LINGUIST List 15.1103

Mon Apr 5 2004

Calls: General Ling/USA;Computational Ling/Switzerland

Editor for this issue: Andrea Berez <andrealinguistlist.org>

Directory

1. rlchilds, South Atlantic Modern Language Association
2. sakas, Psycho-computational Models of Human Language Acquisition

South Atlantic Modern Language Association 
Short Title: SAMLA 

Date: 12-Nov-2004 - 14-Nov-2004
Location: Roanoke, VA, United States of America
Contact: Julie Amberg
Contact Email: jambergycp.edu 

Linguistic Sub-field: General Linguistics 
Call Deadline: 28-Apr-2004 


Meeting Description:

74th Annual South Atlantic Modern Language Association Convention
South Atlantic Modern Language Association (SAMLA)
Linguistics Session
November 12-14, 2004 -Hotel Roanoke and Conference Center


The SAMLA linguistics committee welcomes abstract submissions for the
2004 conference in Roanoke, Virginia. The theme for the session is
Language and Gender. Abstracts that consider language and gender from
any area of language study (e.g.,historical linguistics,
sociolinguistics, queer studies, foreign language studies) are
encouraged. Please submit abstracts of no more than 500 words in
length (including references)to rlchildsuga.edu by April 28, 2004.

Psycho-computational Models of Human Language Acquisition 

Date: 28-Aug-2004 - 28-Aug-2004
Location: Geneva, Switzerland
Contact: William Sakas
Contact Email: Psycho.Comphunter.cuny.edu 
Meeting URL: http://www.colag.cs.hunter.cuny.edu/psychocomp 

Linguistic Sub-field: Computational Linguistics ,General Linguistics
,Phonology ,Psycholinguistics ,Text/Corpus Linguistics
,Neurolinguistics ,Cognitive Science ,Language Acquisition

Call Deadline: 15-Apr-2004 


Meeting Description:

The workshop will be devoted to psychologically motivated
computational models of language acquisition -- models that are
compatible with research in psycholinguistics, developmental
psychology and linguistics -- with particular emphasis on the
acquisition of syntax. (A Workshop part of COLING-2004)
 FINAL Call for Papers
 
 Psycho-computational Models of Human Language Acquisition
 
 *** DEADLINE EXTENSION *** 
 
 New Submission deadline: 15 April 
 
 
 A COLING 2004 Workshop Geneva Switzerland 28 August 2004
 
 
 http://www.colag.cs.hunter.cuny.edu/psychocomp/
 
 
Workshop Topic 
 
The workshop will be devoted to psychologically motivated
computational models of language acquisition -- models that are
compatible with research in psycholinguistics, developmental
psychology and linguistics -- with particular emphasis on the
acquisition of syntax.
 
Invited panel: Learning Biases in Language Acquisition Models

 Walter Daelemans, Antwerp and Tilburg
 Charles D. Yang, Yale
 
Invited speaker

 Elan Dresher, Toronto
 
 
Workshop Description and Motivation

 
In recent decades there has been a great deal of successful research
that applies computational learning techniques to emerging natural
language technologies, along with many meetings, conferences and
workshops in which to present such research. However, there have been
few venues in which psycho-computational models of how humans acquire
their native language(s) are the focus.
 
Psycho-computational models of language acquisition are of particular
interest in light of recent results in developmental psychology which
suggest that very young infants are adept at detecting statistical
patterns in an audible input stream. However, this begs the question
of whether or not a psychologically plausible statistical learning
strategy can be successfully exploited in a full-blown
psycho-computational acquisition model. Although there has been a
significant amount of presented research targeted at modeling the
acquisition of word categories and phonology, research aimed at
psychologically motivated modeling of syntax acquisition has just
begun to emerge.
 
The principal goal of the workshop is to bring together researchers
who work within computational linguistics, formal learning theory,
machine learning, artificial intelligence, linguistics,
psycholinguistics and other fields, who have created or are
investigating computational models of language acquisition. In
particular, it will provide a forum for establishing links and common
themes between diverse paradigms. Although research which directly
addresses the acquisition of syntax is strongly encouraged, related
studies that inform research on the acquisition of syntax are also
welcome.
 
