The Comparative Germanic Syntax Workshop (CGSW) is a storied conference dating all the way back to 1984, when it was first held in Trondheim. Many a scholar young and old has presented there. In my first ever international conference presentation, I (Peter Svenonius) presented at the seventh meeting, in Stuttgart, in 1991, with a DP analysis of the Norwegian noun phrase. Tarald Taraldsen, who I had never met, had already worked out a DP analysis of the Norwegian noun phrase, and was in the audience. My first encounter with him was in the question period, when he challenged me to account for the double possessor in something like “Olavs faens kjerring” (literally “Olav’s devil’s old.lady”, but conveying something like “Olav’s damned wife”). That is the only question I remember as stumping me. (Marit Westergaard was there too, less scarily since she didn’t have a competing analysis of the Norwegian noun phrase.)
Since then, CGSW has been held in Tromsø twice, in 1992 (with Chomsky, Cinque, and Engdahl as invited speakers, and a parasession on Comparative Germanic Phonology) and in 2010 (with Kayne, Alexiadou, and Adger as invited speakers, and a special session on NORMS – Nordic dialect syntax).
Originally a European conference, in 1994 it started alternating between Europe and North America, and in 2016 it was held in South Africa.
It has been held on average once a year, and next year will be the 34th installment, taking place on June 14–15, 2019 in Konstanz (once known in English as Constance; still on Lake Constance, and the Rhine). Terje Lohndal (NTNU/UiT), Jon Sprouse (UConn), and Elly van Gelderen (Arizona) are invited speakers.
Two page abstracts are due by January 15th.