We are pleased to inform that we have finally got to know the agenda of “Formal and Experimental Advances in Sign Language Theory (FEAST 2012).

Programme:
1 June 2012 (Friday):

8.00 – 9.00 Registration
9.00 – 9.30 Official opening
9.30 – 10.20 Guest lecture:
L2-acquisition of two types of nonconcatenative morphology in German Sign Language – Christian Rathmann (University of Hamburg, Germany)
10.20 – 11.10
 Agreement verbs in ÍTM – Jóhannes Gísli Jónsson, Kristín Lena Þorvaldsdóttir, Rannveig Sverrisdóttir (University of Iceland, Iceland)
11.10 – 11.30 Coffee break
11.30 – 12.20 
Is ABSL a language without phonology? – Joana Rosselló (University of Barcelona, Spain), Celia Alba (Pompeu Fabra University, Spain)
12.20 – 13.10
 Categorical vs. gradient: What ASL fingerspelling teaches us about the phonetics-phonology interface – Diane Brentari, Jon Keane, and Jason Riggle (University of Chicago, USA)
13.10 – 13.30 COST Campaign organizational meeting
13.30 – 15.00 Lunch break
15.00 – 15.50 Guest lecture:
The point of verb agreement – Ronnie Wilbur (Purdue University, USA)
15.50 – 16.40
 WH duplication and beyond – Chiara Branchini (Università Ca’ Foscari Venezia, Italy), Carlo Geraci (Institut Jean-Nicod, France), Anna Cardinaletti (Università Ca’ Foscari Venezia, Italy), Carlo Cecchetto (University of Milan-Bicocca, Italy), Caterina Donati (Sapienza Università di Roma, Italy)
16.40 – 17.15
 Display of posters:
Domain restriction in Catalan Sign Language (LSC) – Gemma Barberà (Pompeu Fabra University, Spain)
Sign language & language universals: The case of Universal 20 in Italian sign language – Lara Mantovan (Dipartimento di scienze del linguaggio, Ca’ Bembo, Italy), Carlo Geraci (Institut Jean-Nicod, France)
Binding complexity and the status of pronouns in English and ASL – Natasha Abner, Thomas Graf (University of California, Los Angeles, USA)
An analysis for restrictive circumnominal relative clauses with focus on SLs – Marta Mosella (University of Barcelona, Spain)
Disentangling free relative clauses in Italian Sign Language (LIS) – Chiara Branchini (Università Ca’ Foscari Venezia, Italy)
17.15 – 17.30 Coffee break
17.30 – 18.10
 Poster session:
18.10 – 19.00
 Three kinds of iconicity in sign language pronominals: A formal approach – Philippe Schlenker (Institut Jean-Nicod, France, New York University, USA), Mirko Santoro (Institut Jean-Nicod, France, University of Venice, Italy), Jon Lamberton (New York, USA)


*****************
2 June 2012 r. (Saturday):

9.00 – 9.50 Guest lecture:
What can research on atypical signing tell us about the linguistics of sign languages? – Bencie Woll (University College London, UK)
9.50 – 10.40
 Language switch costs and dual-task costs in bimodal language production – Emily Kaufmann, Thomas Kaul (University of Cologne, Germany)
10.40 – 11.30 
WH-questions in bimodal bilinguals — Evidence for language synthesis – Diane Lillo-Martin (University of Connecticut, USA), Ronice Müller de Quadros (Universidade Federal de Santa Catarina, Brazil), Deborah Chen Pichler (Gallaudet University, USA), Elena Koulidobrova (University of Connecticut, USA)
11.30 – 11.50 Coffee break
11.50 – 12.40
 The SAME constituent structure – Carlo Cecchetto (University of Milan-Bicocca, Italy), Alessandra Checchetto (Università Ca’ Foscari Venezia, Italy), Carlo Geraci (Institut Jean-Nicod, France), Sandro Zucchi (University of Milan, Italy)
12.40 – 13.30
 A modality-free account of the position of clausal arguments – Josep Quer (Pompeu Fabra University, Spain)
13.30 – 15.00 Lunch break
15.00 – 15.50
 PERSON climbing up a tree (and other adventures in sign language grammaticalization) – Roland Pfau (Universiteit van Amsterdam, the Netherlands), Markus Steinbach (Georg-August-Universität, Germany)
15.50 – 16.40
 Testing condition C and crossover effects in ASL
Gaurav Mathur (Gallaudet University, USA), Philippe Schlenker (Institut Jean-Nicod, France, New York
University, USA)
16.40 – 17.10
 Display of posters:
Hand in hand: The grammar of space at the articulatory-perceptive interface – Carlo Geraci (Institut Jean-Nicod, France)
Morphophonological constraints on a negation prefix in Polish Sign Language (PJM) – Piotr Tomaszewski (University of Warsaw, Poland)
An Optimality-Theoretic syntactic typology of negation in four sign languages – Kadir Gökgöz, Ronnie Wilbur (Purdue University, USA)
A preliminary description and analysis of the phonology of Portuguese Sign Language for computational modeling purposes – Mara Moita, Patrícia Carmo, José Pedro Ferreira, Ana Mineiro (Insituto de Linguística Teórica e Computacional, Portugal)
Spatial references in sign and speech: A crosslinguistic view on cross-modal bilingualism – Ainhoa Moiua (University of Mondragon, Spain), Inés García-Azkoaga (University of the Basque Country, Spain), Arantza Ozaeta (University of Mondragon, Spain)
Russian Sign Language dialects or independent national sign languages – Tatiana Davidenko, Anna Komarova (G.Zaitseva Centre for Deaf Studies and Bilingual Education, Russia)
17.10 – 17.30 Coffee break
17.30 – 18.10 
Poster session
18.10 – 19.00
 Getting together a POSSe: The primacy of predication in ASL possessives – Natasha Abner (University of California, Los Angeles, USA)