The increased attention for dialect syntax is highly welcomed as the study of syntactic variation has played a marginal role in traditional dialectology and sociolinguistics. One of the reasons for the neglect of syntax among dialectologists may partly be attributed to the traditional methods prevalent in the field, dialect studies being originally a subfield of diachronic linguistics. More recently, a variety of theoretical schools have become increasingly interested in dialect syntax, thereby offering a variety of new theoretical perspetives and methods to the field. In particular, the rise of Principles and Parameter Theory within generative linguistics over the last two decades has provided an entirely different perspective on syntactic variation in particular and linguistic variation in general. Studying the syntactic variation within a speech community provides a unique chance of investigating the limits of natural language grammar as well as the interaction of linguistic modules or levels, and also how grammar-internal and grammar-external factors interact.
The main objective of this workshop is to assemble researchers working on syntactic microvariation. Papers dealing with all aspects relevant to the study of dialectal or sociolectal syntactic variation are welcome. The papers may have a theoretical, methodological or descriptive bias, and there is no limitation on theoretical perspective.
http://www.ling.helsinki.fi/kielitiede/20scl.html
Please note that workshop participants must register for the conference in usual fashion. Registration starts on 1 October.
Any questions regarding the workshop may be directed to the workshop organizers.