Events

Topic and Theme
- The objective of this course is to familiarize students with the linguistic theory and methodology of constructionalization in comparison to those of grammaticalization.
- The course will include as much exercises as time will allow, and will be taught in English.
- Participants are assumed to be acquainted with basic concepts and notions of linguistics, and in particular with the domain of historical linguistics.

Lecturer
Prof. Dr Elizabeth Closs Traugott (Stanford University)
Elizabeth Closs Traugott is Professor Emerita of Linguistics and English at Stanford University. She obtained her PhD in English Language at the University of California at Berkeley in 1964. After receiving her PhD, she taught at the University of California, Berkeley, University of Dar-es-Salaam, and York University before settling at Stanford University in 1970. There she served as chair of the Department of Linguistics and as Vice Provost and Dean of Graduate Studies. She is world renowned for her work on historical linguistics, especially grammaticalization, subjectification and constructionalization. Her current research focuses on (i) ways to bring the theories of construction grammar, grammaticalization and lexicalization together in a unified theory of constructionalization, (ii) the development of pragmatic markers at left and right periphery of the clause and on ways to define “periphery”.She held a Guggenheim fellowship and a fellowship at the Center for Advanced Study in the Behavioral Sciences. She was President of the International Society for Historical Linguistics in 1979, of the Linguistic Society of America in 1987, and of the International Society for the Linguistics of English in 2007-2008. She is currently a Corresponding Fellow of the British Academy, and Fellow of the American Association for the Advancement of Science.Her publications include the following books: A History of English Syntax (1972), Linguistics for Students of Literature (1980; with Mary L. Pratt), On Conditionals (1986; co-edited with Alice ter Meulen, Judith Snitzer Reilly, and Charles A. Ferguson), Approaches to Grammaticalization (1991; co-edited with Bernd Heine, 2 volumes), Grammaticalization (1993, 2nd much revised ed. 2003; with Paul Hopper), Regularity in Semantic Change (2002; with Richard B. Dasher), Lexicalization and Language Change (2005; with Laurel J. Brinton), Gradience, Gradualness and Grammaticalization (2010; co-edited with Graeme Trousdale), The Oxford Handbook of the History of English (2012; co-edited with Terttu Nevalainen), and Constructionalization and Constructional Changes (2013; with Graeme Trousdale).