Incremental constructions within and across languages:
Where degrees, eventualities and discourse dynamics interact

workshop at ESSLLI 2024
29. July - 2. Aug 2024, Leuven (Belgium)


Incrementality ('adding up to a larger whole', König 1991) can be expressed by English more, German noch/mehr, Hebrew od, Mandarin hai etc. While studies of individual incremental constructions exist, there are still many gaps in their understanding. This workshop aims to fill such gaps (A) by studying how incremental constructions vary syntactically and semantically, both across and within languages, and (B) by trying to integrate insights from two approaches to incrementality, which thus far have not interacted:

See also the full workshop description.

Invited speakers
Sigrid Beck (University of Tübingen)
Katja Jasinskaja (University of Cologne)
Ang Li (Rutgers University)
Osamu Sawada (Kobe University)
Guillaume Thomas (University of Toronto)
Linmin Zhang (NYU Shanghai)

The workshop is included in the ESSLLI 2024 summer school in Leuven (Belgium). It will be in the first week (29.July - 2. Aug 2024).

Schedule

Monday
29. July

11:00

Yael Greenberg & Carla Umbach

Introduction

11:15

Guillaume Thomas

Cross-linguistic variation in the expression of incrementality and related functions
(joint work with Barend Beekhuizen)

12:00

Ang Li (zoom)

Alternative comparison in underspecified degree operators

Tuesday
30. July

11:00

Osamu Sawada  

Scale structures of numerical additive particles in Japanese: Their interaction with eventuality and intensionality

11:45

Linmin Zhang & Florence Zhang

Comparative morphemes are additive particles: English -er/more vs. Chinese geng

Wednesday
31. July

11:00

Yael Greenberg

Contextual constraints on incrementals: Some more pieces of the puzzle

11:45

 

Poster session

Thursday
1.Aug

11:00

 Katja Jasinskaja

Discourse time is real

11:45

Carla Umbach

The temporal trait of German incremental noch

Friday
2. Aug

11:00

Sigrid Beck

Plural related readings of universals

11:45

Yael Greenberg & Carla Umbach

Wrap up: what we have learned about incrementals and where to go

Posters
Agnes Bi: Mandarin additive particles vs. hái
My Thi Ha: A comparison of incremental interactions and parallel patterns in Cantonese and Vietnamese
Chungmin Lee & Dongsik Lim: Incrementality and even-like particles in Korean
Lena Miashkur: A Unified semantics for variable incremental ešče in Russian
Chen Zhuan: How Mandarin incremental hai saves hyperbolic comparatives
 

The topic of the workshop is closely related to that of the course on Scalarity and additivity in natural language, which is also in the first week. Course participants are welcome.

Here you find the call for papers .

The workshop is organized by Yael Greenberg and Carla Umbach. If you have questions, please contact us.