Subject: workshop on semi - lexical heads

* * call for papers * * workshop on semi-lexical heads tilburg university , thursday 20 may and friday 21 may 1999 invited speakers : joseph emonds ( university of durham ) hubert haider ( university of salzburg ) elisabeth loebel ( university of cologne ) semi-lexical heads the distinction between lexical / major categories , on the one hand , and functional / minor / grammatical categories , on the other , is at the heart of present-day grammatical theory , but plays an equally central role in theories on language acquisition , code switching , aphasia , etcetera . in the course of time , various diagnostic criteria have been proposed which distinguish the one class from the other : e . g . productivity , distribution , lack versus presence of semantic content . although for certain clear-cut cases ( e . g . the distinction between noun and determiner ) , this distinction is quite straightforward , there are many lexical items for which it is less easy to decide whether they side with the lexical categories or with the functional ones . the category p is a well-known case of uncertainty . although it seems less functional in a sense than a determiner , it is more " grammatical " than n , v and a . some people have argued that a distinction should be made within the class of prepositions between the lexical ones and the grammatical or functional ones ( cf . van riemsdijk 1990 ; zwarts 1992 ) this gradualness on the lexical-functional " scale " is characteristic of other categories as well and is reminiscent of ross 's ( 1972 ; 1973 ) notion of squish , which refers to degrees of nouniness ( or verbiness ) of syntactic categories . emonds ( 1985 ) speaks bout grammatical nouns , verbs , adjectives and prepositions , and also refers to them as disguised lexical categories . another appropriate term would be semi-lexical heads , i . e . heads which are hybrid in the sense that they display both lexical and functional / grammatical characteristics . what kinds of lexical items might possibly be considered semi-lexical ? for the nominal domain , emonds ( 1985 ) refers to such items as the pro-form " one " in " the good ones " , reflexive " self " ( cf . " selves " ) , and " thing " as it occurs in " something good " . classifiers and quantity-designating nominals in pseudopartitive constructions like " three grains of sand " might be considered semi-lexical as well . within the verbal domain , semi-lexical candidates might arguably be : auxiliary verbs ( see emonds 85 for this claim ) , certain verbs featuring in verb clusters in germanic verb raising constructions , verbs in serialization constructions , etcetera . within the adjectival domain , one might take such quantifiers as " many " , " few " , " much " as instances of semi-lexical adjectives . the above is just a brief sketch of potential semi-lexical heads . presumably , there are many more . here are some of the more concrete questions that might arise in the study of semi-lexical heads : v what types of semi-lexical nouns , verbs , adjectives and prepositions can be distinguished ? what distinguishes them from truly lexical categories and in what sense are they different from truly grammatical functors ? is this distinction expressed in terms of their lexical feature-composition , and if so , what features are involved ? what is their assembling property ; i . e . how do they combine in syntactic structure and how do they project syntactically ? are they involved in idiosyncratic displacement phenomenona , and if so , what feature of the semi-lexical head triggers this ? what is the licensing function of semi-lexical heads ? what makes them interpretable at the interface levels ? also from a diachronic point of view , the question arises how lexical heads develop gradually into semi-lexical ones . is there cross-linguistic variation in the range of semi-lexical heads and if so , what does this variation reside in ? besides the question of how semi-lexical heads behave in the syntactic component , questions arise about their behavior in other components : are there morphological processes characteristic of semi-lexical heads ? as concerns the lexicon , the question arises how they are stored in the lexicon and what distinguishes their lexical entry from that of truly lexical categories . abstracts : abstracts are invited for 30 minutes talks ( with an additional ten minutes for discussion ) . abstracts should be anonymous , and should be no longer than two pages , including references and examples , with margins of at least 1 - inch , font size 11 / 12 . submissions are limited to a maximum of one individual and one joint abstract per author . please provide 5 anonymous abstracts and one camera-ready original containing title , author 's name and affiliation . submissions by e-mail or fax can be accepted , provided a camera-ready original is received within one week after the deadline . a separate card should contain the title of the paper , author 's name , affiliation , address , telephone number and e-mail address . we have the intention to publish ( a selection of ) the papers . we expect to be able to partially reimburse you for travel and / or vhotel expenses , but precise figures are not available as yet . * * * * * * * * * * * deadline for receipt of abstracts : monday 1 february , 1999 . abstracts should be sent to the following address : norbert corver grammar models group department of linguistics tilburg university p . o . box 90153 5000 le tilburg the netherlands phone : + 31 13 4662773 e - mail : secretariaat . gm . fdl @ kub . nl fax : + 31-13 - 4663110 organizing committee : norbert corver & henk van riemsdijk information about accommodation and travel information will be made available at the grammar models web site , which is accessible at : http : / / cwis . kub . nl / ~ fdl / research / gm / conf . htm
