NORMS Workshop on Pragmatic particles
with the special theme of
The notorious ‘extras’ and grammar
June 12–13, 2006
Lecture hall 12 (U40), Metsätalo/Forsthuset, University of Helsinki
Address: Fabiansgatan/Fabianinkatu 39 = Unionsgatan/Unioninkatu 40; P.O.B. 24; FIN-00014 University of Helsinki
Organized by the Thematic group on Pragmatic particles within the Tromsø-based Nordic Center of Excellence in Microcomparative Syntax (NORMS)
Hosted by Nordica, the Department of Scandinavian languages and literature at the University of Helsinki
Program
Monday, June 12, 2006
|
10.00-11.00 |
Jan-Ola Östman |
University of Helsinki |
Forty years of research on particles |
|
11.00-12.00 |
Mirjam Fried |
Princeton University |
Pragmatic particles in Construction Grammar |
|
12.00-13.30 |
lunch |
|
|
|
13.30-14.30 |
Øystein Vangsnes |
University of Tromsø |
Syntactic doubling phenomena in Scandinavian (dialects) |
|
14.30-15.15 |
Christine Bjerkan Østbø |
University of Tromsø |
The Norwegian particle så |
|
15.15-16.00 |
(Jan-Ola Östman) coffee |
|
General discussion |
|
16.00-17.00 |
Urpo Nikanne |
Åbo Akademi University |
Finnish päin |
|
17.00-18.00 |
Jan Lindström |
University of Helsinki |
Discourse markers in Swedish: A syntactic account |
|
18.00-20.00 |
at Nordica: discussion, pie, salad, and good company |
|
|
Tuesday, June 13, 2006
|
9.00-9.30 |
Jonna Ahti |
University of Helsinki |
On Swedish nu/nog/no/noo and Finnish nyt |
|
9.30-10.00 |
Theódóra Anna Torfadóttir |
University of Iceland |
On particles in Icelandic |
|
10.00-10.30 |
Leila Mattfolk |
University of Helsinki |
On the relevance of pragmatic particles in attitude research |
|
10.30-11.30 |
(Jan-Ola Östman) |
|
General discussion |
|
11.30-12.30 |
lunch |
|
|
|
12.30-13.00 |
Saija Tamminen |
University of Helsinki |
Are particles projective – and if so, of what? |
|
13.00-13.30 |
Jukka Havu |
University of Tampere |
On Finnish –kO and degrammaticalization |
|
13.30-15.00 |
coffee |
|
General discussion on ‘extras’ and grammar |
Please contact Jan-Ola Östman at jan-ola.ostman@helsinki.fi if you are interested in giving a 20+10 minute presentation-cum-discussion.
NORMS
is headed by Peter Svenonius and a steering committee with members from the Nordic countries. For details, please see http://norms.uit.no/
The Thematic group on Pragmatic particles
is coordinated by Jan-Ola Östman, with the following NORMS collaborators: Jan Lindström, Randi
Alice Nilsen, Theódóra Anna Torfadóttir, and Øystein Vangsnes.
Within the realm of the general aim of NORMS to investigate microsyntactic variation through the explication of (Scandinavian) dialect grammar, the task of the Thematic group on pragmatic particles is to systematically investigate the behaviour of what has traditionally (from a propositional point of view) been seen as ‘extras’ in a text. Such ‘extras’ can thus tentatively be specified as (parts of) linguistic expressions that are not needed for the interpretation of, or the transfer of, the propositional piece of information that a segment with meaning or function carries (or is prototypically interpreted as carrying). Such a segment can be of any size – a segment, a sound, a word, a phrase, a clause, a sentence, a turn, a text, a piece of discourse, etc.
In the thematic group on pragmatic particles the point of departure for the analysis of such elements is inductive and usage-based, where the collaborators try not to (have to) decide beforehand whether the ‘extra’ is pragmatically, syntactically, phonetically, or even semantically, licensed.
The term ‘pragmatic particle’ is retained in order to pay due respect to earlier studies (from the 1970s onward) of such phenomena; cf. English y'know, like, well, (a.k.a. discourse markers, IFIDs, etc.), German doch (cf. the notion of Abtönungspartikel); Swedish nog, alltså; Finnish clitical particles, etc. etc. Other important types of ‘extras’ include the phenomenon called (syntactic/pragmatic) doubling, other ‘repetitives’ like right and left dislocation and appositions, and prosodic crystallizations.