Call for manifestation of interest

[Les Pauvres]

Call for manifestation of interest - Theme Session
Proposal "What do languages code when they code realisness?"
- SLE 2008



Theme Session Proposal - "What do languages code when they code
realisness?SLE 2008 - Forl
Call for manifestation of intere
Theme Session Propos"What do languages code when they code
realisness?"

Dear list member
this is a call for manifestation of interest in a theme session thatwe
plan to organize within the next annual meeting of the
SocietLinguistica Europaea (SLE), to be held in Forlì, Italy,
Septemb17-20, 2008 (http://sle2008.sitlec.unibo.it)
The SLE policy for workshops and theme sessions requires us to prepaa
proposal, to be submitted to the SLE program committee no later
thFebruary 15, 2008. This proposal should contain a short description
the topic to be dealt with, along with an estimate of the schedule
athe overall time require
The working title of our proposal is: "What do languages code whthey
code realisness?". An extended description of the topic is
included at the end of this message. We feel that the theme we agoing
to propose might raise the interest of typologists (antheoretical
linguists) who have been (or are) working on the coding realisness and
related issues. Besides the individual papers, weintend to devote some
time to a general discussion of the theoreticaand empirical issues
arising from the presentations.
In detail, the structure of the theme session we intend to submishould
include:

· three invited contributions;
· up to 10/12 selected papers (20 minutes + discussion)· a final slot
(up to 60 minutes) for a general, round-table like discussio
What we ask you at this stage is to let us know as soon as possible
you are interested in contributing a paper to the theme session.
Feefree to send a quick informal reply to this mail (just stating your
willingness to submit a paper and specifying a possible topic for
yocontribution). Prospective contributors are also expected to send
anabstract no later than February 1, 2008 (Friday). This tight
schedulwill leave us enough time to finalize the proposal to be
submitted tthe SLE committe
We should emphasize that there will be two stages: in the first stagwe
will select papers which will be included in the proposal; in
thesecond stage, the proposal as a whole will be evaluated by the
Scommittee. Only upon acceptance of the entire theme session,
eveselected contribution will be considered officially "accepted" at
thSLE conference.

Convenor
Caterina Mauri (University of Pavia, Italy)
Andrea Sansò (Insubria University - Como, Ital
Important dates (first stage
· As soon as possible: informal e-mail with manifestation of intere·
1st February 2008: abstract submission (see format below)· 1st March
2008: notification of acceptanc
Important dates (second stage; the convenors will be looking after
tfinalization of the proposal
· 15th February 2008: submission of the abstract for the theme session
to the SLE committee· 15th April 2008: submission of the full program
(invited speakersaccepted abstracts + discussion time) to the SLE
committ· 31st May 2008: notification of acceptance
Format of abstracts:
The selection of abstracts will be made on the basis of quality and
relatedness to the topic and objectives of the theme session.
Thsubmitted abstracts (in PDF) should be anonymous, up to 2 pages
long(including references), and the authors are expected to provide
overview of the goal, methodology, and data of their researcAbstracts
should be sent to both convenors to the following e-maaddresse
Caterina Mauri: caterin...@unipv.it
Andrea Sansò: asa...@gmail.com

All the abstracts will be anonymously reviewed by the progracommittee
of the theme session (see below) before the finalization othe
proposal. More information about the theme session (list of
selected papers, invited speakers, etc.) will be circulated amongst
the prospective participants right before the submission of the
proposal to the SLE committe
Please include the following data in the body of the mail: (Author(s);
(ii) Title; (iii) Affiliation; (iv) Contacts.
Scientific committee (TBC): Kasper Boye (University of Copenhagen);
Isabelle Bril (LACITO, CNRS, Villejuif); Sonia Cristofaro (Universitof
Pavia); Ferdinand de Haan (Arizona University) Anna
Giacalone(University of Pavia); Caterina Mauri (University of Pavia);
Andrea
Sansò (Insubria University, Como); Johan van der Auwera (University of
Antwerp)
Invited speakers: Sonia Cristofaro (University of Pavia); Ferdinand
Haan (Arizona University); Johan van der Auwera (University Antwerp)
Publication: if the theme session is accepted it is our intention
topublish a selection of the papers with an international publishe
Caterina Mauri, Andrea Sans?***************************************

