Call for Papers: Non-bare Proper Names: Proper Names with Determiners and Modifiers in a Cross-linguistic Perspective

Non-bare Proper Names. Proper Names with Determiners and Modifiers in a Cross-linguistic Perspective

Date: 16-May-2024 – 17-May-2024

Location: Köln, Germany
Contact Person: Carolina Oggiani
Meeting Email: detmod.pn@gmail.com
Web Site: https://easyabs.linguistlist.org/conference/Non-bare_Proper_Name

Linguistic Field(s): Morphology; Pragmatics; Semantics; Syntax

Call Deadline: 12-Dec-2023

Meeting Description:

Proper names have been widely studied from a philosophical and a linguistic perspective (Frege, 1892; Russell, 1905; Strawson, 1950; Searle, 1958; Donnellan, 1970; Kripke, 1980; Soames, 2002; Elbourne, 2005; Fara, 2015; Matushansky, 2006, 2008, 2014, 2015, among others). Over the last decades, they have become an important subject of investigation with respect to the semantics of reference and the syntax of the nominal phrase and, more specifically, to the different types of determiners and modifiers they can combine with, such as indefinite and definite articles (von Heusinger & Wespel, 2007; Gomeshi & Massam, 2009; Bernstein et al., 2019; Camacho, 2019; Saab, 2021; Oggiani & Aguilar-Guevara, forthcoming), honorific particles (Saab, 2021), and adjectives (Sigurdsson, 2006; Bernstein et al., 2019). There is also a growing interest in the cross-linguistic perspective (e.g. Caro Reina, 2020, 2022; Becker, 2021; Caro Reina & Helmbrecht, 2022).

In this context, the research project “Proper Names with Determiners and Modifiers in a Cross-linguistic Perspective” aims to contribute to this discussion by bringing together researchers working on proper names with determiners and/or means of modification from a morphological, syntactic, semantic, or pragmatic perspective. The starting event of this research group will be the workshop “Non-Bare Proper Names: Proper Names with Determiners and Modifiers in Cross-Linguistic Perspective”. The workshop will take place in Cologne, Germany, in May 2024, and will be followed by later academic events in Mexico and Uruguay.

We invite contributions on proper names with determiners, quantifiers and/or any means of modification, as well as honorifics, diminutives, classifiers, and other affixes, from a morphological, syntactic, semantic, or pragmatic perspective. The main questions this Workshop seeks to answer are:
i) What categories can accompany proper names in natural language?
ii) What is the meaning contribution of these categories? How does it combine with that
of proper names?
iii) What kind of syntax do determined and modified proper names project?

Call for Papers:

We invite submissions for 30 min presentations (plus 15 min for discussion) in English. Abstracts should be anonymous and not longer than two pages (Times New Roman 12 pt., single space, 2,4 cm margins). They should be submitted in pdf format to: https://easychair.org/conferences/?conf=nbpn2024

Submissions open: Aug. 1, 2023 – Dec. 11, 2023

Abstract review period: Dec. 12, 2023 – Jan. 15, 2024