Constructs and constructions

Gert Webelhuth taught a seminar on "Sign-based Construction Grammar: an overview and application", by invitation of the LVTC research group, in which he introduced the philosophy underlying the constructional approaches and described Sign-based Construction Grammar.
CV: Gert Webelhuth is Professor of English linguistics at the Department of English in Göttingen. After completing an MA and a PhD in Linguistics at the University of Massachusetts at Amherst, Prof Webelhuth lectured in different institutions in the US, among others, UCLA, Maryland, Cornell, Wisconsin, Stanford and the University of North Carolina at Chapel Hill. He will soon be appointed as Full Professor of English linguistics at the University of Frankfurt. His research is focused on syntactic theory and analysis, in particular, the interface between syntax and semantics/discourse-text structure, predication, corpus linguistics, and psyco- and neurolinguistics. He is interested in the cognitive representation and the computation of linguistic form, meaning and use. Out of the list of his publications, let us mention his books Lexical and Constructional Aspects of Linguistic Explanation (1999, CSLI, co-edited by Jean-Pierre Koenig and Andreas Kathol), A Theory of Predicates (1998, Stanford: CSLI, co-authored by Farrell Ackerman), Government and Binding Theory and the Minimalist Program: Principles and Parameters in Syntactic Theory (1995, ed., Blackwell) and Principles and Parameters of Syntactic Saturation (1992, Oxford University Press).
Abstract of the seminar: Sign-based Construction Grammar (SBCG) is a new framework created at Stanford University and the University of California at Berkeley. It combines the advantages of Head-driven Phrase Structure Grammar and Construction Grammar. The workshop presented an overview of SBCG without prerequisites and discuss its motivations as well as its relationship to transformational grammar. More information about the framework at http://lingo.stanford.edu/sag/papers/theo-syno.pdf.

Cartography of the English clause

Liliane Haegeman conducted the seminar “Cartography, intervention and the left periphery in English”, in which she paid attention to the revision of Rizzi’s cartography as well as to consequences which the placement of adverbials has for the syntax of the clause.
CV: Prof Liliane Haegeman completed her BA and PhD degrees at the University of Ghent. After that, she became Full Professor at the Universities of, first, Geneva and, later, Charles de Gaulle (Lile III). Currently, she is Full Profesor at the English Department in Ghent. Prof Haegeman has taught courses which cover, among others, topics in English and general linguistics, syntactic theory, comparative syntax and the syntax of Germanic languages. In her research she tries to couple empirical data and syntactic theory in such a way that the former can either corroborate or refute findings which have been favoured by the theory of grammar. Her investigation has been focused mainly on dialect variation (with special reference to English and West Flemish, which is her native language), agreement properties of conjunctions, sentential negation, the expression of the possessor relation and register-based variation (especially ellipsis). Currently she is interested in the analysis of the structure of the left egde of the clause and the syntax of adverbials and its implication for the functional articulation or the “cartography” of the sentence. Liliane Haegeman has written and edited a number of specialised volumes in Routledge, Blackwell, Cambridge University Press, Mouton de Gruyter, Kluwer, Longman, etc. She is the author of more than 100 articles and book chapters in prestigious journals and publishing houses. She belongs to the editorial committees of, among others, Linguistic Aktuell/Linguistics Today, Lingua, Syntax and Linguistic Inquiry.
Abstract of the seminar: Starting from the idea that all structure is formed according to the X-bar format it was shown that the simple clause structure in terms of CP-IP-VP is insufficient to capture the empirical data of English. The lectures focused on the CP layer and provided arguments for decomposing CP into an articulated hierarchy of functional projections which encoded concepts related to information structure/discourse anchoring. After a general presenation of the articulated CP as proposed in Rizzi (1997), additional evidence was provided from English to support the proposal. The cartographic approach to clause structure has elaborated a highly articulated template of projections in the CP domain. However, the status of the template in linguistic theory may be questioned. In particular the question arises whether, for instance, the sequence Topic> Focus does not follow direction from Information Structure, old information preceding new information. Alternatively, the sequence can be made to follow from an enriched theory of intervention (Abels 2008, Haegeman 2008). In this respect, the status of the lower topic, following Focus, raises interesting questions. It will be shown that the availability of the lower topic in some languages and its absence in others can be derived from intervention effects. Some clause types seem to have a reduced left periphery; adverbial clauses are a case in point. Two approaches to account for this reduced left periphery were examined, one closely cartographic which postulates that the relevant domains are reduced and lack a particular stretch of the CP-layer, another which explores a theory of intervention to derive the observed patterns.

