Request for member suggestions/input on a joint LFG/HPSG conference in summer of 2106

[George Aaron Broadwell]

Dear members of the LFG community,

The Executive Committee of ILFGA and its counterpart for HPSG have agreed
to appoint some members to a small committee trying to work out a joint
conference in the summer of 2016, to be held in Warsaw.

Although LFG and HPSG have different points of view on a number of
theoretical issues, we also share many common interests and ways of
addressing problems. We think it would be valuable for members of the two
groups to interact, read each other's literature, and understand the
differences and commonalities between the two approaches.

I was at the HPSG annual meeting in Buffalo and also discussed the issue by
email with the ILFGA Executive Committee, so let me relay some points that
I think are generally agreed upon:

1.) The Berkeley joint conference in 2000 was not very successful in
getting much interaction between LFG and HPSG, so we would like to avoid
some features of that conference.  In particular:

a.) Five days is too long for a conference.  The program had two days of
HPSG, two days of LFG, and one joint day.  This encouraged people to come
for just half of the conference and skip the other half.

b.) If we want a joint 2016 conference to be successful, we probably need a
maximum of four days.   Conference sessions ought to be organized
thematically in areas like (e.g.) argument structure, long-distance
dependency, agreement, etc.  When possible, we should try to include papers
from both HPSG and LFG in these sessions.

This will, of course, depend on the papers that are submitted.  The ideal
of many sessions with papers from both frameworks does not preclude some
sessions that are only in one framework.  For instance, if we have 4 LFG
submissions on information structure and no HPSG submissions, it is still
possible for us to have a session on information structure.

One day of a four day conference would probably be devoted to a workshop;
ideally this would be a joint workshop.

2.) In order to organize a conference like this, we will need to appoint a
joint program committee with both HPSG and LFG representatives.  We'll have
to entrust the committee with trying to put together a program that is
organized thematically and includes a fair representation of both.

3.)  There are a few technical barriers that we need to think about
a.) At the last LFG conference, the main papers were 30 minutes + 15 for
discussion.  There were fairly long coffee breaks (45 min) and a longish
lunch (1hr 30).  The most recent HPSG conference had main papers that were
30 minutes + 10 for discussion.  The HPSG lunch was provided, which made it
possible to have a shorter lunch period.

b.) Since no one would like to see significantly fewer HPSG or LFG papers
accepted, we will need to trust the program committee to experiment with
the times for papers, breaks, and meals.  We want to balance accepting as
many as possible without making the experience too exhausting.

c.) HPSG and LFG have different practices for abstracts.  LFG abstracts are
up to 2 pages long; HPSG abstracts are up to 5 pages long (2 pages for
posters).  If authors are submitting to a single conference, it seems that
we would want to make this consistent. Perhaps we could expand the maximum
length of an LFG abstract?

d.) We would probably want joint proceedings, and we would have to ask
Miriam, Tracy, and Stefan if they would be willing to undertake this.
Currently both proceedings are published by CSLI and the specifications are
very similar.  We would have to agree on the length of conference papers
and what the reviewing standards are for proceedings papers.

4.) So far as I can see, there is no obstacle to having the joint
conference in July 2016.  Since July is the usual month for LFG
conferences, I think this should be fine for us.

At this point, let me open up the discussion and ask how ILFGA members feel
about this issue?  What are your suggestions/concerns/comments?

I will act as ILFGA's representative in the discussions and try to convey
your opinions to my counterparts in the HPSG community.

Thanks,
Aaron Broadwell
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George Aaron Broadwell,  gbroadwell at albany.edu
Dept. of Anthropology, UAlbany, Albany NY 12222
(518)-442-4711   Web page: http://www.albany.edu/anthro/broadwell.php
Copala Triqui dictionary: http://copalatriqui.webonary.org/
San Dionisio Zapotec http://sandionisiozapotec.webonary.org
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