The REEDS-network and the Center for Research in Syntax, Semantics, and Phonology (CRISSP) of KU Leuven invite abstracts for the REEDS Workshop on Multidisciplinary Approaches to Morphosyntactic Variation (MUMOVA2025), to be held on 11–12 December 2025.
The study of dialectal variation in phonology, morphology, and syntax has received increasing attention in recent decades. With respect to dialect syntax specifically, the result is an important body of work with diverse approaches, methodologies, and scopes, including formal approaches (e.g. Bayer 1984, Haegeman 1992, Hoekstra 1993, Poletto 2000, Benincà and Poletto 2004, Van Craenenbroeck 2010), computational-quantitative analyses (e.g. Nerbonne 2009, 2010, Heeringa and Nerbonne 2013, Wieling and Nerbonne 2015), and sociolinguistic investigations (e.g. Ghyselen et al. 2016, Cheshire et al. 2005, Van Hoof and Vandekerckhove 2013, Ghyselen and De Vogelaer 2018). However, despite such progress, interdisciplinary collaboration—both among these subfields and between dialect syntax and other fields—has been surprisingly limited (Cornips 2015, Hinskens 2017). This is particularly striking given that linguistics, perhaps more than any other field, offers a unique opportunity for interdisciplinary work. It bridges the humanities, social sciences, cognitive sciences, physical sciences, and the biological sciences, making linguistics in general, and dialect syntax in particular, an ideal hub for cross-disciplinary interaction and communication.
The REEDS-network was established to promote such an interdisciplinary approach to the study of dialect syntax and to address the long-standing challenges hindering collaborative approaches. Three main challenges were identified. The first concerns the lack of infrastructure, which affects the comparability of results across different projects due to differences in data type, collection methods, and annotation practices. The second challenge is methodological: the large and complex digital datasets yielded by past, ongoing, and future projects require the development of new methodologies that combine not only grammatical but also geographical and social information, while also being powerful enough to analyze variable and multivariate data. Finally, the third challenge concerns the theoretical dimension. Even though dialect syntax has drawn the interest of formal, computational-quantitative, and sociolinguistic perspectives (see the references cited above), there is little interdisciplinary collaboration between these subfields. The also holds within subdisciplines, too. For instance, even within theoretical linguistics, collaborations between syntacticians and phonologists are uncommon, despite the potential benefit such a collaboration might have for refining our understanding of grammatical microvariation and its theoretical implications.
The MUMOVA2025 workshop directly addresses the third challenge—the theoretical modeling of syntax microvariation from an interdisciplinary perspective. Our goal is to foster dialogue and collaboration on dialect syntax both between theoretical syntax and other linguistic disciplines (e.g., computational-quantitative linguistics, sociolinguistics, dialectology, etc.) and within theoretical linguistics (e.g. semantics, morphology, and phonology). To this end, we encourage the submission of (joint) talks where scholars with different backgrounds (e.g. theoretical syntax & sociolinguistics, sociolinguistics & computational linguistics, theoretical syntax & phonology, etc.) collaborate to present and discuss novel findings and analyses on dialect syntax, which crucially rely on this interdisciplinary approach.
Therefore, we seek:
- contributions on dialect syntax which combine methods, techniques, or procedures from other disciplines in the collection, processing, and/or analysis of the data, and
- contributions on computational linguistics, corpus linguistics, and sociolinguistics, as well as semantic, morphological, and phonological theory that have implications for dialect syntax.
The workshop will take place in person in Leuven (Belgium) on 11–12 December. It will open with a keynote talk on the state of the art of theoretical microvariation by three leading scholars in the field. On the second day, these scholars will also lead a roundtable discussion summarizing the workshop’s key findings.
The contributions presented at the workshop will be considered for publication in a dedicated volume or a special issue of a journal (e.g. Journal of Comparative Germanic Syntax, Journal of Romance Linguistics, Language Variation & Change etc.).
Final remark: We would like to emphasize that researchers interested in interdisciplinary collaboration but who have not yet found a suitable collaborator are warmly encouraged to use the REEDS-network to identify and connect with potential collaborators.
Invited speakers
- Jenny Cheshire (Queen Mary University of London)
- Diego Pescarini (Université Côte d’Azur)
- Esther Rinke (Goethe-Universität Frankfurt am Main)
Abstract guidelines
Abstracts should not exceed two pages, including data, references, and diagrams. Abstracts should be typed in at least 11‐point font, with one‐inch margins (letter‐size; 8½ by 11 inch or A4) and a maximum of 50 lines of text per page. Abstracts must be anonymous and submissions are limited to 2 per author, at least one of which is co‐authored. Only electronic submissions will be accepted. Please submit your abstract using the EasyChair link for NanoDays II.
Important dates
- First call for papers: 15 April 2025
- Second call for papers: 1 June 2025
- Abstract submission deadline: 15 August 2025
- Notification of acceptance: early October 2025
- Conference: 11–12 December 2025
Organizing committee
- Edoardo Cavirani (KU Leuven)
- Cora Cavirani-Pots (University of Cambridge)
- Carolina Fraga (University of Southern California)
- William Oliver (Stony Brook University)
- Jeroen van Craenenbroeck (KU Leuven/Meertens Institute)
- Marjo van Koppen (Meertens Institute/Utrecht University)