Lisbon: Workshop on Binding Theory, 1st Cfp]

[José Leitão]

                     [apologies for multiple postings]



                          FIRST CALL FOR PAPERS
                               Workshop on

                              Binding Theory
                   and Invariants in Anaphoric Relations

                              Lisbon, Portugal
                              August 22, 2005

                       http://bindingwksp.di.fc.ul.pt


          Hosted by HPSG 2005, the 12th International Conference on
                    Head-Driven Phrase Structure Grammar
                        http://hpsg2005.di.fc.ul.pt



Motivation:

Anaphoric binding principles, which capture constraints on the relative
positioning of anaphors and their antecedents in grammatical geometry,
have been a central topic in the research on the grammar of natural 
languages:
Their modular nature is evidenced by the non trivial  symmetries holding
among them, and their empirical plausibility is supported by the 
repeated
observation of their occurrence across languages.

While these constraints have been instrumental in the research of other
linguistic phenomena and constructions as one of the most reliable 
diagnoses
for grammatical structure and relations, the interest around binding 
theory
itself has continuously expanded, to a considerable extent also due to 
recent
results from psycholinguistics and from new research methodologies such 
as
neuro-imaging. This has led to a vast array of exciting results and 
research
issues, of which the following are just some examples:
-What clarification can be obtained when binding constraints are put 
into
perspective with respect to discourse structure?
-What is their proper locus (syntax, semantics, ...) in the 
architecture of grammar?
-What is intrinsic to binding constraints and what should be factored 
out as
(sub-)regularities possibly due to other grammatical modules and 
phenomena?
- What is the best definition of auxiliary notions (command, domain, 
..)
in view of increased empirical adequacy?
- Are there languages of the world whose anaphors comply with yet to 
uncover
binding principles?
-What cross-linguistic generalizations, i.e., invariants, hold in 
anaphoric binding?
- How to accommodate binding theory in current formal grammatical 
frameworks
and how this may contribute to determine their appropriate shape?
- How to enforce the satisfaction of binding constraints by grammatical
representations and what is the most efficient algorithm to do this?
- What is the root of the intriguing symmetries across binding 
principles
and of their prominent modular nature?
- What are their cognitive underpinnings and how do these relate to 
anaphora
processing and resolution?

The aim of this workshop is to provide participants with a forum where
their research on binding benefits from insightful discussion and from
the exchange of leading edge results on issues closely related to their 
work.
We thus invite the submission of papers contributing innovative 
approaches,
solutions, data or results on all aspects of binding theory.


Submission Details:

We invite E-MAIL submissions of abstracts for 30 minute presentations
(followed by 10 minutes of discussion) which should consist of two 
parts:

1. A separate information page in plain text format, containing
      - author name(s)
      - affiliation(s)
      - e-mail and postal address(es)
      - title of paper

2. An extended abstract of not more than 5 (five) pages, including
all figures and references. Abstracts should be in PDF format. All 
abstracts
should be sent to Manfred Sailer 
(manfred.sailer at phil.uni-goettingen.de).

Abstracts for the workshop should mention 'binding-05' in the subject 
line.
All abstracts will be reviewed anonymously by at least two reviewers.
Authors are asked to avoid self-references in the abstracts.


Important Dates:

Abstract submission deadline: February 15, 2005
Notification of acceptance:   April 15, 2005
Workshop:                     August 22, 2005


Publication:

The proceedings of the workshop will be published on-line by CSLI
publications together with those of the hosting conference.
A call for papers for contributions to the on-line proceedings
will be issued after the event.


Program Committee:

Pilar Barbosa (Univ of Minho)
António Branco (Univ of Lisbon, chair)
Réjean Canac-Marquis (Simon Fraser Univ)
Mary Dalrymple (Oxford Univ)
Martin Evearert (OTS)
Volker Gast (Free Univ of Berlin)
Lars Hellan (Norwegian Univ of Science and Technology)
Ehrard Hinrichs (Univ of Tuebingen)
Yan Huang (Univ of Reading)
Frank Keller (Univ of Edinburgh)
Tibor Kiss (Ruhr Univ Bochum)
Valia Kordoni (Univ of Saarland)
Maria Piñango (Yale Univ)
Carl Pollard (Ohio State Univ)
Janina Radó (Univ of Tuebingen)
Eric Reuland (OTS)
Jeffrey Runner (Univ of Rochester)
Ivan Sag (Stanford Univ)
Roland Stuckardt (J.W.Goethe Univ)


Further Information:

Organized by the NLX-Group, the Natural Language Group
of the Department of Informatics, University of Lisbon:
http://nlxgroup.di.fc.ul.pt

Workshop web site: http://bindingwksp.di.fc.ul.pt

Information about HPSG 2005: http://hpsg2005.di.fc.ul.pt