Root phenomena

In their classical paper, Hooper and Thompson 1973 described root phenomena as occurring unembedded and under assertive embedding. Unembedded environments include what would today be unintegrated (Reis 1997) or peripheral (Haegeman 2004) adjunct clauses as well as appositive relatives (see de Vries 2006, Citko 2008). Matrix verbs that allow assertive embedding show interesting parallels to those verbs that embed indicative (as opposed to subjunctive) mood in Romance, a parallel explored early for English parenthetical formation in Bolinger 1968. A helpful recent review of the literature on embedded root phenomena is Heycock 2006.

The workshop is planned as a syntactic enterprise, with a welcome to semanticists. Questions of interest include, but are not limited to: Non-uniformity of embedded root phenomena (e.g. de Haan 2001), Germanic V2 as a root phenomenon (Reis 1997, see Bentzen et al. 2007), root phenomena in non-Germanic languages, modal particles and root phenomena (see e.g. Coniglio 2007), root phenomena and speech acts, more precise characterizations of 'assertive' embeddings, the grammatical representation of root phenomena, the semantic interpretation of root phenomena (see e.g. Potts 2005).

Programme

Wednesday, September 2

14.00 - 15.00 
Caroline Heycock (Edinburgh) [invited speaker] 
Detecting and comparing embedded root phenomena 

15.00 - 15.40 
Valentina Bianchi & Mara Frascarelli (Siena/Rome III) 
Is Topic a root phenomenon? (download abstract)

break

16.00 - 16.40 
Carlos De Cuba & Barbara Ürögdi (Stony Brook/Budapest) 
Roots and radicals: the referentiality of clauses (download abstract)

16.40 - 17.20 
Hubert Truckenbrodt (ZAS Berlin) 
Root phenomena and verbal mood at the syntax-semantics interface (download abstract)

17.20 - 18.00 
Frank Sode (HU Berlin) 
Shifting root phenomena (download abstract)


Thursday, September 3

9.00 - 9.40 
Barbara Stiebels (ZAS Berlin) 
Lexical Classes of German V2-embedders 
 
9.40 - 10.20 
Tatjana Scheffler (DFKI Saarbrücken/Berlin) 
Root phenomena and syntax/semantics-mismatch (download abstract)

break

10.40 - 11.20 
Daniel Gutzmann (Frankfurt) 
Stacked supplements (download abstract)

11.20 - 12.00 
Mark de Vries (Groningen) 
Root phenomena in appositive and parenthetical constructions (download abstract)

lunch break

13.30 - 14.10 
Jane Grimshaw (Rutgers) 
Main? Subordinate? Quasi-Subordinate? Root? The case of Slifting (download abstract)

14.10 - 14.50 
Ulrike Freywaldt (Potsdam) 
V2 in German complement clauses introduced by dass ?that? (download abstract)

14.50 - 15.30 
Hans den Besten (Amsterdam) 
The syntax of Subject ? Vfin sequences (download abstract)

break

16.00 - 16.40 
Marit Julien (Lund) 
The force of embedded V2 (download abstract, prep. reading)

16.40 - 17.40 
Kristine Bentzen (Tromsoe) [invited speaker] 
Embedded root phenomena, assertion, presupposition, and main point of utterance 


Friday, September 4

9.00 - 9.40 
Marco Coniglio (Venice) 
Italian modal particles as root phenomena (download abstract)

9.40 - 10.20 
Roland Hinterhölzl & Manfred Krifka (HU Berlin) 
Modal particles in adverbial clauses (download abstract)

break

10.40 - 11.20 
Lieven Danckaert (Ghent) 
Polarity focus and the Latin particle quidem in adverbial clauses (download abstract)

11.20 - 12.20 
Liliane Haegeman (Ghent) [invited speaker] 
Main clause phenomena and intervention (download abstract)


Alternates:

Irene Franco (Siena): The syntax of Scandinavian embedded V2 and non-V2 clauses (download abstract)

Francisco Fernández-Rubiera (Washington): Embedded root phenomena in Asturian: Postverbal clitics in finite embedded contexts (download abstract)

Gunnar Hrafn Hrafnbjargarson & Anna-Lena Wiklund (Tromsø/Lund): Icelandic A, B, C, etc. Root and non-root fronting (download abstract)