Session 8: Tense, Aspect and Modality

July 21-26, 2008

Korea University, Seoul, Republic of Korea

A parallel session on tense, aspect and modality will be held at the 18^th International Congress of Linguists (CIL 18). For more information, visit the website (http://cil18.org ) or contact the organizer at [email protected].

Organizer: Johan van der Auwera (University of Antwerp, Belgium)

Description:

The study of tense, aspect and modality (and mood) remains a important field of linguistics, not least also because of our increased knowledge of the variety found in the world’s languages (see e.g. the World Atlas of Language Structures, ed. by M. Haspelmath et al, Oxford University Press, 2005).

Submissions are invited for twenty minute talks (15 minutes for presentation plus 5 minutes for questions), in either English or French, on any topic relating to the general domain of tense, aspect, modality, and mood. Of particular interest will be research that takes one or more of the following perspectives:

- the synchronic relation between the three (or four) domains: e.g., do choices in one demain (e.g. modality) restrict the choices in another one (e.g. aspect)? what is the relation between modality (mininally understood as the study of necessity and possibility and maximally also including volition and evidentially) and mood (distinctions such as indicicative vs. subjunctive)? what is the relation between the concept of irrealis and those of mood and modality?

- the diachronic relations between the domains: e.g., how do aspect systems develop into tense systems? how does a tense acquire a modal meaning?

- the cross-linguistic study of tense of tense, aspect, modality and mood, either from a global point of view or a more restricted one (language family or linguistic area)

Preference is given to presentations that will achieve a cross-theoretical understanding.

Important dates:

Deadline for Abstract Submission: May 31, 2007

Notification of Acceptance/Rejection: August 31, 2007

Submission of Abstracts:

A three-page abstract including everything should be sent electronically to both [email protected] and [email protected]. Special characters should be in UNICODE. An MS Word and/or PDF file is strongly preferred.