Linguistic SFB Meetup 2022

Language is characterized by alternation at all levels – e. g. sociophonetic and morphosyntactic variation, competition between alternatives underlying scalar implicatures, or multilingual speakers’ choice between their languages – and all dimensions, including phonetic realization, logical and social meanings, complexity, contributions to discourse relations, among many others. The choice between alternatives is conditioned by numerous aspects, both the narrower linguistic and discourse context and the broader situation of language use, leading to differences in prominence of variants. The principles guiding such contextually driven variation in the choice between alternatives are a part of linguistic knowledge, which must be acquired by language learners; such variation can be studied experimentally in language processing and investigated as a driver of language change.

In this workshop, we invite work investigating the interplay of alternatives and context, and the variability that results, including theoretical, experimental, computational and historical perspectives.

4-5 July 2022

Topic: Alternatives, contexts and variation

Leibniz-ZAS, Schützenstr. 18, 10117 Berlin

Plan & Timeline

This two-day workshop will be hybrid in nature and held over the course of two days, leaving plenty of room for discussion and interaction (possibly including a joint dinner). Each SFB presents a short introduction with reference to their goals and the workshop theme. There are up to 4 talks per SFB. A special PhD session allows junior researchers to get together to share their experiences. A final roundtable will give the opportunity to exchange organizational challenges the different SFBs face.

Researchers who would like to present at the workshop should get in touch with the speaker of their SFB. Each SFB will have their own internal selection process.

Program

	Day 1: July 4, 2022
10:00–10:45	Introduction from each SFB	SFB 1102 & SFB 1252 & SFB 1287 & SFB 1412
10:45–11:00	Coffee break
11:00–11:30	Regine Bader (Universität des Saarlandes)	Context-relevant schemas support unitized encoding and familiarity-based retrieval of schema-congruent novel compound words. Abstract
11:30–12:00	Stefania Degaetano-Ortlieb & Elke Teich (Universität des Saarlandes)	Towards a communicative explanation of diachronic language change: an information-theoretic approach. Abstract
12:00–12:30	Torsten Jachmann (Universität des Saarlandes)	The immediate influence of speaker gaze on situated speech comprehension. Abstract
12:30–14:00	Lunch break
14:00–15:30	PhD Session & Organisational session	Parallel informal meetings: PhD students (discuss and share experiences) PhD PIs (discuss organizational challenges)
15:30–16:00	Coffee break
16:00–16:30	Anna Marklová, Olga Buchmüller, Roland Meyer, Luka Szucsich, Christoph Demian & Agata Zorkina (Humboldt-Universität zu Berlin)	Register investigation on Czech: Designing an MDA-based experimental study. Abstract
16:30–17:00	Stephanie Rotter & Mingya Liu (Humboldt-Universität zu Berlin)	Register Sensitivity of Negative Concord and NPIs in Varieties of English. Abstract
17:00–17:30	Valentina N. Pescuma, Camilo Rodríguez-Ronderos, Aine Ito, Katja Maquate & Pia Knoeferle (Humboldt-Universität zu Berlin)	(How) Does Processing of Register and Morphosyntactic Congruence Affect Sentence Comprehension? Two Eye-Tracking Pilot Studies. Abstract
18:00–	Dinner	at Cana Restaurant: https://www.canarestaurant.de/
	Day 2: July 5, 2022
09:00–09:30	Julia Lukassek, Anke Lüdeling, Anna Shadrova & Shujun Wan (Humboldt-Universität zu Berlin)	Complex nouns as markers of academic register in L1- and L2-authored essays
09:30–10:00	Nina Adam, Andreas Hölzl & Andreas Schmidt (Universität Potsdam)	Aspects of the OV/VO alternation. Abstract
10:00–10:30	Heiko Seeliger (Universität zu Köln)	Prosodic focus marking in German declarative questions. Abstract
10:30–11:00	Coffee break
11:00–11:30	Iga Kosciolek & Daniel Bunčić (Universität zu Köln)	Anaphoric reference to demoted agents: preliminary data. Abstract
11:30–12:00	Christopher Saure & Stefan Hinterwimmer (Universität zu Köln)	The effect of perspectivally prominent narrators on the availability of protagonists as perspectival centers: An experimental investigation. Abstract
12:30–14:00	Lunch & Farewell

Registration:

Please register by June 30, 2022 to let us know whether you will attend in person or online and whether you will attend the conference dinner on Monday July 4, 2022.

Important Dates

voicing interest: March / April
selection of presenters: April 30, 2022
submission of abstract: May 31, 2022
registration until June 30, 2022

Program Committee

Stephanie Solt
Tonjes Veenstra
Vahid Mortezapour
Nico Lehmann

Call

Contributions to the workshop may cover, but are not limited to, the following topics:

alternation
context
variation
register

Format of the Abstracts

Authors should submit abstracts to each CRC head.

References should be formatted according to the APA guidelines. Abstracts will be peer reviewed. Talks will be given 30 minute slots including discussion. The workshop language is English.

Funded by the Deutsche Forschungsgemeinschaft (DFG, German Research Foundation) – SFB 1412, 416591334