Avertives are primarily used to describe past situations where the intended outcome was interrupted, averted, or frustrated rather than successfully completed, as illustrated in examples (1)–(3). According to Kuteva (1998), avertives are characterised by three features: imminence, pastness and counterfactuality. This workshop aims to develop a more comprehensive description and analysis of the various ways avertivity is expressed in European languages. Additionally, it seeks to compare these findings with previous research on the topic, which has predominantly focused on indigenous languages in Amazonia (see Overall, 2017) and Australia (see Caudal, 2023). The ultimate objective is to achieve a broader cross-linguistic understanding of this phenomenon.

 

(1)

 

French:

La route est glissante et j’ai failli tomber.

‘The road is slippery and I nearly fell.’

 

Estonian:

Laps oleks maha kukknud.

‘The child nearly fell.’

 

Finnish:

Olin kaatua kadulla.

‘I almost fell in the street.’

(Kuteva 1998: 116–117)

 

(2)

 

Sicilian:

Jivu pi mi susiri e… mi detti cuntu ca un putiva caminari

‘I was about to get up… I realized that I couldn’t walk.’

(Cruschina 2018: 298)

 

(3)

 

Lithuanian:

Aš buvau beparašąs tau laišką, kai baigėsi rašalas.

‘I had almost finished the letter to you when the ink ran out.’

(Arkadiev 2019: 70)

 

We invite abstracts on any aspect related to the linguistic expression and manifestation of avertivity in the languages of Europe. Submissions from all theoretical frameworks and approaches are welcome. The language of the workshop will be English.

 

Papers can address questions such as the following:

• How is avertivity expressed in a language X?
• What kind of structures and constructions are used to express avertivity?
• Are the expressions used exclusively to convey avertivity or is avertivity only one of several meanings of polysemous expressions? If so, what are the other meanings covered by the same expression? (cf. Pahontu 2024)
• Is it possible to find a pattern of regular polysemy across languages for avertive expressions?
• What are the common steps in the diachronic evolution of expressions that have become avertives?
• Can we design a battery of tests to detect whether a given expression represents an avertive meaning in a language?
• What kind of aspect and modality do the avertive expression encode? (cf. Caudal 2023)
• Are the avertive expressions limited to the past tense?
• Is the avertive reading lexically determined (e.g. requiring perfective verbs)?
• Does the avertive expression(s) denote avertivity in a by themselves, or are other contextual elements necessary (or possible) to establish an avertive reading?

Abstracts should be no longer than 350 words (including examples and references) and are to be sent to [log in para visualizar].

The invited speakers will be:

Patrick Caudal (University of Université Paris Diderot-Paris, France)

Peter Arkadiev (University of Potsdam, Germany)

 

Anton Granvik, Universidad de Helsinki

Begoña Sanromán Vilas, Universidad de Helsinki

Silvio Cruschina, Universidad de Helsinki