LINGUIST List 9.133

Wed Jan 28 1998

Calls: Anaphora Resolution, Comparative Romance Ling

Editor for this issue: Elaine Halleck <elainelinguistlist.org>

Directory

1. Ruslan Mitkov, Anaphora resolution--Special issue of Machine Translation Journal
2. sonia.colina, Comparative Romance Linguistics-MLA Discussion Group

 CALL FOR PAPERS

 THE MACHINE TRANSLATION JOURNAL

 SPECIAL ISSUE ON ANAPHORA RESOLUTION IN MACHINE TRANSLATION

 Guest editor: Ruslan Mitkov (University of Wolverhampton)


The interpretation of anaphora is crucial for the successful operation
of a Machine Translation system. In particular, it is essential to
resolve the anaphoric relation when translating into languages which
mark the gender of pronouns. Unfortunately, the majority of MT systems
developed in the seventies and eighties did not adequately address the
problems of identifying the antecedents of anaphors in the source
language and producing the anaphoric "equivalents" in the target
language. As a consequence, only a limited number of MT systems have
been successful in translating discourse, rather than isolated
sentences. One reason for this situation is that in addition to anaphora
resolution being itself a very complicated task, translation adds a
further dimension to the problem in that the reference to a discourse
entity encoded by a source language anaphor by the speaker (or writer)
has not only to be identified by the hearer (translator or translation
system) but also re-encoded in a coreferential expression in a different
language.

The nineties have seen an intensification of research efforts in
anaphora resolution in Machine Translation. This can be seen in the
growing number of related projects which have reported promising new
results (e.g.Wada 1990; Leass & Schwall 1991; Nakaiwa & Ikehara 1992; 
Chen 1992; Saggion & Carvalho 1994; Preu_ et al. 1994; Nakaiwa et
al. 1994; Nakaiwa et al. 1995; Nakaiwa & Ikehara 1995; Mitkov et al.
1995; Mitkov et al. 1997).

However, we still feel that additional work is needed to highlight and
further explore the specifics of the problem in operational MT
environments, including fully automatic Machine Translation and Machine-
aided Translation.

We are inviting high-quality, original research papers describing recent
advances in anaphora resolution in Machine Translation. Topics to be
addressed include (but are not limited to)

- operational anaphora resolution components in Machine Translation

- resolution of zero pronouns in MT environments

- lexical transfer of anaphors across languages

- to what extent have the latest trends towards knowledge-poor, corpus-
driven and robust approaches in anaphora resolution, been called upon
in Machine Translation?

- what are the most scalable contributory factors /resolution
strategies in MT?

- what makes anaphora resolution a more complex task in Machine
Translation?


SUBMISSION AND FORMAT

Articles should be submitted directly to the publishers, either by
e-mail to Ellen.Klinkwkap.nl, with the Subject header "Submission to
COAT Anaphora special issue", or in hard-copy to

Machine Translation Editorial Office
Kluwer Academic Publishers
P.O. Box 990
3300 AZ Dordrecht
The Netherlands

or

Machine Translation Editorial Office
Kluwer Academic Publishers
P.O. Box 230
Accord, MA 02018-023
U.S.A.

The SUBMISSION DEADLINE is 15 May 1997.

The journal is typeset using LaTeX, so the preferred medium for
submission of articles in electronic format is LaTeX source (using the
Kluwer style file) or gzipped postscript. For more details, please
consult the journal's web pages:

Home page: http://kapis.www.wkap.nl/journalhome.htm/0922-6567
Instructions for Authors:
http://kapis.www.wkap.nl/kaphtml.htm/IFA0922-6567
LaTeX style files: http://kapis.www.wkap.nl/jrnlstyle.htm/0922-6567

If submitting hard-copy, four copies of the paper are required.
The length of the papers should be approximately 10-20 pages if using
the Kluwer style file (around 20k words).

Authors are also requested to send a copy of an abstract of not more
than 200 words to the guest editor R.Mitkovwlv.ac.uk or in hard-copy to
Ruslan Mitkov, School of Languages and European Studies, University of
Wolverhampton, Stafford St., Wolverhampton WV1 1SB, United Kingdom.


GUEST EDITOR:

Ruslan Mitkov
School of Languages and European Studies
University of Wolverhampton
Stafford St.
Wolverhampton WV1 1SB
Telephone (44-1902) 322471
Fax (44-1902) 322739
Email R.Mitkovwlv.ac.uk


GUEST EDITORIAL BOARD:

Breck Baldwin (University of Pennsylvania, Philadelphia)
David Carter (SRI International, Cambridge)
Guenter Goerz (University of Nuernberg/Erlangen)
Lynette Hirschman (MITRE, McLean)
Richard Kittredge (University of Montreal)
Susan LuperFoy (MITRE, McLean)
Tony McEnery (Lancaster University)
Ruslan Mitkov (University of Wolverhampton)
Frederique Segond (Ranx Xerox, Grenoble)
Harold Somers (UMIST, Manchester)
Keh-Yih Su (National Tsing Hua University, Taiwan)
Yorick Wilks (University of Sheffield)

MLA '98 (Comparative Romance Linguistics Discussion Group)

FIRST CALL FOR PAPERS

MODERN LANGUAGE ASSOCIATION 1998 CONVENTION

Comparative Romance Linguistics Discussion Group

San Francisco, California

27-30 December 1998


Deadline for Abstracts: March 1 1998


The Comparative Romance Linguistics Discussion Group is sponsoring its
annual session at the MLA 1998 Convention. Abstracts are invited for
20-minute talks in all areas of Romance Linguistics. One-page blind
abstracts (one inch margins, typeface no smaller than 12) accompanied
by a card with the presenter's name, address, telephone number, fax
number, and e-mail address should be sent to:


Sonia Colina
Department of Languages and Literatures
Arizona State University
Main Campus, PO Box 870202
Tempe, AZ 85287-0202, USA
Ph (602) 965-4649
Fax (602) 965-0135
e-mail: scolinaasu.edu


Faxed and e-mail submissions will be accepted but should be followed
up by a hard-copy submission.