Keynotes from the International Conference on Explanation and Prediction in Linguistics (CEP): Formalist and Functionalist Approaches

Scientific insight is obtained through the processes of description, explanation, and prediction. Yet grammatical theory has seen a major divide regarding not only the methods of data eliciting and the kinds of data evaluated, but also with respect to the interpretation of these data, including the very notions of explanation and prediction themselves.

The editors of the volume organized a conference bringing together adherents of two major strands of grammatical theory illustrating this clash, traditionally grouped under the labels of formalist and functionalist theories. This book includes five keynote lectures given by internationally renowned experts. The keynotes offer insight into the current debate and show possibilities for exchange between these two major accounts of grammatical theory.

Peter Kosta is chair of Slavic Linguistics at the Department for Slavic Studies of the University of Potsdam (Germany). He works on biolinguistics, universals, typology, generative syntax, formal semantics, conversation analysis, and language policy. He is editor of HSK Slavic Languages and co-editor of the Zeitschrift für Slawistik/Journal of Slavic Studies as well as the author of ten books and more than three hundred articles.

Katrin Schlund is an associate professor of Slavic linguistics at the University of Heidelberg (Germany). Her research foci include impersonal constructions, form-meaning-relationship in language, politeness in language, political poetry, and biscriptality.