i-mean@uwe
Call for papers
Colloquium on Meaning in Diachrony
This colloquium aims to draw together insights concerning historical semantic changes which have come about in interactional contexts. Typical of such changes are cases where the use of a form is not warranted by its canonical meaning, but rather by the rhetorical side-effects of that meaning. Discourse and modal particles such as English well, like, you know, Spanish pues, French quand meme, German ja, doch, and grammatical items like verbal inflectional morphemes seem to be particularly susceptible to such rhetorical uses and shifts in meaning. One of the aims of the colloquium is to test this hypothesis more widely.
The colloquium also aims to explore the role of language contact in such changes. Heine and Kuteva, 2005, argue that European languages are becoming more and more similar – has this come about through a process of semantic loan across languages or is it that similar rhetorical exploitations are made of core meanings in the respective languages? Finally, to what extent are convergent changes constrained by semantic features persisting from previous stages?
Core contributors at the colloquium may include:
Richard Waltereit (Newcastle)
Maj-Britt Mosegaard Hansen (Manchester)
Kate Beeching (U West of England, Bristol)
Ulrich Detges (Munich)
Corinne Rossari (Fribourg)
Jacqueline Visconti (Genoa)
