LINGUIST List 14.2400

Thu Sep 11 2003

Calls: General Ling/GA USA; Text/Corpus Ling CA USA

Editor for this issue: Steve Moran <stevelinguistlist.org>

Directory

1. antieau, UGA Linguistics Society Graduate Conference
2. cohen, AAAI SSS Language

UGA Linguistics Society Graduate Conference
Date: 21-Feb-2004 - 21-Feb-2004
Location: Athens, Georgia, United States of America
Contact: Lamont Antieau
Contact Email: linguistuga.edu 
Meeting URL: http://www.linguistics.uga.edu


Linguistic Sub-field: General Linguistics 
Call Deadline: 01-Nov-2003


Meeting Description: The UGA Linguistics Society Graduate Conference
will be held February 21, 2004, in Athens, Georgia. The focus of the
conference is on methodologies in the collection and analysis of
linguistic data, particularly new or improved methodologies. The
University of Georgia Linguistics Program is now accepting abstracts
for its first student conference in linguistics, which will be held in
Athens, Georgia, on February 21, 2004. The focus of the conference is
on methodologies in collecting and analyzing linguistic data, both
quantitative and qualitative. Papers from all approaches will be
considered, particularly those exhibiting new or improved
methodologies. Presentations are expected to be 20 minutes long with
an additional 10 minutes for questions afterward.

Send abstracts of 300 words or less as anonymous attachments written
in Word (or saved in rtf) to linguistuga.edu Contact information
should be contained in the email message accompanying the attached
abstract and is to include the name of the author (or authors),
university affiliation, email address, postal address and the title of
the abstract. The deadline for submissions is November 1, 2003.
Questions can be directed to Lamont Antieau at the above email
address.

AAAI Spring Symposium on Interdisciplinary Approaches to Language Learning 
Short Title: AAAI SSS Language

Date: 22-Mar-2004 - 24-Mar-2004
Location: Palo Alto, United States of America
Contact: Paul Cohen
Contact Email: cohenisi.edu 
Meeting URL: http://


Linguistic Sub-field: Text/Corpus Linguistics, Semantics,
Psycholinguistics, Pragmatics, Philosophy of Language, Language
Acquisition, Computational Linguistics, Cognitive Science Call
Deadline: 03-Oct-2003


Meeting Description: Robots and computers are starting to learn
language. This meeting brings together AI and Cognitive Science
researchers with Linguists and Psychologists to discuss theories and
algorithms pertaining to language learning. Language Learning: An
Interdisciplinary Perspective

Language learning is a grand challenge problem for Artificial
Intelligence because it encompasses concept development and perceptual
development, social learning and imitation, as well as learning the
lexicon, the grammar, and other aspects of language; because it drives
new technologies that apply widely to other kinds of sequential data;
and because most of the world's knowledge is represented
linguistically, so machines are limited by their inability to
understand language.

The symposium is intended to bring together representatives of several
communities --- the corpus-based and grounded language learning
communities, and the developmental psycholinguistics and language
education communities --- to assess progress in machine language
learning and how what we know about human linguistic development might
speed that progress.

Three kinds of interdisciplinary discussions are likely to be
productive. In grounded language learning, language describes a
present scene and is often learned in a language game of some sort
with a competent language user. Corpus-based approaches work with
corpora of language dissociated from a present scene and not generated
in a language game that includes the learner. Learning rates may be
higher for grounded language learning; corpus-based approaches may
learn a wider range of word classes, including words with abstract
semantics that do not refer to a present scene. Both approaches are
inherently statistical and much can be shared between the
practitioners of each. A second integration is between lexical
acquisition and grammatical inference. Knowing word meanings can help
one acquire grammatical rules, and the assignment of words to
grammatical categories should help acquire their meanings. A third
discussion is between language learning researchers and those w!
 ho work on large, commonsense knowledge bases. Language is layered
on a conceptual system, and depends on that system for its
interpretation; and language conveys new concepts and distinctions; so
language learning both depends on and extends commonsense knowledge.

Submit abstracts (2 - 4 pages) to Paul Cohen (cohenisi.edu) by
October 3, 2003. Abstracts that integrate approaches to machine
language learning, that inform these approaches with knowledge and
theories of human language learning, and that describe empirical
results, are most welcome; though other kinds of abstracts will be
considered.

Organizing committee:

Paul Cohen (University of Massachusetts, Amherst, cohenisi.edu)

Andy Clark (University of Indiana, andyindiana.edu)

Eduard Hovy (University of Southern California, Information Sciences
Institute, hovyisi.edu)

Tim Oates (University of Maryland, Baltimore County, oatescsee.umbc.edu)

Michael Witbrock (Cycorp, witbrockcyc.com)