International Workshop on Information Structure 2007

Information Structure and Word Order Variation in older Germanic

9th - 10th, November 2007 at Humboldt University of Berlin

The SFB project “The role of information structure in the development of word order regularities in Germanic” (SFB 632 on Information Structure) is organizing a small intensive workshop on the interaction between Information Structure and core grammar in the explanation of word order variation and word order change in the Germanic languages. The workshop will take place in Berlin from 9th to 10th November 2007.

The main topics of the workshop are listed below:

  • the role of pragmatic factors in mixed OV/VO orders in the early Germanic languages
  • discourse structure and verb placement in the left periphery of the clause (V1, V2 and V3 orders in early Germanic)
  • scrambling and the expression of definiteness in the development of systems of definite determiners in the history of the Germanic languages

In the first phase of the project we concentrated on investigating the interaction between IS and core grammar on the basis of mostly OHG data. As we intend to intensify the comparative approach involving all early Germanic languages, we want to assemble a small but selected number of international experts on the theme dealing with the exploration of different empirical, methodological and theoretical aspects of the questions mentioned above in this workshop.

Invited speakers (in alphabetical order)

Organizing committee of the workshop

  • Prof. Dr. Karin Donhauser (Humboldt University Berlin)
  • Roland Hinterhölzl PhD (Humboldt University Berlin) - Abstract
  • Dr. Svetlana Petrova (SFB 632 “Information Structure“, B4) - Abstract
  • Michael Solf (SFB 632 “Information Structure”, B4)

Additional information