Call for Papers

The Nerthus Project Research Group (Department of Modern Languages, University of La Rioja) invites the submission of papers on substantial, original, and unpublished research to the 2016 International Symposium on Verbs, Clauses and Constructions, which will be held on October 26-28, 2016 at the University of La Rioja. The topics of interest for submission can be grouped under three headings: constructional approaches to grammar, projectionist approaches to grammar and diachrony. Papers dealing with the category of the verb and historical languages are most welcome. Overall, the recommended topics include, but are not limited to:

• Constructional approaches to grammar
• Usage-based approaches to the development of structure
• Cross-linguistic variation of constructions
• Constructions, subconstructions and families of constructions
• Verbal and non-verbal constructions
• Alternations vs. constructions
• The interaction of verbal projections and constructions
• Computational modeling of projections and constructions

• The syntax of clauses and sentences
• Linking and interfaces
• Head marking and dependent marking
• The functional motivation of structural development
• Layered models of clause structure
• Events vs. states of affairs and predications
• Verbs at the representational and interpersonal level
• Verbal typologies
• Nominalizations
• Topic and focus constructions
• Raising, existentials and clefts

• Diachronic Construction Grammar
• Constructionalization
• Diatopic, diachronic and textual variation
• Morpho-syntactic and semantic change
• The role of constructions in grammaticalization
• Degrammaticalization and deflection
• Grammaticalization and lexicalization
• The interaction of information structure and verbal constructions
• The role of information structure in syntactic change

Submission

Please submit your proposal following the guidelines below:

1. Presentations will last 20 minutes, followed by a ten minute discussion.
2. Abstracts should be 150-200 words long (without any subheadings) and clearly present a research question/aim, critical review of the literature, methodology, results and conclusions.
3. Please avoid footnotes and any unusual symbols (such as phonetic transcription) that might be changed in electronic communication. If you cannot avoid such symbols, submit your paper both in DOC and PDF format.
4. PPlease send each abstract both in anonymized and unanonymized forms (with author(s) and affiliation) to the following address: vccsymposium2016@gmail.com.
5. Decisions about acceptance will be based on relevance to the above topic list, originality, potential significance, topicality and clarity. Since all accepted papers will be presented at the symposium, we require that at least one of the submitting authors must be a registered participant.

Key dates

• Abstract submission: February 1- September 15, 2016.
• Notification of reviewers' decision: Approximately 2 weeks after submission.
• Registration: March 1 – October 28, 2016.
• Symposium: October 26-28, 2016.