LINGUIST List 8.924

Mon Jun 23 1997

FYI: BISCA-97, Conference List

Editor for this issue: Brett Churchill <brettlinguistlist.org>

Directory

  • Roberto Poli, The 1997 Bolzano International Schools in Cognitive Analysis
  • Roy F. Cochrun, Language Conference List Updated

    Message 1: The 1997 Bolzano International Schools in Cognitive Analysis

     Date: Tue, 17 Jun 1997 09:06:28 +0200
    From: Roberto Poli <poligelso.unitn.it>
    Subject: The 1997 Bolzano International Schools in Cognitive Analysis


    BISCA-97 The 1997 Bolzano International Schools in Cognitive Analysis

    Categories: Ontological Perspectives in Knowledge Representation

    Bolzano, Italy, Maretsch Castle, 15-19 September 1997

    JOHN SOWA, Knowledge Representation: Logical, Computational, and Philosophical Foundations MAURICE GROSS, Lexically-based Semantics: The Interrelations Between Lexicons and Grammars DAVID WOODRUFF SMITH, Systematic Ontology: Varieties of Category Schemes ROBERTO POLI, Dimensions of the Ontological Analysis



    General information: 1. Attendance to the school will be limited to about 30 participants. 2. A hotel list will be sent upon notification of acceptance. Hotel costs in Bolzano range between 70,000 and 250,000 Italian Liras per day, full board. 3. Each speaker will give 4 lectures, with ample time for discussion. 4. All lectures will be in English. 5. The lectures will be given at Castel Maretsch, downtown, starting September 15, at 9 a.m. 6. A small number of boursaries are available to qualified students to meet the costs of participation.



    BISCA's board of directors includes: L. Albertazzi (Trento), R. Langacker (La Jolla), J. Petitot (Paris), R. Poli (Trento) and L. Talmy (Buffalo)

    People wishing to participate should write to Roberto Poli, Department of Sociology and Social Research, 26 Verdi st., 38100 Trento, Italy (call: (++39) 461 881 403; fax: (++39) 461 881 348), or send an e-mail message to: polirisc1.gelso.unitn.it

    Information about the past BISCAs -- Bolzano International Schools in Cognitive Analysis (Previously: Bolzano International Schools in Philosophy and Artificial Intelligence (1988 - 1995))

    ABSTRACTS ABSTRACTS ABSTRACTS ABSTRACTS

    John Sowa,

    KNOWLEDGE REPRESENTATION: LOGICAL, COMPUTATIONAL, AND PHILOSOPHICAL FOUNDATIONS

    1. Principles of knowledge representation. Knowledge representation is the application of logic and ontology to the task of building computable models of some domain for some purpose. This lecture introduces the problems, issues, and applications of conceptual analysis to linguistics, artificial intelligence, and the task of constructing theories and models in science and engineering.

    2. Ontology. The subject of ontology is the study of the categories of things that exist or may exist. The product of such a study, called an ontology, is a catalog of the types of things that are assumed to exist in some domain of interest from the perspective of a person who uses some language (natural or artificial) for the purpose of talking about that domain. The types in the ontology represent the predicates, word senses, or concept and relation types of the language used to discuss topics in the domain.

    3. Processes. A continuant is an object that retains its identity over an extended period of time; an occurrent is an ever-changing process whose stages evolve from, but are not identical to one another. This distinction may seem clear in the abstract, but as Heraclitus observed, no physical object can remain unchanged over any extended interval. This lecture discusses processes, procedures, and histories, the related notions of times, events, situations, actions, and fluents, and the methods of representing them in natural and artificial languages.

    4. Purposes, contexts, and agents. A context is a selection of a manageable chunk of the world by some agent for some purpose. These three concepts, which are fundamentally interdependent, cannot be defined except in relation to one another. In Peirce's terms, they are manifestations of an irreducible Thirdness. This lecture surveys various attempts to define these concepts separately. Then it shows how Peirce's categories of Firstness, Secondness, and Thirdness provide a unifying framework for analyzing and representing them in AI and natural language semantics.

    Maurice Gross (University Paris 7, Laboratoire d'Automatique Documentaire et Linguistique)

    LEXICALLY-BASED SEMANTICS: THE INTERRELATIONS BETWEEN LEXICONS AND GRAMMARS

    The different aspects of semantic representations and of knowledge representation that will be presented in this series of lectures share an empirical basis. Systematic descriptions of French and other languages have been undertaken using a common methodology: Zellig S. Harris' transformational theory. In this framework, we developed highly formalized dictionaries (including flexional morphology), a lexicon-grammar that describes the syntactic properties of unary sentences (i.e. elementary sentences with one verb) and local grammars whose domains have been defined by a combination of syntactic and semantic criteria.

