The call for papers for the 53rd Cambridge Romance Linguistics Seminar is now open (6-7 January 2026, Trinity Hall, Cambridge). Papers (20 mins plus 10 mins for discussion) may be on any aspect of Romance linguistics, within any theoretical framework, and in any standard Romance language, or in English. The emphasis is on informality and a friendly and constructive atmosphere in which views can be expressed and exchanged.
If you would like to propose a paper (20mins plus 10 mins for discussion), please send a title together with an abstract of no more than 300 words by the 1st of November 2025 to RomLingSemCambridge@gmail.com.
Organising committee: Martin Maiden (University of Oxford), Adam Ledgeway (Università degli Studi di Bergamo), Norma Schifano (University of Cambridge).
Programme:
Tuesday 6 January
1200 Trinity Hall bar opens for drinks and sandwiches
1350 Alina McLellan and Delia Bentley (Manchester). The existential-presentational conundrum: the case of kréol rényoné.
1420 Greville G. Corbett (Surrey). The gender of heteroclites (Latin, Romance and Slavonic): is there a conspiracy?
1450 Monica Alexandrina Irimia, Cristina Guardiano, Gaia Sorge, Vincenzo Stalfieri, Emanuela Li Destri, Marco Longhin (Università degli Studi di Modena e Reggio Emilia). Marcatura differenziale dell’oggetto e accordo nelle costruzioni con SE arbitrario: una prospettiva romanza.
1520 Lara da Silva Cardoso (Universidade de Feira de Santana). The diachrony of clitic pronouns in EP and BP (1500–1822): points of convergence and contrast
1550 Leonardo Russo Cardona and Jorge Agulló (Cambridge). Resumption in colloquial Spanish hyper-constructions.
1620 Brief business meeting followed by free time
1730 Olga Borik and Ismael Teomiro (UNED). Extended location and ambiguity in Spanish datives
1800 Thomas Stolz and Nataliya Levkovych (Bremen). Italianizzazione=hispanización? Parallels (and divergence) in the domain of conjunction borrowing from Italian and Spanish
1830 Adam Ledgeway and Norma Schifano (Bergamo and Cambridge). Parameters, verb movement, and language contact: the case of Rossellonès Catalan
1945 Dinner
2115 Paul O’Neill (Munich). Free variation. Why’s it such a problem? Morphological variation in Brazilian Portuguese
Wednesday 7 January
0900 Prudence Pontbriand (Göttingen). Null objects in Old French: a pilot study in diatopic variation
0930 Claire de Mareschal (Sorbonne Nouvelle). New insights on French in France and in the Caribbean: letters from semi- literate people in the Prize Papers (1665-1793)
1000 Leonardo Russo Cardona (Cambridge). External arguments in participial vs synthetic passives: the case of Italian
1030 Coffee
1100 Simone De Cia (Manchester). Subjecthood and verum focus: the case of expletive lu in sovramontino
1130 Marco Fioratti (Cambridge). DFC-structures and subject clitic-verb inversion in the northern Italian dialects
1200 Dalina Kallulli and Ian Roberts (Vienna and Cambridge). Parameters in the substantive lexicon: from Italian relatives to Mundurucu numerals
1230 Bar open
1300 Buffet lunch
