TALKS SLATED FOR THE WORKSHOP ON GENERATIVE APPROACHES TO FINNIC LANGUAGES AT THE 19TH SCANDINAVIAN CONFERENCE OF LINGUISTICS

Organized by Katrin Hiietam University of Manchester and Elsi Kaiser University of Pennsylvania

JANUARY 10 - 12, 2002, UNIVERSITY OF TROMSØ, NORWAY

NAME AFFILIATION TITLE OF ABSTRACT
Diane Nelson University of Leeds Case and adverbials in Finnish and Inari Saami
Hanna Outakoski University of Umeå On the reflexive A-binding in North Sami
Ida Toivonen Stanford University The relationship between agreement and grammatical functions in Inari Sami and Finnish
Elsi Kaiser University of Pennsylvania Interpreting Questions: Case Marking, disjunction type and focus.
Satu Manninen University of Lund TBA
Tuula Saviainen University of Helsinki Word-Initial consonant omission Ð a developmental process in children learning Finnish.
Katrin Hiietam & Elsi Kaiser University of Manchester & University of Pennsylvania A typological comparison of third person pronouns in Finnish and Estonian.
Virve Vihman University of Edinburgh Middle Voice in Estonian.
Anne Tamm Research Institute for Linguistics, Budapest Estonian object case assignment and the representation of verbal meanings

WORKSHOP DESCRIPTION:

The workshop has three aims: 1) The first aim is to increase general awareness of the structure of Finnic languages (especially syntactic and phonological). In spite of the differences due to different genetic origin, given the close areal and cultural contacts, one might expect certain similarities to develop over the time between Scandinavian and Finnic languages; 2) Secondly, the workshop aims to investigate from a synchronic and diachronic point of view the structure of the Finnic languages (Finnish, Estonian, Sami, Veps, Livonian, etc.) and also map the similarities and differences with the structure of the neighbouring North Germanic languages. Such an approach is helpful in describing any syntactic or other change that has occurred in Finnic resulting from of the Scandinavian languages; 3) The ultimate goal however, is to present new data on the topic, and to bring together scholars working on issues on Finnic linguistics. We welcome typological descriptive papers as well as papers from any theoretical framework.