Papers are invited on, but not limited to, the following topics:
 
* Acquisition models that contain a parsing component
* Models that have a cross-linguistic or bilingual perspective
* Models that address the question of learning bias in terms of innate 
 linguistic knowledge versus statistical regularity in the input
* Models that can acquire natural language word-order
* Hybrid models that cross established paradigms
* Models that directly make use of or can be used to evaluate existing 
 linguistic or developmental theories in a computational framework
(e.g. the principles & parameters framework or Optimality Theory)
* Empirical models that make use of child-directed corpora
* Formal models that incorporate psychologically plausible constraints 
* Comparative surveys, across multiple paradigms, that critique
previously published studies 
 
Paper Length: Submissions should be no longer than 8 pages (A4 or the
equivalent). High-quality short papers or extended abstracts of 4 to 5
pages are encouraged. Submission and format details are below.
 
Lunch session: Word-order acquisition
 
The topic of this session will be the acquisition of different natural
language word-orders. The workshop will provide a common test-bed of
abstract sentence patterns from word order divergent languages. The
shared data contains the sentence patterns and cross-linguistic
fully-specified parses for each sentence pattern. The patterns are
available at:
 
 www.colag.cs.hunter.cuny.edu/grammar/data/allsentences.zip
 
General information and a web interface for perusing the data can be
found at:
 
 www.colag.cs.hunter.cuny.edu/grammar
 
Due to the limited amount of time available to work with novel data,
pilot studies are encouraged. The session will consist of short
presentations and roundtable discussion. Submissions for this session
are limited to 2 pages. Those who may be interested in submitting to
this session should contact the workshop organizer before the
submission deadline for further details.
 
Dates of submissions
 
 Submission deadline: 15 April 2004
 Acceptance notification: 14 May 2004
 Camera-ready deadline: 10 June 2004
 Workshop date: 28 August 2004
 
Workshop Organizer
 
 William Gregory Sakas, City University of New York
(sakashunter.cuny.edu)
 
Program Committee
 
* Robert Berwick, MIT, USA
* Antal van den Bosch, Tilburg University, The Netherlands
* Ted Briscoe, University of Cambridge, UK
* Damir Cavar, Indiana University, USA
* Morten H. Christiansen, Cornell University, USA
* Stephen Clark, University of Edinburgh, UK 
* James Cussens, University of York, UK
* Walter Daelemans, University of Antwerp, Belgium and Tilburg
University, 
 The Netherlands
* Jeffrey Elman, University of California, San Diego, USA
* Janet Dean Fodor, City University of New York, USA
* Gerard Kempen, Leiden University, The Netherlands and The Max Planck 
 Institute, Nijmegen
* Vincenzo Lombardo, University of Torino, Italy
* Larry Moss, University of Indiana, USA
* Miles Osborne, University of Edinburgh, UK 
* Dan Roth, University of Illinois at Urbana-Champaign, USA
* Ivan Sag, Stanford University, USA
* Jeffrey Siskind, Purdue University, USA
* Mark Steedman, University of Edinburgh, UK
* Menno van Zaanen, Tilburg University, The Netherlands
* Charles Yang, Yale University, USA
 
 
Paper Submission
 
Length: Submissions should be no more than 8 pages (A4 or equivalent).
High- quality short papers or extended abstracts of 4 to 5 pages are
encouraged. Submissions to the lunch session on word-order should be
no more than 2 pages. (If accepted, final camera ready versions may be
up to 8 pages or 5 pages for the word-order submissions.)
 
Layout: Papers must conform to COLING 2004 formatting guidelines,
available at:
 
 http://www.issco.unige.ch/coling2004/coling2004downloads.html
 
Electronic Submission: All submissions will be by email. Reviews will
be blind, so be careful not to disclose authorship or affiliation.
PDF submissions are preferred and will be required for the final
camera-ready copy.
 
Submissions should be sent as an attachment to:
 Psycho.Comphunter.cuny.edu. 
 The subject line must contain the single word: Submission. 
 
Please be sure to include accurate contact information in the body of
the email.
 
Contact:
 
Psycho.Comphunter.cuny.edu
 or sakashunter.cuny.edu
 
http://www.colag.cs.hunter.cuny.edu/psychocomp/