Proceedings of the VI NEREUS International Workshop : Theoretical Implications at the Syntax/Semantics Interface in Romance

Abstract

This volume is a collection of papers presented at the VI NEREUS (http://gerlin.philfak. uni-koeln.de/kvh/forschung/Nereus/) international workshop on the topic Theoretical Implications at the Syntax-Semantics Interface in Romance, held at the University of Köln on November 9th and 10th, 2012. Language is a system of communication in which grammatical structures function to express meaning in context. While all languages can achieve the same basic communicative ends, they each use different means to achieve them, particularly in the divergent ways that syntax, semantics and pragmatics interact across languages. The sixth NEREUS international workshop brought together experts in the fields of syntax and semantics, who explore the interaction between form, meaning, and communicative function in Romance languages from both a diachronic and a synchronic perspective. The aim of the conference was to describe the division of labour between syntax and semantics and the nature of the interface between them. The languages discussed ranged from Catalan and Spanish over French and Brazilian Portuguese to a multitude of different Italo-Romance varieties.