WAASAP 10th Anniversary Conference

WAASAP 10th Anniversary Conference, hosted by the Centre for Research in Language and Heritage

Venue: University of Greenwich, King William Building, London, UK

Dates: 16 & 17 June 2022

WAASAP is an international Workshop series celebrated biannually that focuses on the aspect and argument structure of adjectives, adverbs, participles and prepositions. In the time of its existence, it has developed into a referential forum of discussion of the theory of predicative non-verbal categories. Past editions have taken place at the University of Greenwich (2012), The Artic University of Norway at Tromsoe (2014), The University of Lille 3 (2016), and the University Pompeu Fabra (2018). This year’s edition is hosted by the University of Greenwich in London to celebrate how it all started.

WAASAP welcomes research on the aspectual and argument structure of nonverbal categories, with a focus on adjectives, participles, prepositions and adverbs. The topics that we are interested to include, but are not restricted to, are the following:

(i) To what extent one can find correlates between the argument and aspectual structure of verbs and those of adjectives and prepositions, for instance in what relevant senses one can differentiate between classes of adjectives according to the interpretations they impose to their subjects, how one should analyse the prepositional complements of adjectives and adverbs or whether the figure / ground structure of prepositional structures has a parallel in the verbal domain and other empirical domains.

(ii) How the aspectual primitives in verbs –dynamicity, eventivity, duration, telicity– have correlates in the non-verbal domain, for instance through general path structures, scales and boundedness at different levels

(iii) What types of syntactic and semantic parallelisms and contrasts can be identified between verbal predicates and non-verbal predicates, for instance in phenomena like copular sentences, voice structures, raising predicates or control structures

(iv) How the aspectual information emerges compositionally in syntactic combinations of verbs and adjectives (cf., degree achievements, other classes of deadjectival verbs) or verbs and adpositions (cf. the conative alternation and other lexical alternations involving adpositional marking, the structure of locative and movement verbs)

(v) How the argument structure of verbs and adjectives or adpositions combine together in complex syntactic structures (eg., in secondary predication contexts involving adjectives, adpositions or adverbs)

(vi) How the argument and aspectual structure of non verbal categories are manifested typologically, with a particular focus on sign language

(vii) The acquisition and loss of the argument and aspectual structure of non verbal categories, in contrast when appropriate with the equivalent properties in the verbal domain

Programme - PDF version

Abstracts are linked in the programme below

Thursday 16th June - King William Building, Room 003

Friday 17th June - King William Building, Room 003

Keynote Speakers: 

• Patricia Cabredo Hofherr (CNRS – Université Paris 8)
• John Beavers (University of Texas at Austin)

Scientific committee 

• María J. Arche (University of Greenwich)
• John Beavers (University of Texas at Austin)
• Boban Arsenijević (University of Graz)
• Patricia Cabredo (CNRS – Université Paris 8)
• Elena Castroviejo (University of the Basque Country)
• Urtzi Etxeberria (CNRS – IKER, UMR5478)
• Ricardo Etxepare (CNRS – IKER, UMR5478)
• Antonio Fábregas (University of Tromsø)
• Raquel González Rodríguez (Complutense University of Madrid)
• Rafael Marín (CNRS – Université de Lille)
• Fabienne Martin (Universität Stuttgart)
• Louise McNally (Universitat Pompeu Fabra)
• Christopher Piñón (Université de Lille)
• Isabel Oltra-Massuet (Universitat Rovira i Virgili)
• Isabelle Roy (Université de Nantes)
• Elena Soare (Université Paris 8)

Organising committee

• María J. Arche
• Antonio Fábregas
• Rafael Marín

For general conference enquiries contact CREL@greenwich.ac.uk