Categorial shift: from description to theory and back again

WORKSHOP SLE 2015 Leiden Categorial shifts: From description to theory and back again. The aim of this workshop is to discuss the categorial shifts involved in, for instance, nominalization and verbalization, in view of recent descriptive research. Studies on nominalization/verbalization have tended to be either inductive and crosslinguistic in focus (e.g. Hopper & Thompson 1984; Mackenzie 1987; Lehmann 1988; Givón 1990; Croft 1991; Koptjevskaja-Tamm 1993; Dik 1997) or they are deductive and theoretically oriented (see, for instance, on the English gerund: Lees 1960; Chomsky 1970; Pullum 1991; Hudson 2007). This workshop wants to pick up on the role of language-particular, micro-level descriptive studies and probe into the contribution that they can make to our general understanding of categorial shifts. In particular, informed by language-particular studies on categorical shifts (e.g. in the English -ing form), it wants to address the following research questions: (1) Can nominalization and verbalization be accurately characterized as the ordered acquisition or loss of particular hierarchies of nominal or verbal categories (see, among others, Givón 1990; Croft 1991; Malchukov 2004; 2006)? (2) Is a language-particular case of categorical shift (such as, for instance, the English gerund) best described in its own terms only, by means of language-particular descriptive categories (Haspelmath 2010), or can its description lead to new, more general insights in the grammatical behaviour of the ‘comparative concepts’ of, for instance, noun and verb (Haspelmath 2010, 2012)? (3) Can the processes of decategorization (Hopper & Thompson 1984) and recategorization (Bhat 1994) be accurately described in terms of the mere loss or acquisition of certain morphosyntactic categories (e.g. the use of determiners, the noun- or verb-like inclusion of participants), or can the description of degrees of re/decategorization (viewed both as synchronic gradience and as diachronic gradualness) benefit from more fine-grained analysis (e.g. of whether the full range of determiners is exploited in a nominalization type; e.g. of how a nominalized/verbalized structure comes to function in the discourse and which collocational ties it holds with its co-text)? (4) How can the almost exclusively synchronic perspective that has thus far been taken in theoretical reflections on categorial shift be inspired by the results of diachronic descriptive research on types of nominalizations (e.g. on the gerund: Demske 1999, 2000; De Smet 2007, 2008; Fanego 1996, 2004; Fonteyn, De Smet and Heyvaert 2015; Jack 1988; Tajima 1985; Van der Wurff 1993)? (5) What benefits as well as limitations are there to a quantitatively-oriented methodological approach to the description of categorial shifts? Aarts, B. 2004. Modelling linguistic gradience. Studies in Language 28.1: 1-49—BHAT, D.N.S. 1994. The adjectival category. Amsterdam: Benjamins—CHOMSKY, N. 1970. Remarks on nominalization. In Readings in English Transformational Grammar, R.A. Jacobs & P.S. Rosenbaum (eds.), 184–221. Waltham: Ginn—CROFT, W. 1991. Syntactic categories and grammatical relations: The cognitive organization of information. Chicago: Chicago University Press—DEMSKE, U. 1999. Nominalisierungen im Deutschen und Englischen. Überlegungen zu einer Theorie sprachlichen Wandels. In Elemente des Sprachwandels, Petra M. Vogel & Siegfried Kanngießer (eds.), 98–138. Opladen: Westdeutscher Verlag—DEMSKE, U. 2000. Zur Geschichte der ung-Nominalisierung im Deutschen. Ein Wandel morphologischer Produktivität. In Beiträge zur Geschichte der deutschen Sprache und Literatur 122.365–411—DE SMET, H. 2007. Nominal gerunds in 16th century English. The function of the definite article. Folia Linguistica Historica 28.1-2:77-113—DE SMET, H. 2008. Functional motivations in the development of nominal and verbal gerunds in Middle and Early Modern English. English Language and Linguistics 12:55-102—DIK, S.C. 1997. The Theory of Functional Grammar. Complex and derived constructions. Berlin: Mouton—FANEGO, T. 1996. The gerund in Early Modern English: Evidence from the Helsinki Corpus. English Language and Linguistics 2:87119—FANEGO, T. 2004. On reanalysis and actualization in syntactic change. The rise and development of English verbal gerunds. Diachronica 21:5-55—FONTEYN, L., DE SMET, H. AND HEYVAERT, L. 2015. What it means to verbalize: The changing discourse functions of the English gerund (accepted). Journal of English Linguistics, 43 (1), 1-25 —GIVÓN, T. 1990. Syntax: a functional-typological introduction. Vol. 2. Amsterdam: Benjamins—HASPELMATH, M. 2010. Comparative concepts and descriptive categories in crosslinguistic studies. Language 86.3: 663-687—HASPELMATH, M. 2012. How to compare major word-classes across the world’s languages. In Theories of everything: in honor of Edward Keenan, Graf, T., D. Paperno, A. Szabolcsi & J. Tellings, Jos (eds.), 109-130 (UCLA Working Papers in Linguistics, 17.) Los Angeles: UCLA—HOPPER, P.L. & S.THOMPSON 1984.The discourse basis for lexical categories in universal grammar. Language 60:703-752—HUDSON, R. 2007. Language networks. Oxford: OUP—JACK, G. 1988. The origins of the English gerund. Nowele 12:15-75—KOPTJEVSKAJA-TAMM, M. 1993. Nominalizations. London: Routledge—LEES, R.B. 1960. The grammar of English nominalizations. Bloomington: IURC—LEHMANN, C. 1988. Towards a typology of clause linkage. In Clause combining in grammar and discourse, J. Haiman & S.A. Thompson (eds.), 181-225. Amsterdam: Benjamins—MACKENZIE, L. 1987. Nominalization and basic constituent ordering. In Ins and outs of predication, J. van der Auwera & L. Goossens (eds.). Dordrecht: Foris—MALCHUKOV, A.L. 2004. Nominalization/verbalization: Constraining a typology of transcategorial operations. Munich: Lincom—MALCHUKOV, A.L. 2006. Constraining nominalization: function/form competition. Linguistics 44.5:973-1009—PULLUM, G.K. 1991. English nominal gerund phrases as noun phrases with verb-phrase heads. Linguistics 29:763–799—TAJIMA, M.1985. The syntactic development of the gerund in Middle English. Tokyo: Nanun-do—VAN DER WURFF, W. 1993. Gerunds and their objects in the Modern English period. In J. van Marle (ed.), Historical linguistics 1991,363-75. Amsterdam:Benjamins.status: publishe