    This linguistic basis is the starting point for a discussion of semantinc and knowledge representations.

    We will present the following topics :

    1. Dictionaries of simple words:grammatical categories and semantic markers. 2. Lexicon-grammars of elementary sentences: distributional properties and semantic classes of nouns and of sentences. 3. Metaphors and frozen utterances: idiomatic forms, phrasal and sentential forms. 4. Correspondance between syntactic forms and semantic predicates. Rules of representation. 5. Extending synonymy: support verbs and derivational morphology. 6. Local grammars: case studies (Stock Exchange reports, Adverbials of Time: dates, durations, frequency). 7. Levels of formalization: application to the computer analysis of large texts.

    David Woodruff Smith (University of California, Irvine, Department of Philosophy and Ontek Corporation)

    SYSTEMATIC ONTOLOGY: VARIETIES OF CATEGORY SCHEMES

    Lecture 1. Aristotelian and Tractarian categories: from Substance to State-of-Affairs. Aristotle's categories: Substance (Primary, Secondary), Quality, Quantity, etc. Wittgenstein's logico-ontological categories (in the Tractatus): Fact or State of Affairs, Object, Relation. The picture theory: representation via (logico-ontological) form.

    Lecture 2. Husserlian categories: from traditional categories to ranks of categories. Husserl's distinction between formal and material ontology. Formal categories: State of Affairs, Individual, Essence & Relation. Material categories: Nature, Culture (Geist), Consciousness. Intentionality: formal or material in category?

    Lecture 3. Whiteheadian categories: from Substance to Process. Whitehead's ranks of categories (simplified). The category of the ultimate: Becoming (Concrescence, Process). Categories of existence: Actual Entity (Occasion), Prehension (Relatedness), Nexus (Togetherness), Subjective Form [Apprehension], Eternal Object (Platonic Form), Multiplicity (Diversity), Contrast (Patterned Entity).

    Lecture 4. New categories: from prior schemes to Being and Basis. The ur-categories Being and Basis: beings or entities versus their basis in modes. Pre-Socratic ontology: Anaximander, origins, one-and-many, ... . Being and modes in Meinong, Ingarden, Heidegger, modal logic. Ontological systematics and ontological genesis. (Contrast logical atomism.) The Ontek PACIS project. A new category scheme: Being and Basis, ... . Intentionality in the new scheme.



    Roberto Poli (University of Trento, Department of Sociology and Social Research)

    DIMENSIONS OF THE ONTOLOGICAL ANALYSIS

    Lecture 1. Introductory notes. Ontology in philosophy and in the theory of basis of data. An Aristotelian problem: Categories vs Metaphysics. Esternal or classificatory categories

    Lecture 2. Internal categories. The layered structure of reality. Layers, levels and echelons. Dependences of the bearer/borne type vs dependences of the carrier/carried type. Laws of dependence among layers. Laws of authonomy among layers

    Lecture 3. Overall architectonic and an example of ontological categorization. General, Regional, Domain and Application Ontology. The case of artifacts

    Lecture 4. An overview and a comparison with other ontological projects. Cyc. Generalized Upper Model. Kosmos. Kactus



    ************************************* Roberto Poli Department of Sociology and Social Research 26, Verdi street 38100 Trento -- Italy Tel. ++39-461-881-403 Fax: ++39-461-881-348 e-mail: polirisc1.gelso.unitn.it home-page: http://www.gelso.unitn.it/~poli/

    Message 2: Language Conference List Updated

     Date: Sun, 15 Jun 1997 14:49:29 -0400 (EDT)
    From: Roy F. Cochrun <royfcochclark.net>
    Subject: Language Conference List Updated


    The language conference list located on the WWW at URL http://www.clark.net/pub/royfc/confer.html has been updated with over 140 new events and several other minor changes since the April 1997 edition.

    The list includes conferences for anyone interested in any aspect of natural language: linguists, translators, interpreters, teachers of languages (even one's own native language to native speakers, such as English in American high schools), those who are involved in natural language processing, et al.

    As usual, many thanks to those who contributed, and especially to those who keep encouraging my work.

    Please send any corrections, updates, changes, or new conferences to me at royfcochclark.net

    --Roy Cochrun