Brett Baker; Mark Harvey (eds.), Complex Predicates - Cross-linguistic Perspectives on Event Structure, 13-47. Cambridge: Cambridge University Press.

Caudal, Patrick; Alan Dench; Laurent Roussarie (2012). "A semantic type-driven account of verb-formation patterns in Panyjima". Australian Journal of Linguistics 32(1):119-159.

Homer, Vincent (2011). "French Modals and Perfective: A Case of Aspectual Coercion". In Byram-Washburn, Mary; Katherine McKinney-Bock; Erika Varis; Ann Sawyer; Barbara Tomaszewicz (eds.), Proceedings of WCCFL 28, 106-114. Somerville, MA.: Cascadilla.

Matthewson, Lisa (2011). "On apparently non-modal evidentials". In Bonami, Olivier; Patricia Cabredo Hofherr (eds.), Empirical Issues in Syntax and Semantics 8, 333–357. Paris: Université Paris-Sorbonne.

McGregor, William (2002). Verb classification in Australian languages. Berlin: Mouton de Gruyter.

McGregor, William B (2009). "Another view of the Gooniyandi and its implications to the Van linden-Verstraete typology". Journal of Pragmatics 41(1):157-162.

Nordlinger, Rachel (2010). "Complex predicates in Wambaya: detaching predicate composition from syntactic structure". In Amberber, Mengistu; Brett Baker; Mark Harvey (eds.), Complex Predicates - Cross-linguistic Perspectives on Event Structure, 237-258. Cambridge: Cambridge University Press.

Nordlinger, Rachel; Patrick Caudal (2012). "The Tense, Aspect and Modality system in Murrinh-Patha". Australian Journal of Linguistics 32(1):75-117.

Ritz, Marie-Eve; Alan Dench; Patrick Caudal (2012). "Now or Then? The clitic –rru in Panyjima: Temporal properties in discourse". Australian Journal of Linguistics 32(1):41-73.

Schultze-Berndt, Eva (2012). "Pluractional Posing as Progressive: A Construction between Lexical and Grammatical Aspect". Australian Journal of Linguistics 32(1):7-39.

Schultze-Berndt, Eva (2000). Simple and Complex Verbs in Jaminjung – A study of event categorisation in an Australian language. PhD Thesis. Universiteit Nijmegen.

Singer, Ruth (2011). "You want to do what with what? Interaction between verbal gender agreement and selection in the Mawng verb". Talk given at Australian Languages Workshop 2011, Stradbroke Island, University of Queensland, 10-13. March, 2011.

Squartini, Mario (2008). "Lexical vs. grammatical evidentiality in French and Italian.". Linguistics 46(5):917 - 947.

Verstraete, Jean-Christophe (2005). "The semantics and pragmatics of composite mood marking: The non-Pama-Nyungan languages of northern Australia". Linguistic Typology 9(2):223-268.