Modality, Typology and Universal Grammar

11 - 12th May 2012

Call for Papers

We invite papers on universal definitions of modality or "illocutionary force". Cartographic approaches to modality are as welcome as functional and other approaches, as long as they are scientific in the sense that they are working on generalizations concerning modality as part of the faculty of the human language, thus not being reduced to ad-hoc-claims concerning individual languages only. The contributions should provide generalizations on modality that are robust enough to account for cross-linguistic varieties of modality, but that are also concrete and precise enough to be potentially falsifiable.

The topics invited should cover at least one of the following domains:

• the syntax of modality
• the semantics of modality
• the pragmatics of modality
• covert modality
• lexical versus grammatical coding of modality
• modality in matrix clauses versus dependent clauses
• epistemicity and evidentiality
• modal verbs across languages
• modal particles and their counterparts across languages
• "modalized languages" (such as Japanese) versus languages with "sparse modality"
• modality in pronominals
• modality in relation to other categories such as mood, tense, aspect, and person
• modality and Theory of Mind / other's mind.
  

Invited speakers

Foong Ha YAP (Hong Kong Polytechnic University)

Patrick G. GROSZ (University of Tübingen)

Guidelines for submissions

The abstract submitted should comprise no more than 500 words and should be anonymous. An extra cover sheet should contain name and address of the author as well as the title of the abstract.
Language of conference: English.
Extended deadline for abstract submission: 9th January 2012.

Please send your abstract to elisabeth.leiss@lmu.de.