Deadline for abstract submission 4th October 2011

The Linguistic Evidence conference series has been a meeting place since 2004 for linguists who wish to improve the empirical adequacy of linguistic theory and linguistic description. A central aim is to more closely integrate data-driven and theory-driven approaches to the study of language systems, language behaviour, and language functions.



We therefore invite abstracts from all fields of linguistics which either:



a. apply data from linguistic corpora, psycholinguistic and neurolinguistic experimentation, language acquisition, language pathology, fieldwork, or historical texts to linguistic issues;



b. make use of quantifiable evidence to produce novel analyses or perspectives on questions of the representation, processing, or acquisition of linguistic systems;



c. offer insights into promising new methods of data collection, processing, and analysis which may be of interest to linguists or researchers in adjacent fields.





Special session: language change and cross-linguistic language variation



The field of Historical Linguistics is currently observing a process of renewal and reorientation. Whereas in the past diachronic linguists might be satisfied with descriptive studies, many researchers now aim to combine diachronic evidence with theoretical and methodological insights achieved in synchronic linguistics. The conviction is gaining ground that diachronic crosslinguistic data can provide firm evidence of the limits of possible human languages and may rank with psycholinguistic evidence and other sophisticated quantitative methods.



Rather than considering historical linguistics as a separate, quasi-autonomous field, it is time to ask whether diachronic evidence and data from language variation can, subjected to detailed syntactic and semantic analysis, allow us to design an empirically adequate and theoretically founded perspective on language that integrates both syntactic and semantic variation and change.



We therefore particularly call for papers addressing this important gap.

Submissions:


We invite abstracts for 30+15 minute talks and also for poster presentations. Unless you specify otherwise on your abstract, we shall consider all submissions first as talks and then as posters. We will not normally accept more than two abstracts per person, and of these only one may be single-authored.


Abstracts should be no more than 3 pages long including data, graphics and references. They should have a 2.5cm margin on all sides, and should be written in at least 11 point font.



Deadline for abstract submission: 4th October 2011


Please send each abstract both in anonymized and unanonymized forms (with author(s) and affiliation). Electronic submission as pdf is preferred. Submission is being managed with EasyChair at:



http://www.easychair.org/conferences/?conf=lingevid2012



In case of problems please contact LingEvid2012@uni-tuebingen.de


We intend to publish selected papers and posters in a separate volume with our usual publisher, de Gruyter Berlin.