Sentence Types, Sentence Moods and Illocutionary Forces: An International Conference to honor Manfred Bierwisch

The notion of speech act, introduced half a century ago, has proved immensely fruitful for language-related disciplines. Yet, the very nature of speech acts, and their place in a theory of grammar and discourse, is still a matter of debate, and comparative research reveals new types of speech acts and ways how speech acts can be expressed. 

The conference will bring together philosophers of language interested in the foundations of speech act theory with linguists concerned with the inventory of speech acts in particular language communities and the expression of speech acts in their languages, the function of speech acts in specific discourses, as well as the acquisition and processing of speech acts. One focus is on speech acts as a phenomenon that straddles semantics and pragmatics, and particularly on the issue of  speech-act embeddings.
Please register, if you would like to attend the conference.

Program

Thursday, 4 November

13.50-14.00
Welcome & Introduction

14.00-15.30
EKKEHARD KÖNIG (Berlin/Freiburg) & PETER SIEMUND (Hamburg):
Functional Distinctions in the Grammar of Sentence Types across Languages

15.30-16.00
Tea & Coffee Break

16.00-17.00
MARGA REIS (Tübingen):
Echo-Wh-Questions Revisited

17.00-18.00
JOSEF BAYER (Konstanz) & HANS-GEORG OBENAUER (Paris):
On the (In-)Dependence of Interpretation from Syntax - Evidence from 'Special Questions'

19.00
Conference Dinner
Venue: Ristorante Valmontone, Friedrichstr. 50 [Link to homepage]

Friday, 5 November

9.00-10.00
STEPHEN LEVINSON (Nijmegen):
Speech Acts in Action (and Interaction)

10.00-11.00
ROBERT M. HARNISH (Tucson):
Mood, Force, and Inference

11.00-11.30
Tea & Coffee Break

11.30-12.30
FRANÇOIS RECANATI (Paris):
Content, Mood, and Force

12.30-14.00
Lunch Break

14.00-15.00
ULRIKE ZESHAN (Preston):
The Typology of Interrogatives in Sign Languages

15.00-16.00
HANS-MARTIN GÄRTNER (Berlin):
Diachronic Perspectives on Sentence Types: Some Remarks and a Case Study

16.00-16.30
Tea & Coffee Break

16.30-18.30
ILSE ZIMMERMANN (Potsdam):
Where are the Worlds?
DIETER WUNDERLICH (Düsseldorf/Berlin):
80 Years with Manfred Bierwisch -  On Literal Meaning, Parsimony and the Semantics of Mood
MANFRED BIERWISCH (Berlin):
Why Speech Acts aren't that special

18.30
Reception at the BBAW

Saturday, 6 November

9.00-10.00
NICHOLAS ASHER (Toulouse):
Big Speech Acts: Complex Constituents in Discourse Structur

10.00-11.00
ARIEL COHEN (Beer Sheva):
Epistemic Modals as Speech Act Modifiers

11.00-11.30
Tea & Coffee Break

11.30-12.30
DIETMAR ZAEFFERER (Munich):
'Is this a question, and if yes, what's the answer?' Performativity as Holophoricity

12.30-14.00
Lunch Break

14.00-15.00
MANFRED KRIFKA (Berlin):
Speech Acts: Not truth-conditional, but part of semantics

15.00-16.00
JONATHAN GINZBURG (London):
Speech Act Embedding and Clarificational Interaction

Contact E-Mail: ssi(at)zas.gwz-berlin.de
Homepage: http://www.zas.gwz-berlin.de/workshop_ssi.html