LINGUIST List 29.556

Thu Feb 01 2018

Calls: Pragmatics, Psycholing, Semantics, Text/Corpus Ling/Germany

Editor for this issue: Kenneth Steimel <kenlinguistlist.org>

Date: 31-Jan-2018
From: Torgrim Solstad <solstadleibniz-zas.de>
Subject: Implicit and Explicit Marking of Discourse Relations: Causals vs. Conditionals
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Full Title: Implicit and Explicit Marking of Discourse Relations: Causals vs. Conditionals

Date: 24-May-2018 - 25-May-2018
Location: Osnabrück, Germany
Contact Person: Mingya Liu
Meeting Email: < click here to access email >
Web Site: http://www.xprag.de/?page_id=5450

Linguistic Field(s): Pragmatics; Psycholinguistics; Semantics; Text/Corpus Linguistics

Call Deadline: 20-Mar-2018

Meeting Description:

Invited speakers:

- Vera Demberg (Saarland University)
- Anastasia Giannakidou (University of Chicago)
- Fritz Hamm (University of Tübingen)
- Katrin Schulz (University of Amsterdam)

Discourse relations are essential for the production and comprehension of text and dialogue. From a processing perspective, the identification of discourse relations - among them causal, conditional and temporal relations - plays a crucial role in the extraction of textual meaning and the inferences we can derive from it. When producing utterances, we can choose to express discourse relations explicitly, for example, through dedicated coherence devices such as ''because'', ''if (… then)'', and ''before'', or leave them implicit, leaving it to the hearer to infer the most likely discourse relation.

The proposed workshop aims at identifying factors that contribute to the decision of when a given discourse relation can be left implicit and when it must be marked. We will focus on various kinds of causals, concessives and conditionals which allow for implicit and explicit marking of discourse relations (with the possible exception of concessives). On the one hand, we aim to identify generally valid inferential and interpretational processes related to discourse relations by way of examining these discourse relations. On the other hand, we also aim to identify the correlation between the semantic and pragmatic properties of discourse relations and the degree to which they can be kept implicit.

For further details please visit the workshop web page: http://www.xprag.de/?page_id=5450

Organizers:
Oliver Bott (University of Tübingen)
Mingya Liu (Osnabrück University)
Torgrim Solstad (Leibniz-Centre General Linguistics - ZAS)

Funded by Xprag.de

Call for Papers:

Discourse relations (DRs) are essential for the production and comprehension of text and dialogue. From a processing perspective, the identification of DRs - among them causal, conditional and temporal relations - plays a crucial role in the extraction of textual meaning and the inferences we can derive from it. When producing utterances, we can choose to express DRs explicitly, for example, through dedicated coherence devices such as ''because'', ''if (… then)'', and ''before'', or leave them implicit, leaving it to the hearer to infer the most likely DR.

It is often assumed that implicit and explicit DRs are semantically comparable (Kehler et al. 2008). The inferencing related to implicit DRs, however, poses a challenge for formal modeling of discourse structure, because context imposes different effects of high variability - among these world knowledge and the epistemic states of the speaker and hearer (Van Lambalgen/Hamm 2005). The inferences must also be defeasible because an inferred DR may be incompatible with discourse information encountered later on. What is more, since DRs vary in the degree to which they may be left implicit (Asr/Demberg 2012) - for instance, concessives are often argued to require explicit marking -, their role in inferential processes may also be assumed to differ.

The proposed workshop aims at identifying factors that contribute to the decision of when a given DR can be left implicit and when it must be marked. We will focus on various kinds of causals, concessives and conditionals which allow for implicit and explicit marking of DRs (with the possible exception of concessives). On the one hand, we aim to identify generally valid inferential and interpretational processes (Schulz 2011) related to DRs by way of examining these DRs. On the other hand, causals and conditionals differ in semantic and pragmatic properties, for instance, in terms of veridicality (Asher/Lascarides 2005, Giannakidou 1998 and subsequent works), and so do causals and concessives (Pearl 2009; Koehne/Demberg 2013). Thus, we also aim to identify the correlation between their properties and the degree to which DRs can be kept implicit. Below are listed a few dimensions that may prove important for the decision to explicitly mark a DR:

- Linguistic complexity of DRs (e.g. cause vs. concession, sequence vs. condition)
- Semantic and pragmatic properties of DRs (e.g. veridical vs. non-veridical)
- Predictability of a DR from narrow linguistic and broad discourse context
- Cognitive costs and cognitive resources for inferring relations
- Pragmatic constraints (e.g. avoidance of ambiguity)
- Strategic communication: the strategic speaker may opt for implicit DR marking to foster e.g. plausible deniability
- Availability of fast and automatic mechanisms generating DR predictions
- Interlocutors' familiarity with the discourse topic

We invite submissions for oral (45min) or poster presentations on, but not limited to, the above topics. We welcome both empirical (e.g. corpus-linguistic, cross-linguistic, experimental), theoretical and computational contributions. Abstracts of no more than two pages (12 pt, single line spacing, 1 in margins), excluding references, should be submitted non-anonymously in PDF format to the following address:

discrel.xpraggmail.com

Submission deadline: March 20, 2018
Notification of acceptance: March 30, 2018
Workshop dates: May 24-25, 2018


Page Updated: 01-Feb-2018