CfP – Workshop at SLE 2026: Constructions with multiple wh-words across language

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Valentina Apresjan

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Oct 2, 2025, 11:01:21 AM (5 days ago) Oct 2

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Dear colleagues,

Together with Piotr Sobotka, Mikhail Kopotev, and Mladen Uhlik, I am pleased to announce that we are organizing a workshop at the next meeting of the Societas Linguistica Europaea (SLE), which will take place in Osnabrück, Germany, from 26 to 29 August 2026.

If you are working on any aspect of multiple-wh words, we warmly invite you to join us and submit an abstract by 5 November 2025.

You will find the workshop description below, and the full proposal along with further details here: https://blogs.helsinki.fi/wh-words-cle2026/

We look forward to your contributions and to seeing you in Osnabrück!

Best regards,

Valentina Apresyan,

Associate professor of East European, Eurasian, and Russian Studies

Dartmouth College

Workshop at SLE 2026: Constructions with multiple wh-words across languages

Date: 26-Aug-2026 - 29-Aug-2026

Location: Osnabrück, Germany

Web Site: https://blogs.helsinki.fi/wh-words-cle2026/

Contact mail: ktokud...@gmail.com

Keywords: semantics, pragmatics, syntax, typology, information structure, WH-words

Submission deadline: 5 November 2025

Convenors:

Valentina Apresjan (Dartmouth College, USA)

Mikhail Kopotev (University of Helsinki, Finland / Stockholm University, Sweden)

Piotr Sobotka (Institute of Slavic Studies, PAS, Poland)

Mladen Uhlik (Fran Ramovš Institute of the Slovenian Language & University of Ljubljana, Slovenia)

Meeting Description:

The workshop aims to bring together researchers interested in the syntax, semantics, and pragmatics of constructions with multiple wh-words across languages, which are understood as constructions structured with two or more wh-elements that can fulfil different functions.

We propose the following questions for discussion:

● What semantic, syntactic, and pragmatic factors underlie the restrictions on wh-variables and their possible pairings in multiple wh-constructions, especially in their distributive readings?

● Under what semantic and pragmatic conditions are such constructions licensed in discourse, and what communicative functions do they perform across languages?

● What syntactic positions can these constructions occupy within the clause, and how do they interact with the valency requirements of the predicate (if present)?

● How do frequency, idiomatization and formulaicity influence the grammatical status of these constructions across different languages?

● What are the historical sources of such constructions (e.g. indirect questions > quasi-relatives > distributives), and what grammaticalization paths can be identified cross-linguistically?

● Can we detect areal or genealogical patterns in the distribution and structure of these constructions, and what do such patterns reveal about contact-induced change versus independent development?

● How do multiple wh-word distributives compare with other distributive strategies (lexical, morphological, or clausal) cross-linguistically?

Call for Papers:

We welcome submissions that employ a range of theoretical frameworks, including but not limited to Construction Grammar, formal semantic and pragmatic analyses, corpus-based studies, cross-linguistic typological comparisons. We are particularly interested in studies that combine theoretical analysis with empirical data from diverse languages, using methodologies such as corpus linguistics, experimental pragmatics and comparative linguistics.

If you wish to participate in this workshop, please send your abstract of max. 300 words (including examples and excluding references) to the following email address (ktokud...@gmail.com) by November 5th 2025.

Key dates for workshop proposals and abstracts

5 Nov 2025 – Deadline for submitting the 300-word abstracts
15 Dec 2025 – Decision on acceptance/rejection of workshop proposals by the SLE committee
15 Jan 2026 – Deadline for submitting all abstracts (including workshop papers) via EasyChair
31 Mar 2026 – Notification of acceptance/rejection of abstracts