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

Thu Feb 1 23:39:04 UTC 2018

LINGUIST List: Vol-29-556. Thu Feb 01 2018. ISSN: 1069 - 4875.

Subject: 29.556, Calls: Pragmatics, Psycholing, Semantics, Text/Corpus Ling/Germany

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Date: Thu, 01 Feb 2018 18:38:54
From: Torgrim Solstad [solstad at leibniz-zas.de]
Subject: Implicit and Explicit Marking of Discourse Relations: Causals vs. Conditionals

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: discrel.xprag at gmail.com
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.xprag at gmail.com

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

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