Functional Discourse Grammar: An Introduction

Lachlan Mackenzie, from the VU University Amsterdam, conducted a five-hour seminar in which he presented a functional-typological approach to language.
CV details: Lachlan Mackenzie was initially trained in his native Scotland but his career was centred in the Netherlands, where he retains the position of Honorary Professor of Functional Linguistics. He has worked as a Consultant in Languages and Linguistics, with an experience of over 30 years. His skills and expertise are primarily in European languages, with a specialization in English linguistics. Throughout his career, he has actively collaborated with universities and research centres across Europe. He is now based in Portugal, working as a researcher at the Institute for Theoretical and Computational Linguistics (ILTEC) in Lisbon. His current investigation there focuses on the relation between Functional Discourse Grammar and dialogue.
Lachlan Mackenzie combines his research at the ILTEC with the work derived from his position of Research Manager of the Santiago-based international research programme SCIMITAR, a programme investigating the grammar-discourse interface from the perspective of language typology, information processing and language acquisition; with the editorial work of the major journal of functional linguistics, Functions of Language; and with a range of undertakings in Functional Discourse Grammar.
Lachlan Mackenzie has published extensively. Three of the latest titles deserve special mention:
Gómez-González, M.A., J.L. Mackenzie & E. González-Álvarez (2008). Introduction. In Gómez-González, M.A., J.L. Mackenzie & E. González-Álvarez (eds.), Languages and Cultures in Contrast and Comparison. Amsterdam: Benjamins, pp. xv-xxii.
Gómez-González, M.A., J.L. Mackenzie & E. González-Álvarez (2008). Introduction. In Gómez-González, M.A., J.L. Mackenzie & E. González-Álvarez (eds.), Current Trends in Contrastive Linguistics: Functional and Cognitive Perspectives. Amsterdam: Benjamins, pp. xv-xxii.
Hengeveld, K. & J.L. Mackenzie (2008). Functional Discourse Grammar: A Typologically-based Theory of Language Structure. Oxford: Oxford University Press.
Abstract of the seminar: Functional Discourse Grammar is a functional-typological approach to language that views language as organised top-down. Four levels of organization are distinguished: interpersonal, representational, morphosyntactic and phonological. Each level is structured hierarchically into layers, taking the Discourse Act as the basic unit of analysis, which can be combined into higher-layer units and decomposed into smaller units. The four levels of analysis interact to render linguistic forms. These levels are linked to a conceptual, a contextual, and an output component. The theory tries to strike a balance between fuctionalism and formalism. This theory is contained in the 2008 book mentioned before, Functional Discourse Grammar: A Typologically-based Theory of Language Structure.

On compounding and lexicalism; metrics

Heinz Giegerich, from the University of Edinburgh, taught a five-hour seminar on various aspects of morphophonology and English metrics.
CV details: Heinz Giegerich arrived in Edinburgh in 1979 and has been Professor of English Linguistics in the Department of Linguistics and English Language since 1997.
Since completing his own PhD in 1983, on the theory of Metrical Phonology in relation to German and English, he has supervised a number of PhD students and has taught extensively at both undergraduate and postgraduate levels. His own research focuses on theories of phonological representation and derivation in relation to English and German. He has published a number of articles and books on English and German syllable structure, stress and rhythm within the theory of Metrical Phonology, as well as on the problem of constraining phonological derivations. More recently he has worked on the Lexical Morphology and Phonology of the two languages, developing the theory of 'base-driven lexical stratification'. His on-going resarch is increasingly concerned with morphology. Alongside 'real' research, he has for many years been interested in making the outcomes of research in English linguistics accessible to undergraduate students. He is currently preparing a long-overdue second edition of English Phonology (Cambridge University Press, 1992). For Edinburgh University Press he has founded (and is now General Editor of) the Edinburgh Textbooks on the English Language, a new series of introductory texts dealing with all major aspects of English Linguistics, and he has recently launched a new journal, Word Structure.
Abstract of the seminars:
27 November.- In these lectures, Giegerich looked at proposals to divide the grammar into two major modules – the syntax and the lexicon – and the latter into two ‘sub-modules’ or ‘strata’, in order to then analyse a number of phenomena that seem to straddle the divide between these modules – traditional ‘compounds’ and some Adjective-plus-Noun constructions not usually treated as compounds. To finish off, Giegerich discussed the generally assumed difference between compounds and phrases in terms of stress, and challenged the idea that compound stress is determined by structural geometry – “stress the right-hand element if and only if it branches”. He argued that these assumptions are wrong, and that phrases can have fore-stress or end-stress while compounds can have fore-stress or end-stress, in order to conclude that tree geometry has nothing to do with any of this, but the semantics does.
28 November.- The first lecture focused on the link between speech prosody (‘rhythm’) and verse prosody (‘metre’) in English. Giegerich showed that in English, accentual metres are ‘good’ and syllabic metres are ‘bad’, and that the principal characteristics of the successful verse forms in English derive from the fact that English is a stress-timed language. The second lecture focused on Robert Frost’s Stopping by Woods on a Snowy Evening. Giegerich argued that, while most poems have two levels of interpretation – namely what the text says and what the poem ‘means’ – this particular poem has three. He showed that in Stopping there is a distinct level of interpretation containing what the text doesn’t and indeed refuses to say, and that the poem’s ‘meaning’ depends on this level.

On grammatical reanalysis

Wim van der Wurff, from Newcastle University taught on "Grammatical reanalysis: conditions and consequences" in May 2008.
Cv details: Wim van der Wurff, who holds a PhD from the University of Amsterdam, teaches English historical linguistics at the School of English Literature, Language and Linguistics in Newcastle, and carries out research on diachronic syntax, grammaticalisation, tense/mood/aspect systems and also on other non-historical areas such as second language acquisition, academic writing or English in Europe. He has co-authored the book The syntax of early English and the "Syntax" chapter in A history of the English language, both published by Cambridge University Press. He has edited a special issue on word order in the history of English in the journal English Language and Linguistics (Cambridge University Press) as well as the recent volume Imperative clauses in Generative Grammar (John Benjamins).
Abstract of the workshop: Van der Wurff has discussed the nature of (various types of) reanalysis and the way it underlies some of the major grammatical changes that English has undergone in the early and modern periods. At a theoretical level, these analyses have been used to probe the interaction between language system and language use in change. More specifically, Wim van der Wurff dealt with the concept of reanalaysis and actualisation, the lexical item withall, the expression do nothing but + V, the easy-to-use construction, relativiser/demonstrative that, the change from OV to VO word order in the history of English, the decline of V2 and the role of double modals (might could) in some dialects of English.