Aim of the workshop:
Cross-linguistic work in semantics has grown substantially in recent years. Pragmatics has lagged behind, perhaps because it widely assumed to derive from universal principles of human rationality despite the early critique of the universality assumption by E. O. Keenan (1976). Investigating pragmatics cross-linguistically also can shed light on current proposals to conventionalize aspects of pragmatics. Finally, studying pragmatics cross-linguistic makes it possible to see how pragmatic principles interact with the grammatical properties of different languages.
We seek additional contributions that advance pragmatic theory by adopting a cross-linguistic perspective or by relying on data from understudied languages. The cross-linguistic perspective often requires careful methodological considerations including formal experiments to ascertain that comparisons are valid. Therefore experiment-based contributions are specifically encouraged.
Organizers:
Fabienne Salfner, Uli Sauerland (SSI), Malte Zimmermann (ExCl)
Invited speakers:
Suzi Lima (University of Toronto), Lisa Matthewson (UBC), Yasutada Sudo (UCL, UK)
Time and Venue:
25 -27 January 2017 at ZAS Berlin, Trajekte-Raum, 3rd floor (→Map)
How to get to ZAS!
Please register with your name and affiliation via e-mail to xprag.de@gmail.com
Wednesday, 25th
| Time | Event |
|---|---|
| 13:00 – 14:15 | WELCOME with COFFEE |
| 14:15 – 15:15 | Yasutada Sudo (UCL, UK) The Morphosemantics of the Slovenian Dual (Abstract) |
| 15:15 – 16:00 | Sophie Repp, Marlijn Meijer, Berry Claus (HU Berlin, Germany) A cross-linguistic view on speaker variation in the interpretation of response particles (Abstract) |
| 16:00 – 16:30 | COFFEE BREAK |
| 16:30 – 17:15 | Gisle Andersen (NHH, Norway) Pragmatic borrowing of discourse items: a challenge for cross-linguistic pragmatics (Abstract) |
| 17:15 – 18:00 | Dimitra Lazaridou-Chatzigoga (HU Berlin, Germany), Napoleon Katsos (University of Cambridge, UK) & Linnaea Stockall (Queen Mary, University of London) Generic and universally quantified generalisations: a cross-linguistic experimental study in English and Greek (Abstract) |
| 18:30 | Dinner at Brauhaus Georgbräu, Spreeufer 4, 10178 Berlin |
Thursday, 26th
| Time | Event |
|---|---|
| 11:00 – 12:00 | Suzi Lima (University of Toronto, Canada) Interpretation of container phrases across languages: counting and measuring |
| 12:00 – 15:15 | LUNCH BREAK |
| 15:15 – 16:00 | François Nemo & Antonia Cristinoi (Université d’Orléans, France) The Pragmatics of “Semantic” Classification: a Cross-Linguistic Perspective (Abstract) |
| 16:00 – 16:30 | COFFEE BREAK |
| 16:30 – 17:15 | Barbara Tomaszewicz & Petra Schumacher (University of Cologne, Germany) The effects of Focus Association and of Contextual Focus on Discourse Coherence (Abstract) |
| 17:15 – 18:00 | Agata Renans (Ulster University, UK), Nadine Bade (Tübingen University, Germany) & Joseph DeVaugh-Geiss (Potsdam University, Germany) Cross-linguistic variation in pragmatics: Maximize Presupposition vs. Obligatory Implicatures in Ga (Kwa) (Abstract) |
Friday, 27th
| Time | Event |
|---|---|
| 10:00 – 11:00 | Lisa Matthewson (UBC, Canada) Micro-variation in the pragmatics of verum |
| 11:00 – 11:30 | COFFEE BREAK |
| 11:30 – 12:15 | Ryan Bochnak (Universität Konstanz/Universität Leipzig, Germany), Vera Hohaus (Tübingen University, Germany) & Anne Mucha (IDS Mannheim, Germany) Sequence of tense in complement clauses: New insights from understudied languages (Abstract) |