Archives: Events

Info & Organisation:

• Jóhanna Barðdal (UGent)
• Michael Frotscher (UGent)
• Mark Janse (UGent/Oxford)

The 18th Diachronic Generative Syntax conference will be held in Ghent, Belgium, from 29 June to 1 July 2016. The conference is co-organised by the research groups DiaLing and GIST (Department of Linguistics at Ghent University).

DiGS 18 is dedicated to the historical and comparative investigations of syntactic phenomena and language change from a generative perspective.
We will also host a separate workshop on diachronic stability on 28 June 2016.

Important dates:

• 15 January 2016 deadline for abstracts
• 15 March 2016 notification of acceptance
• 15 May 2016 early registration deadline
• 29 June – 1 July 2016 conference

Abstract submission is through EasyChair.

Invited speakers DiGS18:

• Elly van Gelderen
• Cecilia Poletto
• Ioanna Sitaridou

Invited speakers workshop on Diachronic Stability:

• Sheila Watts
• Joel Wallenberg

Organizing Committee:

• Anne Breitbarth
• Miriam Bouzouita
• Lieven Danckaert
• Liliane Haegeman
• Melissa Farasyn
• Elisabeth Witzenhausen

 

More information under www.digs18.ugent.be or via the organisers.

The conference “The Language(s) of the Papyrus Archives” will be held at the conference center KANTL (Koningstraat, Ghent) on 18 September 2015.
The conference focuses on the linguistic approach of (documentary) papyri, and on papyri preserved in papyrological archives in particular.
It has a multilingual scope with contributions about Greek, Demotic and Latin.
It not only presents scientific results of scholars working within the field of the linguistic study of papyri, but it also aims to discuss the potential of this relatively new subdiscipline.

Programme
10.00-10.30       Coffee
10.30-10.45       Welcoming speech (Delphine Nachtergaele, Ghent University)
10.45-11.30       Bilingual documents in Greco-Roman Egypt (Willy Clarysse, KU Leuven)
11.30-12.15       Some Aspects of the Language of Individuals and Social Groups in Zenon Papyri (Trevor Evans, Macquarie University, Sydney)
12.15-13.30       Lunch
13.30-14.15       Further observations on senders, scribes and language (Hilla Halla-aho, University of Helsinki)
14.15-15.00       DIA in the Archive of Basil the Pagarch (VIII AD) (Klaas Bentein, Ghent University)
15.00-15.45       Digital Humanities and the future of linguistic papyrology (Mark Depauw, KU Leuven)

Registration
Attendance of the conference is open to the public. A fee of €25 is asked for coffee & tea and lunch; therefore advance registration is necessary. If you plan to attend, please inform the organizers (Delphine.Nachtergaele@UGent.be)

For a large part of the twentieth century, linguistic variation has received little attention. With the work of William Labov and others, however, heterogeneity in language again became a topic of interest: within the newly founded discipline of sociolinguistics, scholars have investigated the correlationship between linguistic variants and contextual variables such as age, gender, social class, social distance, etc. In actual language use, however, variants (and to some extent, variables) do not occur in an isolated fashion; rather there is patterned heterogeneity. In this spirit, scholars have described the existence of various lects such as chronolects, dialects, idiolects, ethnolects, genderlects, regiolects, sociolects, technolects, etc. in a great number of languages.

The aim of this conference is to investigate varieties of Post-Classical and Byzantine Greek, a topic of considerable interest among various members of the Greek section at Ghent University. Whereas some research has been done in this area, aspecially when it comes to Post-Classical Greek (e.g. Janse 2007 on New Testament Greek, Horrocks 2007 on levels of writing, Torallas-Tovar 2010 on Greek in Egypt, Nachergaele 2015 on idiolect, Bentein 2015 on register), a more systematic discussion of these varieties has yet to take place – despite the great potential of our Post-Classical and Byzantine sources.

The organisers invite all Greek linguists to submit a one-page English abstract to varieties@ugent.be (please use a Unicode-based font for Greek text) by September 1, 2016 at the latest. Notification of acceptance will be given by the end of September. Next to the discussion of specific varieties, we consider the following issues of particular interest:

• What linguistic models can be used for the description and analysis of varieties?
• What is the relationship between different dimensions of variation, for example between the diachronic and the diastratic dimension?
• What role do idiolects play for the description of language variation?
• To what extent do non-congruent features (i.e. features belonging to different, or even opposed varieties) occur in texts?
• What is the relevance of and relationship between documentary and literary texts as sources of variety?
• At which linguistic levels (phonological, morphological, syntactic, lexical) can varieties be described?

Organizing Committee

• Klaas Bentein (UGent)
• Willy Clarysse (KU Leuven)
• Mark Janse (UGent)
• Bruno Rochette (ULg)

Keynote Speakers

• Geoff Horrocks (University of Cambridge)
• Martti Leiwo (University of Helsinki)

 

More info on the conference website.