Conference on Comparative Diachronic Syntax
University of Leiden Centre for Linguistics (ULCL), 29-30
August 2003
Description of Conference Topic
In the synchronic study of syntax, the comparative approach has
been highly successful in uncovering insights into the nature of
syntactic principles and the variation that they allow. In fact,
it may not be an overstatement to say that modern syntax is to a
large extent based on comparative work. It is certainly true that
any analysis of language-specific data will not be considered
successful if it cannot be made responsive to data from other
languages.
In the diachronic study of syntax, the role of cross-linguistic
comparative concerns is somewhat less clear. While diachronic
investigation focusing on typology and grammaticalisation has
produced an important body of comparative work, it is sometimes
rough-grained and often neglects issues of syntactic structure.
Diachronic study from other perspectives, while it may be more
fine-grained and structure-conscious, tends to ignore questions of
cross-linguistic comparison.
It therefore appears that there is still a need to explore the
implications of a principled comparative stance to historical
syntactic change. This conference hopes to stimulate discussion of
the possibilities and problems that such a stance would create,
with reference to specific case histories or more general issues
in the study of syntactic change. Among the questions to
be addressed are the following:
- what can a comparative perspective contribute to our
understanding of some specific syntactic change or set of
changes in a language?
- what is the exact contribution that models of comparative
synchronic syntax can make to the study of diachrony?
- are there types of diachronic syntactic phenomena that may
be particularly well or ill suited to comparative analysis?
- does comparative diachronic analyis place special demands on
the kinds of data that are required?
Organisers
Christa
de Jager
Wim
van der Wurff
Programme
The
keynote address will be given by Theresa Biberauer and Ian Roberts
(University of Cambridge). For the programme of the conference, click
here.
Practical information
- Dates: Friday 29 August and Saturday 30 August 2003
- Programme: from 9.15 till 18.15 on both days
- Conference site: Faculty of Arts, Room 148 of Main Building
(also known as Building 1175 or LAK Building), University of
Leiden, Cleveringaplaats 1, Leiden
- Conference fee: € 20 (this will cover abstracts, tea,
coffee, and drinks on Friday), to be paid at registration on
the first day of the conference
- For information on accommodation in Leiden, see the list
of hotels; for details on how to reach Leiden and the
conference site, click here; in the map of the Leiden
linguistics area, the conference building is number 32; in the
route description to the linguistics department, it is the
building called “the big
white building ("Centraal Faciliteitengebouw",
building number 1175).”
Contact address
To register for the
conference, contact:
Conference on Comparative Diachronic Syntax
Dr. Wim van der Wurff
Department of English
P.O. Box 9515
NL-2300 RA Leiden
The Netherlands
e-mail: w.a.van.der.wurff@let.leidenuniv.nl
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