DGfS2023_AG7: DGfS 2023, AG 7: Economy, routine and creativity in syntactic change |
Submission link | https://easychair.org/conferences/?conf=dgfs2023-ag7 |
Abstract registration deadline | July 20, 2022 |
Submission deadline | August 21, 2022 |
Call for Papers
45th DGfS Conference AG7: Economy, routine and creativity in syntactic change
Date: 8-10 March 2023
Location: Cologne
Invited speaker:
Ian Roberts (Cambridge University)
Dalina Kallulli (University of Vienna)
Organizers:
Marco Coniglio (Georg-August-Universität Göttingen)
Sophia Oppermann (Friedrich-Schiller-Universität Jena)
Katharina Paul (Georg-August-Universität Göttingen)
Description:
Economy has been argued to play a fundamental role in many linguistic fields, including diachronic syntax. For example, it is well known to be of relevance for grammaticalization processes, cyclical changes, specific principles underlying language change (such as the Head Preference Principle and Late Merge; cf. van Gelderen 2021) etc. In particular, economy is often associated with routine since it seems to ensure regularity in diachronic processes. In contrast, creativity – often identified with extravagance, innovation, renewal etc. – is unpredictable (cf. van Gelderen 2021: 35) and could be considered not to be governed by economy.
However, economy can also lead to innovations in a language. For example, the grammaticalization of the Old High German relative pronoun thaz ‘that’ (cf. Axel 2009: 37) results in the emergence of a new complementizer (via Head Preference Principle). On the other hand, creativity sometimes feeds cyclical processes as in the case of the post-verbal negation particle (cf. Jäger 2008; Breitbarth 2014). This interaction between economy and creativity vs. routine has been less investigated so far.
The aim of this workshop is to bring together linguists from different areas of syntax and its interfaces who are interested in exploring the interplay of economy with both creativity and routine in syntactic change. The workshop will focus on (but will not be restricted to) the following topics:
- To what extent are language change processes influenced by economy?
- What can be identified as universal economy principles, cycles and grammaticalization processes (see e.g., syntactic climbing, Roberts & Roussou 2003; or Rebracketing, cf. Weiß 2019)?
- What is the role of economy in different syntactic approaches, e.g., Labeling (cf. Kallulli & Roberts 2022; van Gelderen 2021),
- Are linguistic routines always driven by economy, as commonly assumed? Conversely, can creativity always be seen as “uneconomic”?
For this workshop, we welcome papers on syntactic change that address these and related issues both from a theoretical and empirical perspective. Anonymous abstracts for 20-minute presentations (plus 10 minutes discussion) must be submitted in .doc and in PDF format. They should not exceed one page in length (excluding examples and references), in a font size no less than 12pt.
Abstracts are to be submitted via EasyChair no later than August 15, 2022: https://easychair.org/conferences/?conf=dgfs2023-ag7
References: Axel, Katrin. 2009. Die Entstehung des dass-Satzes – ein neues Szenario. LB Sonderheft 16. 21–41. Breitbarth, Anne. 2014. The history of Low German negation. Oxford: UVP. Van Gelderen, Elly. 2021. Third factors in language variation and change. Cambridge: UVP. Jäger, Agnes. 2008. History of German negation. Amsterdam: Benjamins. Roberts, Ian & Kallulli, Dalina. 2022. Defectivity and auxiliary syncretism: diachronic aspects. Talk at DiGS2023, NYU. Roberts, Ian & Roussou, Anna. 2003. Syntactic change: a minimalist approach to grammaticalization. Cambridge: UVP. Weiß, Helmut. 2019. Rebracketing (Gliederungsverschiebung) and the Early Merge Principle. Diachronica 36(4). 509–545.