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<TITLE>2nd CFP: Creating Infrastructure for Canonical Typology</TITLE>
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<FONT FACE="Verdana, Helvetica, Arial"><SPAN STYLE='font-size:12.0px'>SECOND 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.</SPAN></FONT>
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