Scuola Normale Superiore, Pisa 4-5 November 2010
http://linguistica.sns.it/Workshop_verb/
*** Extended Deadline: June 27 ***
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1. Workshop Description
Verbs and their features have always received wide attention in various disciplines concerned with linguistic research, since their contribution is essential to the structure and the interpretation of language. In recent years, the availability of new lexical resources and increasingly large corpora, the application of empirical methods and statistical algorithms and the development of technical devices such as eye-trackers and magnetic resonance imaging has led to advances in several linguistic areas.
Their great interest and relevance notwithstanding, verbs still defy attempts by linguists and cognitive scientists to achieve a clear understanding of their organisational principles, as well as of the features entering into their constitution. Verb complexity derives not only from their notoriously high polysemy, but also and especially from the fact that verbs are crucially the cornerstone of the syntax-semantics interface. The semantic behaviour of verbs is therefore strongly intertwined with the syntagmatic constraints governing their distributions. As a consequence, while there is a consensus on the multifarious nature of verb semantic representations, the different types of verb features analysed in the literature (e.g., event properties, argument structure, aspect, etc.) still lie as separate pieces of a puzzle which is far from complete.
Success in this type of research is brought about by close collaboration between (computational) linguists and cognitive scientists. To this end, interdisciplinary workshops can play a key role in advancing existing and initiating new research. This was demonstrated by the interest generated by the Verb Workshop 2005, which received 33 submissions and was held as a standalone event at Saarland University over 2 days. A more clear understanding of the (computational) linguistic and cognitive properties of verbs will bring a positive reflection on the results of the research done within these communities. Therefore there is a real need to provide a forum where researchers can meet across disciplines.
The aim of this interdisciplinary workshop is to bring together researchers from linguistic domains such as linguistics, computational linguistics, computational lexicography, psycholinguistics, cognitive science and neuroscience, in order to discuss their perspectives on verb senses and verb features, exchanging new ideas and methods. Such an event can help to bridge the gap between the linguistic, computational and cognitive communities, promote knowledge and resource sharing, and help initiate interdisciplinary research projects.
The focus of the workshop is on the identification and representation of verb features at the syntax-semantics interface. Papers are invited on, but not limited to, the following topics:
* Empirical studies and formal descriptions of verb features and verb
senses: these are some of the key fundamental factors in verb
treatment, and are relevant for representing and distinguishing
verbs across disciplines.
* Representation of verbs by verb classes: generalisation is crucial
to the acquisition of verbs and categorisation in cognitive
linguistics, and for many computational linguistic tasks;
computational learning of verb classes and properties provides
insights into argument alternations, verb polysemy, selectional
preferences, etc.
* Cognitively motivated models of verbs: the definition of verb
semantics according to human perception, the collection of human
judgements on verb senses and verb properties, and psycholinguistic
studies and experiments on verbs are important interdisciplinary
contributions to verb characterisation.
* Evidence from cognitive neuroscience and neuropsychology on verb
features and corpus-based methods to extract empirical features: the
distributional account of verb senses and verb features provides
essential contributions to verb analysis. We also welcome
contributions on the use of distributional data to model
(neuro)cognitive evidence on verb representation.
* Data resources and tools: the definition of verb senses and verb
properties are important for basic and task-oriented research;
especially the annotation of lexical verb information provides
valuable data to computational learning procedures and evaluation
methods.
* Language-specific and cross-linguistic aspects of verbs: which verb
features are specific to a language, and which are universal?
2. Invited Speakers
Diana McCarthy (Lexical Computing Ltd., Brighton, UK) Ken McRae (Department of Psychology, University of Western Ontario, Canada)
3. Workshop Organizers
Pier Marco Bertinetto (Scuola Normale Superiore, Pisa, Italy) Anna Korhonen (University of Cambridge, UK) Alessandro Lenci (University of Pisa, Italy) Alissa Melinger (University of Dundee, UK) Sabine Schulte im Walde (University of Stuttgart, Germany) Aline Villavicencio (Federal University of Rio Grande do Sul, Brazil, and University of Bath, UK)
4. Program Committee
Afra Alishashi (Department of Computational Linguistics and Phonetics, Saarland University, Germany) Tim Baldwin (Department of Computer Science & Software Engineering, University of Melbourne, Australia) Colin Bannard (Department of Linguistics, University of Texas at Austin, USA) Roberto Basili (Department of Computer Science, University of Roma Tor Vergata, Italy) Nuria Bel (University Pompeu Fabra, Barcelona, Spain) Gemma Boleda (Universitat Politecnica de Catalunya, Barcelona, Spain) Chris Brew (Department of Linguistics, Ohio State University, USA) Miriam Butt (Department of Linguistics, University of Konstanz, Germany) Amit Dubey (School of Informatics, University of Edinburgh, UK) Sonja Eisenbeiß (Department of Language and Linguistics, University of Essex, UK) Katrin Erk (Department of Linguistics, University of Texas at Austin, USA) Afsaneh Fazly (Department of Electrical and Computer Engineering, Shiraz University, Iran) Pablo Gamallo (Universidade de Santiago de Compostela, Spain) Tracy King (Microsoft, USA) Jean-Pierre Koenig (Department of Linguistics, University at Buffalo, USA) Beth Levin (Department of Linguistics, Stanford University, USA) Bernardo Magnini (Fondazione Bruno Kessler, Trento, Italy) Daniela Marzo (Department of Linguistics, University of Stuttgart, Germany) Diana McCarthy (Lexical Computing Ltd., Brighton, UK) Ken McRae (Department of Psychology, University of Western Ontario, Canada) Paola Merlo (Department of Linguistics, University of Geneva, Switzerland) Sebastian Padó (Institute for Natural Language Processing, University of Stuttgart, Germany) Martha Palmer (Department of Linguistics, University of Colorado at Boulder, USA) Massimo Poesio (Center for Mind/Brain Sciences, University of Trento, Italy) James Pustejovsky (Department of Computer Science, Brandeis University, USA) Anna Rumshisky (Department of Computer Science, Brandeis University, USA) Ekaterina Shutova (Computer Laboratory, University of Cambridge, UK) Suzanne Stevenson (Department of Computer Science, University of Toronto, Canada) Gabriella Vigliocco (Department of Psychology, University College London, UK) David Vinson (Deafness Cognition and Language Research Center, University College London, UK)
5. Submission
Authors are invited to submit a 3-page PDF abstract (including references and figures) formatted according to the ACL stylesheet (Latex and Word stylesheets can be downloaded from the workshop website). Abstracts must be anonymous and submitted using the Easychair interface available through
http://linguistica.sns.it/Workshop_verb/Submission.html. The submissions will be reviewed by the workshop Program Committee.
Accepted abstracts can be extended up to 5 pages (using the same stylesheet), and will be printed in the workshop proceedings.
6. Important Dates
Paper submission deadline (ext): Jun 27, 2010 Notification of acceptance: Aug 1, 2010 Camera ready papers due: Sep 15, 2010 Workshop dates: Nov 4-5, 2010
7. Contact
You can contact the workshop organisers via email: verb2010 at easychair.org.
Detailed and up-to-date information on the workshop can be found on the workshop homepage: http://linguistica.sns.it/Workshop_verb/.
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PD Dr. Sabine Schulte im Walde
Institut für Maschinelle Sprachverarbeitung Universität Stuttgart Azenbergstraße 12 70174 Stuttgart, Germany
fon: +49 (711) 685-84584 fax: +49 (711) 685-81366 email: schulte at ims.uni-stuttgart.de