Presentation

The goal of this workshop is to explore some questions raised during our previous workshops in Hermosillo (Mexico). Specific topics for the October 2011 workshop include the link between finiteness and nominalization and changes in finiteness, i.e. the process of re-finitization and de-finitization.

Among the issues to be addressed are these:

Finiteness belongs to the grammar of inter-clausal connectivity; it may be defined as "the systematic grammatical means used to express the degree of integration of a clause into its immediate clausal environment" (Givón 1990: 853). The syntactic dependence of the clause - its finiteness – is thus used to code the thematic dependence of an event/state on its discourse context. What do we really mean by dependence? Are non-finite clauses always dependent? If so, in what sense? Syntactic or semantic dependence? (Nikolaeva 2007)

Finiteness and nominalization are generally described as correlated (Givón 2001, Bisang 2001).  For example, a highly nominalized clause is an indicator of a low degree of finiteness.  How do these finiteness and nominalization interact? Does nominalization function as an indicator of finiteness, and if so, how? Which properties are taken as distinctive for finiteness and non-finiteness – tense, modality, aspect, subject/object agreement, voice, encoding of verbal argument, or others?

From a functional perspective, finiteness is a property of the clause and is generally characterized as a scalar phenomenon (Givón 2001). However, formal theories and some functional approaches take finiteness to be a discrete, binary phenomenon (Bisang 2007). How and why do different grammatical theories represent finiteness?

Finiteness as a property of the clause is a complex, multi-featured, and scalar phenomenon that may change. How is finiteness subject to change? In what direction might the change go? What are the syntactic environments in which re-finitization or de-finitization occur, and how and why does this happen? With which other features are re-finitization and de-finitization correlated?

Programme

Mercredi 12 octobre

9h00 Bienvenue

• 9h30 T. GIVÓN
  Nominalization and re-finitization

10h30 Pause café

• 11h00 Valentín PERALTA RAMÍREZ
  Las cláusulas dependientes con predicados no finitos: los desiderativos y su restricción aspectual y de persona en el nawat de Pajapan
• 11h45 Martine VANHOVE
  The nominalizer –a in Beja (Cushitic)

12h30 Pause déjeuner

• 14h30 Claire MOYSE-FAURIE
  Referential markers in Oceanic nominalized constructions
• 15h15 Albert ÁLVAREZ GONZÁLEZ
  Rasgos de finitud y nominalización en las cláusulas adverbiales de la lengua yaqui
• 16h00 Stéphane ROBERT
  The various uses of the Null tense in Wolof: Scalarity in connectivity and dependency

16h45 Pause café

• 17h15 Marianne MITHUN
  Interactions between finiteness and nominalization

18h15 Cocktail de bienvenue

Jeudi 13 octobre

• 9h30 Masayoshi SHIBATANI
  Toward the functional definitions of clauses and sentences

10h30 Pause café

• 11h00 Fidencio BRICEÑO CHEL
  Cláusulas finitas y nominalización en maya yucateco
• 11h45 Zarina ESTRADA FERNÁNDEZ
  Finiteness and non-finiteness in Pima Bajo: a scalar phenomenon

12h30 Pause déjeuner

• 14h30 Sophie VASSILAKI
  A propos des complétives nominalisées du grec moderne
• 15h15 Claudine CHAMOREAU
  Non-finiteness and chain-medial clauses in Purepecha

16h00 Pause café

• 16h30 Walter BISANG
  Finiteness and nominalization — convergence and divergence

Vendredi 14 octobre

• 9h30 Bernd HEINE
  On imperatives and nonfiniteness: Some crosslinguistic observations

10h30 Pause café

• 11h00 Enrique PALANCAR
  Where nominalization ends and derivation begins
• 11h45 Françoise ROSE
  Lexical nominalizations VS clause nominalizations: two extremes on the finiteness scale
• 12h30 Francesc QUEIXALÓS
  Prédicats dé-rhématisés en sikuani (et en tupi-guarani)

13h15 Clôture