RTG 2636: Form-meaning mismatches

NELS 53 in Göttingen!

The 53rd Annual Meeting of the North East Linguistic Society (NELS 53) will be hosted by the University of Göttingen in Germany. For various reasons, no universities were available to host NELS this year in the US or Canada. The recently founded Research Training Group 2636 "Form-meaning mismatches" and the broader linguistics community in Göttingen are therefore delighted to come together to make NELS possible this year. As such, for just the second time in the history of NELS, the meeting will take place in Europe.



There will be three sessions for presentations: the main session (including syntax, semantics, morphology, and phonology), a special session for visual communication and sign languages, and a special session for form-meaning mismatches. Please specify in your application to which of these sessions you would like to submit.



On account of the ever-volatile COVID conditions, we have prepared the necessary infrastructure for NELS 53 to take place in a hybrid fashion. Please indicate during the submission whether you would present online or onsite.



Call for papers


We invite theoretical contributions from all subfields of generative linguistics as part of the general session. Presentations will be 20 minutes, followed by 10 minutes for discussion. In addition, there will be poster sessions (details to follow). Submissions are limited to two per author, of which at most one paper may be single-authored.


Abstract guidelines:



  • Abstracts, including references and data, must not exceed two A4 or letter pages, have 2.54 cm (1 inch) margins on all sides, and be set in Times New Roman with a font size no smaller than 11pt.

  • Examples, tables, graphs, etc. must be interspersed into the text of the abstract, rather than collected at the end.

  • The submission must not reveal the identity of the author(s) in any way.

  • Submissions are limited to two per author, with at most one paper being single-authored.

  • We ask that everyone submitting an abstract be willing to review two abstracts. This will help to ensure that all submissions are processed in a timely fashion. If you cannot participate in the review process for any reason, please send us an email at nels53@uni-goettingen.de.

  • Abstracts must be submitted in PDF format through the NELS53 EasyChair page by Thursday September 1st at 23:59 Central European Summer Time (UTC+02:00).


Timeline of key dates:



  • September 1, 2022: Submission deadline

  • October 15, 2022: Notification of acceptance

  • January 12-14, 2023: NELS 53 in Göttingen