Workshop December 10th – 11th 2010: Verb Movement: Its nature, triggers, and effects

Deadline for submissions: 13-Oct-2010

Verb Movement: Its nature, triggers, and effects

NORMS (Nordic Center of Excellence in Microcomparative Syntax) and The University of Amsterdam are jointly organizing a workshop on verb movement in Amsterdam, December 10-11, 2010.

Date: 10-Dec-2010 - 11-Dec-2010
Location: Amsterdam, Netherlands
Contact Person: Kristine Bentzen
Meeting Email: vm...@hsl.uit.no
Web Site:
http://castl.uit.no/index.php?option=com_content&view=article&id=166:...
atid=76:conferencesaworkshops


Organizing Committee:
Kristine Bentzen (Tromsø), Thórhallur Eythórsson and Höskuldur Thráinsson (Iceland), Hedde Zeijlstra and Olaf Koeneman (Amsterdam)
Invited speakers include:
Jan-Wouter Zwart (Groningen) Winfried Lechner (Athens) Ora Matushansky (Utrecht) Klaus Abels (UCL) Theresa Biberauer (Cambridge)

Meeting Description: In this workshop we want to address various issues related to verb placement and the syntax of the left periphery. The topic 'verb movement' has of course been discussed extensively in the linguistic literature, but many of the core properties of verb movement still trigger intense debates and we think it is about time to try to determine what the main issues are and take a new look at them through 2010 goggles. For one thing, the empirical basis for traditional verb movement analyses has mainly consisted of (standard varieties of) Germanic and Romance languages, in particular English, German, Dutch, Scandinavian, and French. However, more detailed knowledge about other languages and dialects has enlarged the empirical basis. One such example is the extensive work on European dialects conducted in the last decade or so, partly in research groups that have been a part of the NORMS project or associated with it. These new data challenge the traditional view of verb movement as simply V-to-C or V-to-I. On the theoretical side, one issue concerns the 'explosion' of the CP and IP domains. Since (among others) Pollock (1989), Rizzi (1997), and Cinque (1999) it is commonly assumed that the structure of the CP and IP domains is much more fine-grained than we previously thought, with several functional projections in each domain. As a result, for example 'V-to-C' can no longer be assumed to be one single phenomenon; rather, we need to consider e.g. V-to-Fin, V-to-Foc, V-to-Top, V-to-Force, etc. as variants of what used to be labeled 'V-to-C'. Likewise, 'V-to-I' could mean V-to-Asp, V-to-T, V-to-Mod, etc. Another theoretical issue that is still under debate is the nature of the movement operation itself. Traditionally, verb movement has of course been analysed as head movement, but during the last decade or more, many people have explored phrasal movement alternatives such as remnant movement to account for verb movement. Related to this is the question of what triggers verb movement. The long-standing view that verbal morphology is a trigger for verb movement has been challenged in recent years, but the debate on this issue has by no means come to an end. Finally, the potential semantic effects of verb movement is also an issue that deserves more scrutiny.

Call For Papers: We invite abstracts of papers related to all questions listed in the workshop description. One person can submit at most one abstract as a sole author and one as co-author. Abstracts should be anonymous, in form of a PDF file, at most 2 pages in length, including examples and references, using a 12 pt. font with 2.5 cm (or 1 inch) margins on all sides. We consider only online submissions. Please upload your anonymous abstract online here: http://linguistlist.org/confcustom/customhome.cfm?emeetingid=0602J84658B67E5A408040441