[PLing] WSG-Programm November/Dezember: Szendrői, Mühlenbernd, Liu

[Laura Grestenberger]

Liebe Kolleg*innen,

Ich möchte Sie gerne nochmals auf das (leicht geänderte) 
Vortragsprogramm der Wiener Sprachgesellschaft im November & Dezember 
aufmerksam machen. Sie finden die Abstracts sowie alle weiteren 
Informationen zu den Veranstaltungen auch auf der Homepage der WSG 
(https://wsg.univie.ac.at/veranstaltungen/).

Die Vorträge finden dienstags um 18.30h im Hörsaal 1 des Instituts für 
Sprachwissenschaft (Sensengasse 3A, 1090 Wien, 1. OG) statt. 
Interessierte sind herzlich willkommen!

Mit besten Grüßen,

Laura Grestenberger

----------------------------

7. 11. 2023 - Kriszta Eszter Szendrői (Universität Wien, Institut für 
Sprachwissenschaft), "Variability in syntactic focus marking: a flexible 
approach"

Abstract: This topic is concerned with focus movement in languages where 
a focal constituent can be displaced to what looks like a designated 
focus position. I will start by raising some empirical and theoretical 
issues facing the main-stream idea that the grammar would encode a 
syntactic Focus feature and a corresponding designated functional 
position for focal elements to derive these cases. I will then present 
an alternative proposal based on joint work with Fatima Hamlaoui that 
puts a flexible syntax-prosody mapping of clauses into a central 
position. I will show that this approach makes certain predictions 
regarding the interactions between syntactic position of moved foci, the 
presence or absence of verb movement and the directionality of prosodic 
prominence assignment. I will also show that the emerging typological 
space is supported by the empirical facts from different languages. I 
will finish by drawing some conclusions and pointing out some relevant 
unresolved issues.

28. 11. 2023 - Roland Mühlenbernd (Leibniz-Zentrum Allgemeine 
Sprachwissenschaft), "Modeling (im)precision in context" (gemeinsame 
Veranstaltung mit der Arbeitsgruppe Digital Philology des Instituts für 
Europäische und Vergleichende Sprach- und Literaturwissenschaft, EVSL)

Abstract: Speakers' choice between linguistic alternatives often depends 
on the situation, a prime example involving level of precision at which 
numerical information is communicated. I will report on a production 
study in which participants report the time of an event in two different 
situations, and demonstrate that the results can be reproduced by a 
probabilistic game-theoretical model in which the speaker's choice 
reflects a tradeoff between informativity, accuracy and hearer-oriented 
simplification. These findings shed light on the pragmatics of 
(im)precision, and the dynamics of situationally driven pragmatic 
variation more generally.

5. 12. 2023 - Mingya Liu (Humboldt-Universität zu Berlin, Institut für 
Anglistik und Amerikanistik), "Conditionals - many things at once"

Abstract: In this talk I will present formal and experimental work on 
the meaning and use of conditionals focusing on two case studies. The 
first study (Liu, Rotter & Giannakidou, 2021) deals with bias, i.e., 
reduced or higher speaker commitment towards a proposition p. Following 
Giannakidou & Mari (2021), we assume "nonveridical equilibrium" 
(implying that p and ¬p as equal possibilities) to be the default for 
epistemic modals, questions and conditionals. We argue that the 
equilibrium of conditionals, as that of questions, can be manipulated to 
produce bias, relying on experimental work in German on various modal 
elements (e.g., adverbs wirklich 'really', modal verbs sollte 'should' 
and conditional connectives wenn/falls 'if') in conditionals. The second 
study (Rotter & Liu, accepted) deals with counterfactual conditionals 
and emotions. We report two experiments conducted in Germany and the UK 
in January and February 2021, when both countries were in lockdown due 
to the Covid-19 pandemic. Using a Covid-19-themed sentence completion 
task (e.g., If the pandemic had not happened, I would have/the people 
would have…), we tested the direction of counterfactual thoughts in 
relation to egocentric (self-focused) vs. non-egocentric (other-focused) 
perspective-taking. Results show emotions as expressed in counterfactual 
language are perspective dependent.

-- 
Dr. Laura Grestenberger
Elise-Richter-Fellow, Institut für Iranistik / Institute of Iranian 
Studies
Österreichische Akademie der Wissenschaften / Austrian Academy of 
Sciences
Hollandstraße 11-13, A-1020 Wien
lauragrestenberger.com
Wiener Sprachgesellschaft, https://wsg.univie.ac.at/
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