25 February 2015, XLSX seminar, Federico Gobbo (ACLC, UvA)

Correlative phrases (e.g., in English marked by wh-words) are a fundamental way to express subordination in natural languages. Constructive Adpositional Grammars (CxAdGrams) are a linguistic formalism that express language functions in terms of fundamental grammar characters (verbants, nominants, and their respective modifiers) activated through the concepts of verbant valency (from Lucien Tesnière), information prominence (from Langacker's trajector/landmark distinction) and, above all, adpositions.

The talk will briefly present the basics of CxAdGrams cross-linguistically while focusing on correlative phrases, which are a complex and rich case study at the same time. The cross-linguistic presentation will highlight analogies and differences between the various natural languages under analysis.

For more information, contact M. Aloni (m.d.aloni at uva.nl).