New Directions in Type-theoretic Grammars 3rd CFP (fwd)

[Ivan A. Sag]

			THIRD CALL FOR PAPERS
	Workshop on New Directions in Type-theoretic Grammars
			      NDTTG 2007
	   http://let.uvt.nl/general/people/rmuskens/ndttg
			 August 6 - 10, 2007
			 organized as part of
		    the European Summer School on
		   Logic, Language and Information
			     ESSLLI 2007
		       www.cs.tcd.ie/esslli2007
		    6 - 17 August, 2007 in Dublin


Workshop Organizer:
     Reinhard Muskens

Workshop Purpose:
     In 1961 Haskell Curry published his by now famous paper on 'Some
     Logical Aspects of Grammatical Structure'. In this paper (large
     parts of which had already been written in the 1940's) he made a
     distinction between the 'tectogrammatics' and 'phenogrammatics' of
     language (a distinction similar to that between abstract syntax
     and concrete syntax in compiler theory), while also arguing against
     directionality in the type system used for language
     description. In 1953 Bar-Hillel had introduced a distinction
     between categories seeking material to their right and categories
     seeking material to the left. To date most categorial grammarians
     follow Bar-Hillel in this, but in Curry's architecture
     phenogrammatical structure can take care of word order, making
     directionality unnecessary.

     Curry's proposal was part of a classical phase in categorial
     grammar that started with Ajdukiewicz's paper on syntactic
     connexity and also included Joachim Lambek's pivotal work on the
     introduction of hypothetical reasoning. It led to many
     follow-ups. For example, in Richard Montague's work the
     tectogrammatics/phenogrammatics distinction reappeared as one
     between analysis trees and surface strings, while Montague also
     added a level of meaning as a third component. The grammatical
     architecture thus became one in which a central abstract component
     is interpreted on two levels. An explicit connection between
     Montague's set-up and that of Curry was given in David Dowty's
     work in the 1980's. Also in the 1980's, Aarne Ranta used the idea
     in a constructive type theory setting, while Reinhard Muskens used
     it for his Partial Montague Grammar and Johan van Benthem explored
     the logical and linguistic implications of LP*, the undirected
     version of the Lambek Calculus, or, in other words, the logic of
     simply typed linear lambda terms. Later years brought Richard
     Oehrle's insight that the interpreting levels of the theory (not
     only semantics but also phenogrammar) can be represented with the
     help of lambda terms. Since the central abstract component
     consists of LP* derivations in Oehrle's set-up, equivalent with
     linear lambda terms, in fact all levels of the grammar can now be
     represented with the help of lambda terms and the typed lambda
     calculus becomes the central mechanism for grammatical description
     (as it had been in Cresswell's lambda-categorial languages).

     Since the turn of the century there has been a heightened activity
     within a series of type-theoretical formalisms bearing a family
     resemblance to one another. All of these adopt the pheno/tecto
     distinction or undirectedness in one way or another and claim
     various descriptive and formal advantages. We mention Abstract
     Categorial Grammars (de Groote), De Saussure Grammar (Kracht),
     Minimalist Categorial Grammars (Lecomte, Retore), Lambda Grammars
     (Muskens), Higher Order Grammar (Pollard), and the Grammatical
     Framework (Ranta). The workshop intends to bring together
     researchers in this now very active field.  It aims to provide a
     forum for advanced PhD students and researchers, enabling them to
     present their work and to discuss it with colleagues who work in
     the broad subject areas represented at ESSLLI.

Workshop Topics:
     We solicit contributions on all aspects of undirected
     type-theoretic grammars, including their parsability, their
     learnability, their psycholinguistic adequacy, and various
     applications in syntax and semantics. We are also interested in
     practical issues relating to natural language processing and more
     theoretical issues such as the abstract/concrete syntax
     distinction in linguistics and computer science, the relation to
     compiling theory and the relation of undirected type-theoretic
     grammars to other linguistic formalisms. Particularly welcome are
     also contributions discussing the minimal requirements the
     approach imposes on the type theory that is used.

Submission Details:
     Authors are invited to submit an extended abstract describing
     original work. The extended abstract should not exceed two pages
     and should be in the PDF format. Since reviewing will be
     anonymous, please make sure that your abstract does not contain
     author's names or references from which author identities can
     easily be deduced. Please upload your submission at the EasyChair
     website of the workshop, www.easychair.org/NDTTG2007/, by the
     deadline listed below. Submissions will be reviewed by the
     workshop's programme committee and additional reviewers. The
     accepted papers, which can be worked out to a maximum of 4000
     words, will appear in the workshop proceedings published by
     ESSLLI.

Workshop format:
     The workshop is part of ESSLLI and is open to all ESSLLI
     participants. It will consist of five 90-minute sessions held over
     five consecutive days in the first week of ESSLLI. There will be 2
     slots for paper presentation and discussion per session. On the
     first day the workshop organizer will give an introduction to the
     topic.

Invited Speakers:
     David Dowty
     Richard Oehrle

Workshop Programme Committee:
     Johan van Benthem
     Nissim Francez
     Philippe de Groote
     Makoto Kanazawa
     Marcus Kracht
     Alain Lecomte
     Glyn Morrill
     Richard Oehrle
     Carl Pollard
     Aarne Ranta
     Christian Retore
     Yoad Winter

Important Dates:
     Submission deadline: 8 March, 2007
     Notification: 21 April, 2007
     Preliminary programme: 24 April, 2007
     ESSLLI early registration: 1 May, 2007
     Final papers due: 17 May, 2007
     Final programme: 21 June, 2007
     Workshop dates: 6-17 August, 2007

Acknowledgement:
     We gratefully acknowledge support from the Netherlands
     Organisation for Scientific Research (NWO).

Local Arrangements:
     All workshop participants including the presenters will be
     required to register for ESSLLI. The registration fee for authors
     presenting a paper will correspond to the early student/workshop
     speaker registration fee. Moreover, a number of additional fee
     waiver grants will be made available by the ESSLLI organizing
     committee on a competitive basis and workshop participants are
     eligible to apply for those.

     There will be no reimbursement for travel costs and
     accomodation. Workshop speakers who have difficulty in finding
     funding should contact the local organizing committee to ask for
     the possibilities of a grant.

Further information:
     About the workshop: http://let.uvt.nl/general/people/rmuskens/ndttg
     About ESSLLI: www.cs.tcd.ie/esslli2007


------- End of Forwarded Message