Workshop on the Afroasiatic t-morpheme
Short Title: WOA2

Date: 08-May-2024 - 09-May-2024
Location: University of Edinburgh, United Kingdom
Contact: Iris Kamil
Contact Email: [email protected]
Meeting URL: https://sites.google.com/view/woa2-2024/

Linguistic Field(s): General Linguistics; Historical Linguistics; Morphology; Typology
Language Family(ies): Afroasiatic

Meeting Description:

This Workshop will focus on the Afroasiatic Middle t-Morpheme

The Afroasiatic t-morpheme is a valency-alternating morpheme most commonly found to denote de-transitives, or more specifically: passives, middles, and anticausatives. While the morpheme is attested in all branches of Afroasiatic, its functional distributions vary across languages.

Synchronically, the morpheme's effect on argument structure has only been investigated for a few languages of Semitic and Berber, with investigations of its use in Egyptian, Chadic, Cushitic, and Omotic remaining rare and descriptive at most. As a result, the diachrony of the morpheme is even more poorly understood.

In hopes of bettering our understanding of the morpheme in its Afroasiatic context, this workshop sets out to bring researchers of theoretical linguistic, Semitic linguistic, and philological specialisations together to

1. Gather and map the different patterns and issues associated with the form across Afroasiatic,
2. Initiate a methodological discussion on how to approach and solve these issues, and
3. Open up the discussion on the morpheme’s reconstruction to Proto-Afroasiatic.

For the full description and Call for Papers, please see WOA2's website.

The Workshop on the Afroasiatic t-Morpheme will be streamed and can be attended online. For registration and Zoom link,
please e-mail the organiser at [email protected].

Day 1, 8 MAY

8:30-9:00 Registration
9:00-9:30 Welcome & Introduction -- Iris Kamil
Section 1: Semitic
9:30-10:30 KEYNOTE: Whence and whither hitpael -- Malka Rappaport-Hovav
10:30-11:00 Coffee break
11:00-11:30 Development of the t-morphemes in the history of Arabic -- Vera Tsukanova (online)
11:30-12:00 Polysemy and ambiguity of the t-stems in Ṭuroyo -- Nikita Kuzin (online)
12:00-12:30 The typological Structure of Semitic through History: Brief Notes from the t-morpheme -- Alessandra Serpone
12:30-13:30 Lunch break
13:30-14:00 The Functions of the T-Stems in Two Modern Semitic Languages, Mehri and Kistane -- Aaron Rubin
14:00-14:30 Messe-t up! The Aspect-Voice syncretism of the Akkadian t-morpheme -- Iris Kamil
14:30-15:00 Basic valency in Semitic: a comparative and diachronic outlook -- Guglielmo Inglese, Fabio Gasparini, Maurizio Viano
15:00-15:30 Coffee break
Section 2: Cushitic & Egyptian
15:30-16:30 KEYNOTE: “The centrality of the body” (a comparative view of the Middle in Cushitic and a few problems) -- Mauro Tosco
16:30-17:00 What’s in a -t: exploring the possibility that the Egyptian -t affix of some infinitives derives from the Afro-Asiatic medio-passive -t. -- Marwan Kilani

Day 2, 9 MAY

Section 3: Cushitic & Semitic
9:00-10:00 KEYNOTE: The -t suffix in Somali -- Sabrina Bendjaballah
10:00-10:30 Large language models and the t-morpheme -- Itamar Kastner
10:30-11:00 Coffee break
Section 4: Online Session
11:00-11:30 The reflexes of the Proto-Semitic t-stems in the ancient languages of Arabia: notes on their semantic and formal development -- Ahmad Al-Jallad (online)
11:30-12:00 T-stems in Soqotri: synchronic and diachronic dimensions -- Maria Bulakh (online)
12:00-12:30 The phonology-syntax of the t-morpheme in Taqbaylit: imperfective-middle-passive Syncretism -- Amazigh Bedar (online)
12:30-13:30 Lunch
Section 5: Phonology & Afroasiatic perspective
13:30-14:00 Function of vowel height in the Semitic t-stems -- Roey Schneider
14:00-15:00 KEYNOTE: Afroasiatic middle t- and its protean history -- Lameen Souag
15:00-15:30 Coffee break
Section 6: Discussion
15:30-16:15 Discussion
16:15-16:30 Closing session