Conference

Adverbs and adverbials at the form-meaning interface: diachronic and synchronic perspectives (AAMFI 2022)

Adverbs and adverbials are known to be one of the most controversial topics in linguistics. They are often referred to as a residual grammatical class (Restklasse; Geuder 2019). Nevertheless – or just because of that –, in recent years, adverbs and adverbials have become the focus of research in various fields of linguistics and, moreover, several studies on the morpho-syntactic and semantic features of adverbs, the adjective-adverb distinction and the grammaticalization of adverbs have been carried out (cf. Alexiadou 1997; Axel-Tober & Müller 2017; Cinque 1999; Frey & Pittner 1998; Pittner, Elsner & Barteld 2015 among others).
The aim of this conference is to bring together recent empirical and theoretical investigations on the classification, distribution and historical development of adverbs, adverbials, and related word classes, e. g. modal particles. For this, the conference is attractive to descriptive, historical, theoretical, typological as well as experimental linguists. Questions to be addressed include – but are not limited to – the following:

• How can we develop a uniform theory for adverbs and adverbials at the form-meaning interface?
• What are the (synchronic as well as diachronic) core properties of adverbs from a typological perspective?
• How were adverbial functions expressed grammatically in the history of Germanic languages?
• How do different kinds of adverbs grammaticalize? And how do they develop into discourse or modal particles?
• What can experimental studies on the acquisition, grammaticalization and processing of adverbs and adverbials tell us about their properties and/or distribution?

The conference language is English. We are confident that the conference can take place in person. If not, we will opt for an online or hybrid format. The conference, organized by the German Department of the University of Göttingen as part of the network Linguistics in Göttingen, is associated with the RTG 2636: Form-meaning mismatches.

• Artemis Alexiadou (Humboldt University of Berlin)
• Katrin Axel-Tober (University of Tübingen)
• Karin Pittner (Ruhr University Bochum)

Organizers:

• Marco Coniglio
• Katharina Paul
• Markus Steinbach