(Online) Grammatical Voice
Presenters: Seppo Kittilä, Fernando Zúñiga
Offered virtuallyVBMRA3
This workshop will be concerned with one of the traditional topics in linguistics, namely grammatical voice, whose study dates to the first extant descriptions of Ancient Greek. Voice has been understood in many ways, but in This workshop we will mostly follow the approach adopted by Zúñiga and Kittilä (2019) in their recent textbook (with frequent but brief comments/updates on a very similar recent publication, Creissels 2024). The workshop will discuss both constructions affecting semantic valency (such as causatives, applicatives and anticausatives) and those affecting syntactic valency (passives and antipassives), as well affected subject constructions (e.g. reflexives) and Agent-Patient (or symmetrical) voices (as attested, for example, in many Austronesian languages). In addition, the relation of voice to other closely related categories, such as transitivity, valency and diathesis will be discussed. Finally, we will also briefly discuss the diachrony and fringes of voice, i.e. how the constructions have emerged, and how voice-like functions can be expressed by other means than grammatical voice. The framework of This workshop is very strongly functional-typological, and it is expected that the attendees have basic knowledge of linguistic typology and typological approaches to studying languages. Familiarity with the functional-typological literature on voice and argument marking is also beneficial, even though the approach adopted may vary between scholars. Since the workshop will concern the topic from a very broad cross-linguistic perspective, and many different examples from (formally and genealogically) different languages will be illustrated and discussed, it is also essential that the attendees are familiar with the Leipzig Glossing Rules (LGR). The attendees attending this workshop will get a very good overview of recent (typological-functional) understanding of voice and its relation to other closely related categories, such as above mentioned diathesis, transitivity and valency.
Keywords: Language Change, Typology, Theoretical Frameworks, Morphosyntax
Mondays and Thursdays, July 7-August 7, 9:00am - 10:20am (Virtual Only)
Mondays and Thursdays
Presenters
University of Helsinki
I am a University Lecturer University Lecturer at the Department of Languages (subject General Linguistics), University of Helsinki, Finland. I have worked extensively on evidentiality, argument marking and grammatical voice and I have published extensively on these topics in (selective) journals (e.g., Linguistic typology, Linguistics and Studies in Language) and edited volumes (for Benjamins and Language Science Press). My dissertation dealt with transitivity from a broad cross-linguistic perspective, after which I studied ditransitives (including causatives) for many years. My recent textbook Grammatical Voice (co-authored with Fernando Zúñiga) was awarded André Martinet award (by the Societas Linguistica Europaea) in 2022. I have also been the PI of two previous projects funded by the Academy of Finland, and I was a member on the panel for linguistics for the Swedish Research council (Vetenskapsrådet) in 2019-2022. I have taught about 110 courses on different topics (e.g., semantics, pragmatics, syntax, causatives, voice, evidentiality, typology) at the University of Helsinki, and I have also been teaching a summer/winter schools in Tartu (Estonia), Salos (Lithuania) and LOT winter school (Netherlands).
University of Bern
After obtaining a first degree in economics in 1992, I received my Ph.D. in General Linguistics, English Literature and English Linguistics from the University of Zurich in 2002. I was assistant professor of Linguistics at the University of Zurich in 2012 and full professor of General Linguistics at the University of Bern from 2013 until my early retirement in early 2024. Among other editorial appointments, I served for ten years as series co-editor for Typological Studies in Language and for three years as journal co-editor for the International Journal of American Linguistics; I am still a member of the editorial board of the journal Linguistic Typology. My comparative work focused on morphosyntactic-typological subjects like alignment, valency, and voice. My fieldwork-based descriptive work focused on two Indigenous languages of the Americas, viz. Mapudungun (Chile) and Blackfoot (US/Canada). My teaching in Bern also included courses on language endangerment, writing systems, Insular Celtic languages, and Basque.
Mondays and Thursdays, July 7-August 7, 9:00am - 10:20am (Virtual Only)
Mondays and Thursdays