Person and perspective
The category of person plays a central role in a variety of grammatical phenomena, some of which seem to be purely syntactic, while others clearly involve the semantic component. Person distinctions are determined relative to the speech or thought situation (i.e. the local attitude situation): arguments are formally identified as a type of participant (author/addressee) or a non-participant. Person thus bears an inherent affinity with grammatical categories rooted in the other parameters of the attitude situation: time and spatial location. Person, temporality and spatial deixis are unified as different ways to encode perspective: an attitude holder’s view of the described event from the standpoint of the attitude event.
Maria Luisa Zubizarreta’s recent work has explored the role of person-based perspective – an inherently semantic notion - in the analysis of person-sensitivity phenomena that have more traditionally been considered properly syntactic, namely person-sensitivity effects in the syntactic organization of arguments exhibited in direct-inverse systems and in grammars following the Person Case Constratint (PCC) (Zubizarreta and Pancheva 2017, Pancheva and Zubizarreta 2017). Her work has also addressed the role of person features in the representation of evidentiality and temporal reference in Paraguyan Guaraní (Pancheva and Zubizarreta 2018).
The workshop in honor of Maria Luisa Zubizarreta’s work aims to further elucidate the grammars of person and perspective. It welcomes contributions on the themes of her work and also on the many other phenomena that involve person or perspective.
We invite papers that address, among others, the following questions:
(a) What is the nature of person features on nominals and functional projections? How do they differ formally from other features on nominals and functional projections such as number and gender?
(b) What is the relationship between person features and case?
(c) What is the relation between person features and agreement?
(d) Is the frequently distinctive behavior of person agreement derivable from a single syntactic constraint as proposed by Baker’s SCOPA (2008, 2011)?
(e) What is the role of person features in finiteness?
(f) What is the role of person in closest conjunct agreement and other apparently linearity-based agreement effects?
(g) Do person features require special licensing (e.g., Bejar and Rezac 2009, a.o.)?
(h) What feature geometries do person features participate in (e.g., Harley and Ritter 2002, Ackema and Neeleman 2013, Harbour 2016)
(i) Which aspects of the interaction of person and argument structure are universal? Which are language specific? How is variation in person-sensitive systems to be accounted for?
(j)What is the role of person and perspective in the licensing of anaphors that are exempt from binding theory (e.g., Maling 1984, Sells 1987, Pollard & Sag 1992, Reinhart & Reuland 1993, Huang and Liu 2001, Charnavel and Sportiche 2016, Sundaresan 2016, a.o.)
(k) How are person-sensitive phenomena linked to logophoricity (e.g., Sells 1987, Kuno 1987, a.o.)
(l) How are the phenomena of PCC and the Clitic Logophoric Restriction related (e.g., Charnavel and Mateu 2015)?
(m) what is the role of person and perspective in control (e.g., Landau 2015 a.o,)
(n) What do the phenomena of imposters, and imposters and agreement tell us about person? (e.g., Collins & Postal 2012, Collins 2014, a.o.)
(o) What is the role of person features in the analysis of evidentiality (e.g., Speas 2004, 2010, a.o.)
(p) How do person-sensitive systems behave diachronically? How does the history of such systems illuminate our understanding of person and/or perspective?
(q) How is perspective encoded in predicates of personal taste (e.g., Lasersohn 2005, Pearson 2013, Stephenson 2007, a.o.)
(r) How is anchoring to the speech event accomplished by person, tense and spatial deixis (e.g., Ritter and Wiltschko 2014, a.o.)
Maria Luisa Zubizarreta’s recent work has explored the role of person-based perspective – an inherently semantic notion - in the analysis of person-sensitivity phenomena that have more traditionally been considered properly syntactic, namely person-sensitivity effects in the syntactic organization of arguments exhibited in direct-inverse systems and in grammars following the Person Case Constratint (PCC) (Zubizarreta and Pancheva 2017, Pancheva and Zubizarreta 2017). Her work has also addressed the role of person features in the representation of evidentiality and temporal reference in Paraguyan Guaraní (Pancheva and Zubizarreta 2018).
The workshop in honor of Maria Luisa Zubizarreta’s work aims to further elucidate the grammars of person and perspective. It welcomes contributions on the themes of her work and also on the many other phenomena that involve person or perspective.
We invite papers that address, among others, the following questions:
(a) What is the nature of person features on nominals and functional projections? How do they differ formally from other features on nominals and functional projections such as number and gender?
(b) What is the relationship between person features and case?
(c) What is the relation between person features and agreement?
(d) Is the frequently distinctive behavior of person agreement derivable from a single syntactic constraint as proposed by Baker’s SCOPA (2008, 2011)?
