Call for papers: International Conference on Prominence in Language

Date: 15-Jun-2015 - 17-Jun-2015
Location: Cologne, Germany
Contact Person: Jakob Egetenmeyer
Meeting Email: prominence.conference@gmail.com
Web Site: http://prominence-conference.phil-fak.uni-koeln.de/

Linguistic Field(s): Phonetics; Phonology; Pragmatics; Semantics; Syntax

Call Deadline: 01-Mar-2015

Meeting Description:

Prominence relations establish a ranking between linguistic units, such as prosodic units, arguments of a verb and discourse referents. Prominence is therefore one of the key notions in language and communication: it accounts for prosodic highlighting and the building of linguistic structure and discourse representations. Accordingly, the study of prominence requires an interdisciplinary linguistic approach, involving phonology and phonetics, syntax, semantics and discourse pragmatics. Our conference aims to foster the understanding of the notion of prominence.

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

Sónia Frota (Universidade de Lisboa)
Manfred Krifka (ZAS/Humboldt Universität)
Hannah Rohde (University of Edinburgh)

Hosted by the Cologne Center of Language Sciences (CCLS), the conference will take place on the University of Cologne campus from 15 to 17 June 2015. The event is sponsored by the Emerging Group “Dynamic Structuring in Language and Communication” (DSLC), funded by the Institutional Strategy of the University of Cologne (ZUK 81/1).

Organizing Host:

Christiane Bongartz  (chair; CCLS, University of Cologne)

Organizing Committee:

Jakob Egetenmeyer (CCLS, Universität zu Köln)
Jacopo Torregrossa (DSLC, Universität zu Köln)

Convenors:

Martin Becker (Romanistik, Universität zu Köln)
Christiane Bongartz (Anglistik, Universität zu Köln)
Martine Grice (IfL-Phonetik, Universität zu Köln)
Klaus von Heusinger (IDSL, Universität zu Köln)
Nikolaus Himmelmann (IfL, Universität zu Köln)
Beatrice Primus (IDSL, Universität zu Köln)

Call for Papers:

We invite contributions employing quantitative and qualitative research methods, a synchronic or diachronic perspective, as well as psycho- and neuro-linguistic approaches.

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

i) The encoding of prominence at the phonetics-phonology interface
ii) Language-specific and universal prominence scales (animacy scale, referentiality scale, thematic role hierarchy, topic scales, etc.)
iii) Factors determining the ranking of entities in discourse (e.g., accessibility, salience, activation, topicality)
iv) Psycho- and neuro-linguistic underpinnings of prominence relations

We ask for the submission of abstracts for oral presentations and posters on prominence-related phenomena by March 1, 2015. Submissions are limited to a maximum of one individual and one joint abstract per author or two joint abstracts per author. Abstracts should be written in English and not exceed 500 words. Figures, examples and references might be additionally included, but abstracts must not exceed two A4 pages. Please use Times New Roman, 12pt font, single line spacing, and 2.5cm margins. Abstracts should be submitted via EasyChair at the following address:

https://easychair.org/conferences/?conf=icpl2015

Important Dates:

March 1, 2015: Submission of abstracts
April 1, 2015: Notification of acceptance
April 30, 2015: Registration open
June 15-17, 2015: Conference