Presentation of the theme sessio
Working title: What do languages code when they code realisness?
Theme description and topics
Since Givón (1984: 285ff.) and Chung and Timberlake (1985: 241ff.),the
terms realis and irrealis have gained increasing currency incross-
linguistic studies on modality as flexible cover terms fornumber of
moods traditionally labelled as 'indicative', 'subjunctive'optative',
'counterfactual', 'potential', 'hypothetical', etc. Someauthors (e.g.
Elliott 2000: 80) have gone a step further, speaking o'reality
status' (or 'realisness') as a grammatical category to fullright,
realized differently in different languages, with at least twvalues:
realis (or neutral) and irrealis. These two values acharacterized in
terms of actualization vs. non-actualization ofgiven state of affairs.
According to Elliott, a proposition is realiif it asserts that a state
of affairs is an "actualized and certain
fact of reality", whereas it is classified as irrealis if "it
impliethat a SoA belongs to the realm of the imagined or hypothetical,
andas such it constitutes a potential or possible event but it is not
aobservable fact of reality" (Elliott 2000: 66-67). There are
languagwhich obligatorily mark realisness in all finite clauses by
means ofcomprehensive (morphological or syntactic) system of markers,
otherswhere the system is partial and the realisness of a proposition
needto be indicated only in specare languages in which the marking of
realisness is merely optional.In other terms, realisness may be
encoded by means of an array omorpho-syntactic strategies (simple
affixation, portmanteau
affixation, sentence particles, adverbs, etc.).
Both the functional characterization and the formal aspects realisness
are controversial (Bybee et al 1994; Bybee 1998). On the
one hand, the solidarities between realisness and other
functiondomains such as, for instance, tense, aspect, and
evidentiality makeit difficult to decide whether (and to what extent)
realisness is anindependent functional dimension (see, e.g. Fleischman
1995). On theother hand, there are certain states of affairs (e.g.
habitual,
directive, and future SoAs, etc.) that are coded by means of either
realis or irrealis strategies across languages, in a
largelyunpredictable way. This variation may reflect the inherently
hybrid
reality status of these states of affairs: they may have occurred
butheir reference time is non-specific (e.g. habituals; Givón 1984:
285;
Cristofaro 2004), they may have not yet occurred but they are
eitherhighly probable or expected with a high degree of certainty
(e.gdirectives, futures; Roberts 1990; Chafe 1995; Mithun 1995;
Ogloblin2005; Sun 2007), etcSome of the factors that appear to have an
influence on the
cross-linguistic coding of realisness have been already hinted at
inthe typological literature. For instance, in some languages
argumentstructure and referentiality/definiteness of arguments appear
to be
crucial to the choice of a realis or irrealis strategy (the presenceof
definite arguments entailing realis marking, whereas
indefinite/non-specific arguments require irrealis
marking).Furthermore, the deictic anchoring of the proposition to the
speakerhere-and-now (in the sense of Fleischman 1989) may determine
differerealisness values for directives and futures in some languages
(e.g.predictions, intentions or scheduled events are marked as
realiswhereas other future SoAs are irrealis; second-person
directiveswhich require the presence of the performer, are coded as
realis morfrequently than third-person directives). Yet, a complete
picture ofthe range of factors affecting realisness is still missing.
New
insights into these factors and their interactions may come fromwider
amount of cross-linguistic data, as well as a bettunderstanding of the
diachronic mechanisms leading to the emergence
and establishing of realisness systems.
This theme session aims to assess our current understanding of
trealisness dimension in grammar and to plot the directions for
futurresearch. We invite abstracts for papers dealing witfoundational/
theoretical issues and/or taking an empirical,
data-driven stance on the coding of realisness across languages.At the
foundational/theoretical level, possible topics include (but
are not limited to):
· the status of realisness in linguistic theory· interactions between
realisness and other functional domains (tense,
aspect, evidentiality, etc.)· cross-linguistic variation in the
classification of certain stateof affairs as either realis or
irrealis;· factors affecting the realisness value of a state of
affairs:argument structure; referentiality/definiteness of arguments;
degreeof deictic anchoring to the speaker's here-and-now; etc.
At the empirical level, possible topics include (but are not limited
to)
· in-depth investigations of realisness systems in single languages or
language familie· the areal dimension of realisness marking·
realisness in languages without dedicated realis/irrealis markers·
realisness as a relevant dimension in interclausal
relations:disjunction (see, e.g., Mauri 2008), complementation (Ammann
& van dAuwera 2004), switch reference, etc.· the diachronic origin and
the grammaticalization of realis/irrealmarkers as a key to
understanding their functional properties andistribution
Referenc
Ammann, A., and J. van der Auwera. 2004. Complementizer-headed main
clauses for volitional moods in the languages of South-Eastern EuropA
Balkanism? In: O. TomiAmsterdam: John BenjaminBybee, J. 1998.
"Irrealis" as a grammatical category. AnthropologicaLinguistics 40
(2): 257-271.Bybee, J., R. Perkins, and W. Pagliuca. 1994. The
evolution grammar. Tense, aspect, and modality in the languages of the
world.
Chicago: The University of Chicago PressBybee, J., and S. Fleischman
(eds.). 1995. Modality in grammar adiscourse. Amsterdam:
Benjamins.Chafe, W. 1995. The realis-irrealis distinction in Caddo,
the NortheIroquoian languages, and English. In: Bybee & Fleischman
(eds.) 1995349-365.Chung, S., and A. Timberlake. 1985. Tense, aspect,
and mood. In: T.
Shopen (ed.), Language typology and syntactic description, Vol.
III:Grammatical categories and the lexicon, 202-258. Cambridge:
CambridgUniversity PressCristofaro, S. 2004. Past habituals and
irrealis. In: Y. A. Lander, A. Plungian, A. Yu. Urmanchieva (eds.),
Irrealis and Irreality,
256-272. Moscow: Gnosis.Elliott, J. R. 2000. Realis and irrealis:
Forms and concepts of the
grammaticalisation of reality. Linguistic Typology 4:
55-90.Fleischman, S. 1989. Temporal distance: a basic linguistic
metaphor.Studies in Language 13 (1): 1-50Fleischman, S. 1995.
Imperfective and irrealis. In: Bybee & Fleischm(eds.) 1995,
519-551Givón, T. 1984. Syntax. A functional-typological introduction.
Vol. 1.
Amsterdam-Philadelphia: John Benjamins.
Mauri, C. 2008. The irreality of alternatives. Towards a typology
ofdisjunction. Studies in Language 32 (1): 22-55.
Mithun, M. 1995. On the relativity of irreality. In: Bybee &Fleischman
(eds.) 1995, 367-388.Ogloblin, A. K. 2005. Javanese. In: A. Adelaar,
and N. P. Himmelmann(eds.), The Austronesian languages of Asia and
Madagascar, 590-624.
London-New York: Routledge.
Roberts, J. R. 1990. Modality in Amele and other Papuan
languageJournal of Linguistics 26: 363-401.
Sun, J. T.-S. 2007. The irrealis category in rGyalrong. Language
andLinguistics 8 (3): 797-819.