Program Abstracts Proceedings Recorded lectures

 

The Institute for Linguistic Studies, Russian Academy of Sciences (Saint Petersburg, Russia) is pleased to announce the 18th Conference on Typology and Grammar for Young Scholars, which will be held in Saint Petersburg, 25–27 November 2021.

Invited Speakers:

• Greville G. Corbett (University of Surrey, Guildford), “Renewing the Agreement Hierarchy: A canonical typology approach”

Abstract: The Agreement Hierarchy consists of these target positions: attributive, predicate, relative pronoun and personal pronoun. It constrains the distribution of agreement options in that the likelihood of agreement with greater semantic justification increases monotonically as we move up the hierarchy. The Agreement Hierarchy covers a wide range of disparate data, and continues to figure regularly in work on theoretical syntax. Since the hierarchy was first proposed, typology has moved on. This means that to remain fit for the purposes for which it is currently used, the hierarchy needs an overhaul. The area where most progress has been made, and the need for revisiting is greatest, is the typology of agreement controllers. This is therefore our focus. The canonical typology of controllers has two dimensions: lexeme to phrase, and local to extraneous (the latter involving honorific agreement, associative agreement, back agreement and ‘pancake sentences’). The two dimensions are amply illustrated. Finally, interactions between the different types of agreement controller are investigated, since these prove revealing for the typology. Besides making progress in the typology of agreement, the paper contributes to typology more generally, in showing how we can benefit from insights from other typological disciplines.

• Maria Polinsky (University of Maryland, College Park),“In search of experimental syntax”

Abstract: In this talk, I will present and analyze some core principles of experimental approaches to syntax. I will start the talk by discussing what motivates the emergence of the experimental paradigm in syntactic investigations and the ways in which experimental syntax has been successful. I will then present some phenomena where experimental investigations are not warranted because the analysis of primary data is sufficient to update existing models. From there, the discussion will move to those cases where experimental work in syntax can help distinguish between different theoretical analyses (experiments at the service of theory) and to the opposite set of cases where theoretical sophistication can help us refine our experimental measures. The phenomena under discussion include case, agreement, concord, anaphoric and syntactic long-distance dependencies. 

• Peter Arkadiev (Institute of Slavic Studies, Russian Academy of Sciences, Moscow / Russian State University for the Humanities, Moscow), "Typology of polysynthesis and Northwest Caucasian languages"

Abstract: In my lecture I shall address problematic issues pertaining to definitions and constituting properties of polysynthesis and typology of polysynthetic languages, and shall focus on what Northwest Caucasian languages can contribute to our better understanding of these issues.

 

Submissions from young researchers (35 years old and younger) working in any area of linguistic typology, corpus linguistics, grammar and phonology are welcome. Each talk selected for presentation will be allotted 20 minutes followed by 10 minutes of discussion. The official languages of the conference are Russian and English. Abstracts can be written in either language. Note that the abstract should not exceed 4000 characters (counting spaces), excluding references and abbreviations, otherwise it will be rejected on formal grounds. In the abstract, please specify the problem, methods and findings of the research. One individual may be involved in a maximum of two abstracts (maximum of one as sole author). 

The deadline for abstract submission has been extended. A new deadline is 10 September 2021. Anonymous abstracts should be submitted via the conference website. 

All inquiries can be addressed to the conference email box: youngconfspb@gmail.com.

The decision of the Organizing Committee on acceptance/rejection of submissions will be announced to authors no later than 19 September 2021.

There is no participation fee.

The conference will be held online (via Zoom).

For submissions in English: https://www.youngconfspb.com/e/abstract-submission.

For submissions in Russian: https://www.youngconfspb.com/podacha-tezisov.  

Important Dates:

Submission deadline: 10 September 2021

Notification of acceptance: no later than 19 September 2021

Conference: 25–27 November 2021

Organizing Committee:

Elizaveta Zabelina, Research Assistant, ILS RAS (Chair)

Daria Mishchenko, Junior Research Fellow, ILS RAS (Secretary)

Maksim Fedotov, Junior Research Fellow, ILS RAS

Dmitry Gerasimov, Junior Research Fellow, ILS RAS

Maria Kholodilova, Research Fellow, ILS RAS

Sergei Klimenko, Research Fellow, ILS RAS 

Olga Kuznetsova, Research Fellow, ILS RAS

Natalia Logvinova, Research Assistant, ILS RAS

Sofia Oskolskaya, Senior Research Fellow, ILS RAS

Natalia Zaika, Senior Research Fellow, ILS RAS