Workshop: The acquisition of case from a crosslinguistic perspective

The goal of this workshop is to bring together researchers working on the acquisition of case in as large a variety of languages as possible. Case systems vary greatly, both in size and in the kind of information they mark, ranging from syntactic, semantic to discourse-pragmatic information. Do children approach the expression of case in a similar way across languages or is the input the sole predictor of when and how specific cases are learned? To understand how children approach case learning we need to compare its development and use by both children and those they interact with in typologically different languages. Some of the main questions we would like to address in this workshop are:

• What are the main challenges to the learning of case in the language(s) that you are presenting?
• What is the order of cases learned?
• What are the criteria for productivity?
• What are the patterns of use both in the language of the child and the input?
• What are the interrelations between the acquisition of case and agreement or word order?

Organized by: Sabine Stoll and Elena Lieven

Deadline for receipt of abstract: February 28

Notification of acceptance: May 1

Date

14. August

Venue

Max Planck Institute for Evolutionary Anthropology
Deutscher Platz 6
04103 Leipzig
Germany

How to submit an abstract

Send your abstract as an e-mail attachment to: sabine.stoll AT uzh.ch

Subject header: (your name) ALT acquisition workshop abstract

Include these things in the body of the email:

• Authors' names
• Abstract title
• Contact information: e-mail, phone, fax

Abstract specifications

Maximum length: 500 words or 1 single-spaced page.

Please put this information at the top of your abstract:

• Abstract title

File format: PDF

Name: Give your pdf a filename with the language you are working on.

Anonymity: Abstracts must be anonymous: do not put your name or other identifying information on the abstract. Also, please anonymize your pdf by removing identifying information.

If your paper is accepted but you do not have sufficient funds to attend the conference, then it may be possible to provide some financial support. But we should emphasize that funds are extremely limited and presenters should make every effort to obtain funds from other sources.

Contact

Sabine Stoll
Psycholinguistics Research Unit
University of Zurich
Plattenstrass 54
8032 Zürich

Phone: +41 44 63 402 31
E-mail: sabine.stoll AT uzh.ch