(e) What is the role of person features in finiteness?
(f) What is the role of person in closest conjunct agreement and other apparently linearity-based agreement effects?
(g) Do person features require special licensing (e.g., Bejar and Rezac 2009, a.o.)?
(h) What feature geometries do person features participate in (e.g., Harley and Ritter 2002, Ackema and Neeleman 2013, Harbour 2016)
(i) Which aspects of the interaction of person and argument structure are universal? Which are language specific? How is variation in person-sensitive systems to be accounted for?
(j)What is the role of person and perspective in the licensing of anaphors that are exempt from binding theory (e.g., Maling 1984, Sells 1987, Pollard & Sag 1992, Reinhart & Reuland 1993, Huang and Liu 2001, Charnavel and Sportiche 2016, Sundaresan 2016, a.o.)
(k) How are person-sensitive phenomena linked to logophoricity (e.g., Sells 1987, Kuno 1987, a.o.)
(l) How are the phenomena of PCC and the Clitic Logophoric Restriction related (e.g., Charnavel and Mateu 2015)?
(m) what is the role of person and perspective in control (e.g., Landau 2015 a.o,)
(n) What do the phenomena of imposters, and imposters and agreement tell us about person? (e.g., Collins & Postal 2012, Collins 2014, a.o.)
(o) What is the role of person features in the analysis of evidentiality (e.g., Speas 2004, 2010, a.o.)
(p) How do person-sensitive systems behave diachronically? How does the history of such systems illuminate our understanding of person and/or perspective?
(q) How is perspective encoded in predicates of personal taste (e.g., Lasersohn 2005, Pearson 2013, Stephenson 2007, a.o.)
(r) How is anchoring to the speech event accomplished by person, tense and spatial deixis (e.g., Ritter and Wiltschko 2014, a.o.)
The Speakers
Mark Baker
Professor of Linguistics (Ph.D, MIT 1985) at Rutgers University. His research Interests include:
|
Roumyana PanchevaAssociate Professor of Linguistics and Slavic Languages and Literatures (Ph.D, UPenn, 2000) at the University of Southern California.
Her work focuses on syntax and on the interface between syntax and semantics. It employs formal modeling, cross-linguistic comparison from a synchronic and diachronic perspective, and experimental methods. Some of her ongoing projects include:
|
Liliana Sánchez
Professor of Spanish and Portuguese (Ph. D., USC, 1996) at Rutgers University. Her research interests include:
She has authored over 20 articles and 4 books, including The Morphology and Syntax of Topic and Focus: Minimalist Inquiries in the Quechua Periphery. Benjamins, 2010. |
Sandhya Sundaresan
Assistant Professor, Syntax (PhD, University of Tromsø & the University of Stuttgart, 2013), at the Universität Leipzig. Her research interests include:
|
|
This workshop is part of a celebration of the intellectual contributions of Maria Luisa Zubizarreta to the field of linguistics and is particularly focused on her most current research questions. The workshop will officially launch the publication of Exploring Interfaces (ed. by M. Cabrera and J. Camacho, Cambridge University Press), in honor of Maria Luisa Zubizarreta.
Maria Luisa Zubizarreta was born and raised in Asunción, Paraguay. She obtained her Maîtrise de Linguistique Générale from L’Université de Paris 8 in 1978, and her PhD in Linguistics from MIT in 1982. From 1983-85, she was a post-doctoral researcher at the Laboratoire de Psychologie Expérimentale at L’Université Paris 5/CNRS. In 1985-86, she was a Visiting Professor at Tilburg University. In 1987-88, she was an Assistant Professor at the Linguistics Program and the Department of Spanish & Portuguese at the University of Maryland, College Park. In 1988, she joined the Linguistics Department at the University of Southern California as an Associate Professor and in 1998, she was promoted to Full Professor. She is a life member of the Linguistic Society of America. Over the years, her research has encompassed many aspects of linguistic theory, including the lexicon and its relationship to syntax; the representation of event structure; the syntax and semantics of definite deteminers; information structure, in particular the relationship between nuclear stress, focus, and word order, and most recently, the syntax of person and perspective. In addition to her work in formal syntax and the syntax-semantics and syntax-prosody interfaces, she has contributed to the area of second language acquisition. She has also conducted extensive fieldwork in Guaraní, studying in particular its direct-inverse alignment, the encoding of temporality and its evidential system. Maria Luisa has mentored many undergraduate and graduate students. Her PhD advisees work in academia and the research industry, and have themselves contributed significantly to the development of syntax, its interfaces, and second language acquisition. |
