chamito - semitic conference announcing the 1999 conference on the morpho - syntax of chamito - semitic languages to be held at the university of fez , morocco , march 15-17 , 1999 . deadline for receipt of abstracts : november 30 , 1998 all submissions must comprise : i ) three copies of the abstract and ii ) one card with full name , affiliation , title of the paper , address , fax number and e-mail . the paper abstracts must be at most 2 - pages long ( including examples and references ) . papers will be presented in english , french and arabic . authors whose abstracts are accepted will be notified in mid - january 1999 . the abstract may be sent by surface mail , fax or e-mail to : professor moha ennaji for the generative grammar reseach group ( gergg ) sidi moahmed ben abdellah university faculty of letters , department of english bp 50 fs 30 000 morocco tel : + 212 5 61 09 10 fax : + 212 5 64 08 44 e - mail : ennaji < estry @ fesnet . net . ma > there will be 18 talks in all , each 40 minutes long with an additional 15 minutes for discussion . the university can pay for board and lodging during the conference , but cannot afford to pay for transportation . participants are requested to make their travel arrangements early . as a follow up to this conference , a three-day spring institute will be organized on march 18-20 , 1999 for the benefit of graduate students and researchers . this mini-institute will feature lectures and seminars on minimalist theory and the morphology and syntax of chamito-semitic languages . invited leading scholars in the field will teach a few courses . conference topics and aims the major suggested topics to be discussed during the conference are : - morphology : inflection and derivation paradigms - word order variation - syntactic variation - syntax and semantics - diachronic studies - comparative studies - chamito-semitic languages and universal grammar - minimalist approaches to chamito-semitic languages - the acquisition of morphosyntax chamito - semitic languages have generally been associated with descriptive and diachronic linguistics . they have been described and analyzed at the phonological , morphosyntactic and semantic levels by functional , structural and generative schools of linguistics . today most chamito - semitic studies are inspired by the generative trend . however , in the light of the new developments in the minimalist theory , chamito - semitic languages have been overlooked . the aim of this conference is to discuss new researches in the syntax of chamito - semitic languages within the framework of the latest approaches in generative syntax . the ultimate goal is to establish the parameters of these languages and bring changes and improvements to the minimalist theory on the basis of empirical data . new data and comparative studies are encouraged in order to strengthen or disconfirm the principles of minimalism and ug . this conference will focus on similarities and differences between the various chamito - semitic languages , using the minimalist theoretical framework and empirical knowledge . comparisons between dialects and languages that are genetically related will be made to check parametrization in ug , on the one hand , and to analyze the syntax of these languages on formal grounds . the major aim of this conference , then , is to shed light on the progress made in chamito - semitic morphology and syntax , as well as focus on the data and theoretical perspectives . contributions from related subjects like semantics , language variation and language acquisition will be welcome . hypotheses and predictions will be postulated and tested according to different principles and parameters determined by ug . for further contacts , please e-mail : ennaji < estry @ fesnet . net . ma >