Call for Papers: Usage-based approaches to syntax and semantics Section 16 of the 21st International Congress of Linguists (ICL) Convenor: Stephen Wechsler (the University of Texas; wechsler@austin.utexas.edu)
The 21st ICL will be held September 8 to 14, 2024 in Poznań, Poland. https://icl2024poznan.pl/https://icl2024poznan.pl/?id=2
We invite abstract submissions for presentations or posters related to any and all usage-based approaches to explaining syntactic and semantic systems. Usage based explanations work by considering ‘the effect that usage might have on (a speaker’s) representation’ of their language (Bybee 2006:712), where usage data in the speaker’s input includes the frequency of words, constructions, collocations, and their meanings (Hopper and Bybee 2001, Goldberg 2019). Various approaches have been explored in recent years. Usage-based explanations for a feature of grammar typically involve positing a mechanism for the feature’s emergence. One common type of mechanism is iterated learning, in which inductive biases become magnified through repetition as they are passed from generation to generation (Kirby et al 2015; Briscoe 2002). There are different ideas about the nature and source of the biases, and how they may influence grammar development. Biases related to information theoretic efficiency have been proposed as the basis for explanations of word order (Hahn et al 2018; Culbertson et al 2020), the typology of word meaning (overview in Kemp et al 2018), the semantics of quantifiers (Carcassi et al 2021), compositionality, syntax-phonology interface and morphologization (Bresnan 2021), and other grammatical features (see Gibson et al 2019 for a general overview). In game-theoretic approaches, stable communicative strategies are predicted to develop over time as a result of emergent solutions to signaling games (Lewis 2008, Jäger 2007; Deo 2015). At a more general level these approaches often seek to explain grammar by considering its cultural evolution (Croft 2000, among others). Submissions related to any of the above, or indeed alternatives to the work described above, are welcome.
Deadline for abstract submission: January 8, 2024. Abstract guidelines and submission details can be found at: https://icl2024poznan.pl/?id=2 (Abstracts should be anonymized and should contain the title, five keywords, and a text between 300 and 400 words, including examples but excluding references).
References Bresnan, Joan 2021. Formal grammar, usage probabilities, and auxiliary contraction. Language, 97.1: 108-150. Briscoe, Ted, ed. 2002. Language evolution through language acquisition. Cambridge, UK: Cambridge University Press. Bybee, Joan 2006. From Usage to Grammar: The Mind's Response to Repetition. Language, 82(4): 711-733. Carcassi, F., Steinert-Threlkeld, S. and Szymanik, J. 2021. Monotone Quantifiers Emerge via Iterated Learning. Cognitive Science, 45: e13027. https://doi.org/10.1111/cogs.13027 Croft, William 2000. Explaining language change: an evolutionary approach. Essex: Pearson. Culbertson, Jennifer, Marieke Schouwstra, Simon Kirby 2020. From the world to word order: Deriving biases in noun phrase order from statistical properties of the world. Language 96(3): 1-22. Deo, Ashwini. 2015. The semantic and pragmatic underpinnings of grammaticalization paths: The progressive to imperfective shift. Semantics and Pragmatics 8(14): 1–52. Gibson, Edward, Richard Futrell, Steven P. Piantadosi, Isabelle Dautriche, Kyle Mahowald, Leon Bergen, and Roger Levy 2019. How Efficiency Shapes Human Language. Trends in Cognitive Sciences, 23(5): 389-407. Goldberg, Adele 2019. Explain me this: Creativity, competition, and the partial productivity of constructions. Princeton University Press. Hahn, Michael, Judith Degen, Noah Goodman, Dan Jurafsky, and Richard Futrell 2018. An Information-Theoretic Explanation of Adjective Ordering Preferences. Proceedings of CogSci 2018, pp. 1766-1771. Hopper, Paul and Joan Bybee 2001. Frequency and the emergence of linguistic structure. Amsterdam/Philadelphia: John Benjamins Publishing Company. Jäger, Gerhard. 2007. Evolutionary game theory and typology: A case study. Language 83(1): 74– 109. Kemp, Charles, Yang Xu, and Terry Regier 2018. Semantic Typology and Efficient Communication. Annual Review of Linguistics 4: 109–28. Kirby, Simon, Monica Tamariz, Hannah Cornish, and Kenny Smith 2015. Compression and communication in the cultural evolution of linguistic structure. Cognition 141: 87–102. Lewis, David. 1969. Convention: A philosophical study. Cambridge MA: Harvard University Press.
Stephen Wechsler Department of Linguistics The University of Texas https://liberalarts.utexas.edu/linguistics/faculty/wechsler