MECORE closing workshop

Advances in the semantics of clause-embedding predicates: theories, cross-linguistic data, and experimentation

19–21 June 2024, Konstanz

Invited speakers

  • Tanya Bondarenko (Harvard)
  • Kajsa Djärv (Edinburgh)
    on joint work with Luke Adamson (ZAS)
  • Mora Maldonado (Nantes)
  • Paul Portner (Georgetown)
  • Jeanne Lecavelier and Malte Zimmermann (Potsdam)

Workshop info

Submission deadline: January 15th, 2024
Notifications: February 15th, 2024
Extended deadline: January 25th, 2024 @ midnight AoE
Notifications: March 11th, 2024
Submission link

This workshop concerns the semantic properties and subcategorization patterns of clause-embedding predicates (e.g., believe, know, wonder). We aim to bring together researchers working on the semantics of clause-embedding predicates using a variety of theoretical and methodological approaches (e.g., fieldwork, experimental, computational), and to discuss new developments and open issues in the research area. 

The overall theme of the workshop is to address the following research question: 

Research question: Do the semantic properties of clause-embedding predicates determine, possibly in part, their subcategorization patterns? If so, how should this interaction between these semantic and combinatorial systems be modeled within a general theory of grammar? 

More specifically, topics of interest include, but are not limited to:

  • Clause types: selection of declarative and/or interrogative complements.
  • Syntactic size: selection of complements of various syntactic size, including non-finite complements (e.g., {want, *think} them to leave) and nominal complements (e.g., {believe, *think} the story).
  • Main-clause syntax: selection of complements having syntactic characteristics normally associated with main clauses (e.g., V2 in Germanic languages, subject-auxiliary inversion in English, sentence-final particles in Japanese).
  • Mood/factivity marking: selection of complements involving mood marking (indicative/subjunctive) in Romance languages and factivity-marking in Korean/Japanese.
  • The status of L-analycity, and how to obviate its effects. 
  • Semantic universals in the domain of clause-embedding predicates, and various methodologies to assess such universals (experimental, fieldwork and computational). 
  • The aspectual properties of attitude reports (e.g., if they describe states, events, different kinds thereof), and possible interactions between these properties and other semantic and combinatorial properties of attitude predicates.

Submission instructions
We invite submissions of abstracts for 30–40 min talks (including Q&A).

The abstracts should be anonymous and the main text should be at most 2 pages (US Letter or A4) in length, with an optional third page for references, figures, or examples that require glosses. The abstract should use a font no smaller than 12pt for all text (including mathematical formulae, examples, figure captions, and footnotes), and its margins should be no smaller than 1 inch (for US Letter) or 2.5 cm margins (for A4) on all four sides.

Please submit your abstract via Easychair: Submission link