WORKSHOP 'MORPHOLOGY IN CONTEXT'

Workshop to be held at the 22nd International Morphology Meeting

Budapest, June 18-21, 2026

Workshop website: morphologyincontext.uni-trier.de

Main conference website: https://nytud.hu/en/event/22nd-international-morphology-meeting

Call for papers

Complex words are produced, understood, and also coined in context, and a by now large, but diverse body of literature has explored different facets of the role of context. By ‘context’ we mean the linguistic context, both immediate (e.g. preceding and following words) and with a larger scope (e.g. text types), and the extralinguistic context such as the speaker and the listener or the situation of speaking and the discourse domain. Contextual effects in morphology concern the use of complex words and their coinage as well as the production and comprehension of complex words.

On the syntagmatic dimension, we see contextual effects emerging from syntactic context, register, and discourse. For example, Zee et al. (2025) provide evidence that the prosodic properties of the immediate syntactic context influence affix choice in situations in which synonymous, but prosodically different alternatives are available. Also, Degaetano-Ortlieb et al. (2021) show by means of a large-scale diachronic corpus study that the dynamics of affix usage and productivity is influenced by speaker groups (in their case: gender) and situational context (cf. also Säily et al. 2024 on gender and constructional context). Correlations between register or text type and morphological productivity have been found for derivational affixes (Plag et al. 1999, Guz 2009) and compounds (Degaetano-Ortlieb 2021). Also, the overall density of word formation, i.e. the proportion of word formations in a text, varies depending on the text type (Stumpf 2023). Regarding discourse structure, both the effects of the text on word processing and the effects of complex words on text comprehension, i.e. the function of complex words as cohesion markers, have been observed (Dederding 1983, Libben et al. 2021). Yet another type of syntagmatic contextual effect is priming and morphological convergence (e.g. Rácz et al. 2020). On the paradigmatic dimension, contextual effects can be observed in phenomena that concern affix rivalry and blocking as well as variation in the phonological and phonetic realisation of complex words (e.g. Ganster 2025 on speaker differences in morphophonology, e.g. Tomaschek et al. 2021 on collocational effects on the phonetic realisation of affixes).

This workshop is intended to bring together morphologists working on a wide variety of different context effects, both in terms of different types of context along the syntagmatic dimension, and different ways in which context effects can be observed in morphology along the paradigmatic dimension. We intend to (a) take stock of the empirical scope of context effects as can be observed in the wild, and (b) discuss the nature and theoretical implications of such effects for theories of linguistic morphology. We specifically welcome researchers from different methodological backgrounds (e.g. theoretical linguistic, corpus linguistic, psycholinguistic).

Interested researchers are cordially invited to submit their abstract for a 20 minute presentation at the workshop.

https://easyabs.linguistlist.org/conference/MorphContext/

Important dates 

08.12.2025, Anywhere on Earth (Note: new deadline!) | Deadline for the submission of abstracts (info cf. below)

10.01.2026 Notification of acceptance

18.-21.06.2026 Conference

Workshop organisers & contact information:

Sabine Arndt-Lappe (Trier), arndtlappeuni-trierde

Barbara Schlücker (Berlin), barbara.schlueckerfu-berlinde

Submission information 

Please submit an anonymous abstract (pdf, max. 500 words, excluding references and set examples) via EasyAbs: https://easyabs.linguistlist.org/conference/MorphContext/