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Prominence in Language

2nd International Conference

Prominence in Language 2018

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Hosted by the Collaborative Research Center 1252 Prominence in Language and the Cologne Center of Language Sciences (CCLS), the workshop will take place at the Conference Center of KOMED, Mediapark 7, 50670, Cologne, from 11 to 13 July 2018.

The conference features plenary talks in the fields of phonetics-phonology, morphosyntax-semantics and discourse by three keynote speakers:

  • Jason Bishop (CUNY): Structure, Realization, and the Listener in Prominence Perception
  • Eva Schultze-Berndt (The University of Manchester): Universal vs. language-specific influences on agent prominence and differential agent marking: a view from Down Under
  • Andrew Kehler (University of California at San Diego): Prominence in a Referential Theory of VP-Ellipsis

Organizing Committee
Paul Compensis, Jakob Egetenmeyer, Birgit Hellwig, Stefan Hinterwimmer

Scientific Committee
Martin Becker, Chris Bongartz, Martine Grice, Birgit Hellwig, Klaus von Heusinger, Beatrice Primus, Petra B. Schumacher

Reviewers
Aria Adli, Maria Andreou, Stefan Baumann, Martin Becker, Chris Bongartz, Andreas Brocher, Daniel Bunčić, Francesco Cangemi, Javier Caro Reina, Antje Casaretto, Diana Dimitrova, Jakob Egetenmeyer, Sonja Eisenbeiß, Yulia Esaulova, Marco García García, Martine Grice, Daniel Gutzmann, Katharina Haude, Anne Hermes, Nikolaus Himmelmann, Katja Jasinskaja, Łukasz Jędrzejowski, Constantijn Kaland, Frank Kügler, Doris Mücke, Henrik Niemann, Martina Penke, Markus Philipp, Beatrice Primus, Uta Reinöhl, Sophie Repp, Sonja Riesberg, Christine Röhr, Petra Schumacher, Maria Spychalska, Volker Struckmeier, Jacopo Torregrossa, Carla Umbach, Melanie Uth, Sarah Verlage, Klaus von Heusinger, Thomas Weskott

Call for papers (closed): Prominence relations establish a ranking between linguistic units, such as between prosodic units, or between arguments of a verb or between discourse referents. Prominence is therefore one of the key notions in language and communication: it accounts for prosodic highlighting and for the building of linguistic structure and discourse representations. The SFB 1252 Prominence in Language (University of Cologne) investigates the role of prominence from an interdisciplinary linguistic perspective, involving phonology and phonetics, morpho-syntax, semantics and discourse pragmatics. The Second International Conference "Prominence in Language“ (the first took place in Cologne in 2015) aims at advancing the understanding of the notion of prominence and at promoting the exchange among researchers working on prominence-related phenomena from various perspectives. We invite contributions employing quantitative and qualitative research methods, synchronic and diachronic perspectives, psycho- and neuro-linguistic and cognitively oriented approaches as well as applied ones (such as automatic translation).

A (non-exhaustive) list of topics to be addressed at the workshop may include the following:

  1. the encoding of prominence at the phonetics-phonology interface; 
  2. language-specific and universal prominence scales (animacy scale, referentiality scale, thematic role hierarchy, etc.); 
  3. factors determining the ranking of entities in discourse (e.g., accessibility, salience, activation, topicality, status as central protagonist); 
  4. psycho- and neuro-linguistic underpinnings of prominence relations; 
  5. the role of prominence in the tense-aspect system;
  6. the relation between the prominence status of entities in discourse and their availability as perspective-takers.