<HTML dir=ltr><HEAD><TITLE>CFP: Creating Infrastructure for Canonical Typology</TITLE>
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<DIV dir=ltr><FONT size=2>FIRST CALL FOR PAPERS<BR><BR>Creating Infrastructure for Canonical Typology<BR>9-10 January 2009<BR>Conference hosted by the Surrey Morphology Group<BR><BR>Call deadline: 29 August 2008<BR><BR>Papers are invited for a two-day conference addressing issues relevant for<BR>the creation of an online infrastructure for Canonical Typology (Corbett<BR>2005, 2006). Linguists' intuitions about what are particular instances of<BR>a phenomenon, such as a case or agreement, can differ because of<BR>differences in the choice of criteria which they take to be definitional.<BR>The canonical approach allows us to address these differences by taking<BR>defining properties and placing them in a multidimensional space. In this<BR>way, we can treat, for example, issues of whether particular constructions<BR>fit under the rubric 'agreement' or 'case' as a matter of greater or<BR>lesser proximity to a canonical ideal. An ontology for this approach<BR>therefore requires a mapping out of the criteria that linguistic<BR>typologists use for defining linguistic constructs.<BR><BR>The Surrey Morphology Group proposes to bring together linguists from<BR>different perspectives to outline the issues relevant for the creation of<BR>an ontology for Canonical Typology in the form of a Community of Practice<BR>Extension (COPE) within the GOLD ontology for linguistics (Farrar and<BR>Langendoen 2003; see also: www.linguistics-ontology.org/gold.html).<BR>Contributions may address the following issues: the canonical criteria for<BR>defining different morphosyntactic features (case, gender, number, etc.);<BR>defining canonical criteria for syntax-morphology interaction (agreement,<BR>government, head, modifier, etc.); practical issues for the fieldworker;<BR>issues of computational implementation and reasoning. We invite papers on<BR>these and related topics from computational linguists, fieldworkers,<BR>typologists, as well as researchers working on ontologies.<BR><BR>Confirmed speakers:<BR><BR>- Nicholas Evans (Australian National University)<BR>- Scott Farrar (University of Washington)<BR>- Frank Seifart (Ruhr-Universität Bochum)<BR><BR>Anonymous abstracts (500 word maximum) should be sent as an attachment by<BR>e-mail to a.kibort@surrey.ac.uk by 29 August 2008, with contact<BR>information contained in the body of the message. Notification of<BR>acceptance will be sent by 31 October 2008. Any questions may also be sent<BR>to the above address.<BR><BR>The conference will be held at the University of Surrey, in Guildford, UK.<BR>Guildford is a market town in the Green Belt surrounding London and is<BR>located about 35 minutes by train from central London and within easy<BR>reach of London's Heathrow and Gatwick airports.<BR><BR>References<BR><BR>Corbett, Greville G. 2005. The canonical approach in typology. In: Zygmunt<BR>Frajzyngier, Adam Hodges and David S. Rood (eds) Linguistic Diversity and<BR>Language Theories. Amsterdam: John Benjamins, 25-49.<BR><BR>Corbett, Greville G. 2006. Agreement. Cambridge: Cambridge University<BR>Press.<BR><BR>Farrar, Scott and D. Terence Langendoen. 2003. A linguistic ontology for<BR>the Semantic Web. GLOT International 7(3), 97-100.</FONT></DIV></DIV></BODY></HTML>