Brighter, cleverer, but more intelligent: Understanding periphrasis

Periphrasis Conference

In June 2010, SMG held a two-day conference on periphrasis, the situation where a grammatical function normally realised synthetically by a single word is expressed by more than one word. The conference was part of an ESRC funded project on periphrasis, called 'Brighter, cleverer, but more intelligent: Understanding periphrasis'.

Background

The dual nature of periphrasis (morphological function performed by means of syntax) presents interesting problems for linguistic theory. These have not yet been resolved, in part because the theoretical devices available have been inadequate and partly because the range of data considered has been rather narrow. Little is known about the extent of typological variation of periphrastic constructions, their interaction with the morphology and syntax of the languages they are found in, the way they adapt to morphological structure, and the changes they undergo over time on the way from being a free syntactic phrase to being a part of the inflectional paradigm.

Programme

7 June, 2010

10.00-10.30 Welcome coffee
10.30-10.45 Greville G. Corbett, Introduction
10.45-11.25 Gergana Popova, Andrew Spencer, Dunstan Brown, Marina Chumakina & Greville G. Corbett, Defining 'periphrasis': Key notions
11.25-12.25 Irina Nikolaeva, Periphrasis in Nenets
12.25-13.30 Lunch
13.30-14.10 Olivier Bonami & Polett Samvelian, A Persian lesson on periphrasis, typology and formal grammar
14.10-14.50 Raul Aranovich, Clitic clusters, verbal periphrases, and the morphological blocking principle
14.50-15.20 Coffee break
15.20-16.00 Athanasios Giannaris, The formation of the 'coniugatio periphrastica' in Ancient Greek
16.00-17.00 Gregory Stump. Periphrasis in Sanskrit.

8 June, 2010

09.30-10.30 Nicholas Evans, Periphrasis in Dalabon.
10.30-11.10 Eva Schultze-Berndt, Between periphrasis and predication: The curious case of the Jaminjung progressive construction.
11.10-11.40 Coffee break
11.40-12.20 Andrew Spencer & Gergana Popova, Relatedness in periphrasis: A paradigm-based perspective.
12.20-13.00 Olivier Bonami & Gert Webelhuth, The phrase-structural diversity of periphrasis: A lexicalist account.
13.00-14.00 Lunch
14.00-14.40 Nigel Vincent, Compound periphrasis: Syntax or morphology?
14.40-15.40 Marina Chumakina, Periphrasis in Archi
15.40-16.20 Greville G. Corbett, Periphrasis and possible lexemes
16.20-16.50 Coffee and close
Poster: Dmitrij Ganenkov, Timur Majsak & Solmaz Merdanova, Periphrastic verbal forms and clause structure in Agul

 

Project members

Prof Greville G. Corbett
Dr Dunstan Brown
Dr Marina Chumakina

Period of award:

November 2007 - October 2010

Funder

Arts and Humanities Research Council (AHRC)

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