26.792, Calls: Psycholinguistics, Semantics/Spain

Fri Feb 6 23:11:59 UTC 2015

LINGUIST List: Vol-26-792. Fri Feb 06 2015. ISSN: 1069 - 4875.

Subject: 26.792, Calls: Psycholinguistics, Semantics/Spain

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Date: Fri, 06 Feb 2015 18:11:43
From: Stephanie Solt [stephanie.solt at gmail.com]
Subject: Experimental Approaches to Semantics (ESSLLI 2015 Workshop)

Full Title: Experimental Approaches to Semantics (ESSLLI 2015 Workshop) 
Short Title: ExAS 

Date: 03-Aug-2015 - 07-Aug-2015
Location: Barcelona, Spain 
Contact Person: Stephanie Solt
Meeting Email: experimental.semantics.workshop at gmail.com
Web Site: http://ling.rochester.edu/sgrimm/experimental-semantics-ESSLLI-2015.html 

Linguistic Field(s): Psycholinguistics; Semantics 

Call Deadline: 01-Mar-2015 

Meeting Description:

The past decade has seen the increasing use of experimental approaches to the study of meaning, motivated both by a desire to confirm and augment intuition-based data and by the growing availability of accessible experimental modalities such as Amazon Mechanical Turk. Experimental Pragmatics in particular has become a well-established sub-discipline in formal linguistics, as reflected in a foundational collected volume (Novek & Sperber 2006), a biannual conference series XPRAG, a recently concluded European networking program EURO-XPRAG, and a new German Priority Program XPRAG.de.  

Experimental methods have also been applied to questions of a semantic rather than pragmatic nature, and have made significant contributions in a number of domains, including quantification (Bott & Rado 2007; Hackl 2009; Pietroski et al. 2009), number words and modified numerals (Musolino 2004; Geurts et al. 2010), gradability and vagueness  (Frazier et al. 2008; Syrett et al. 2010; Alxatib & Pelletier 2011; Ripley 2011; McNabb 2012; Sassoon 2012; Solt & Gotzner 2012), plurality (Sauerland et al. 2005; Pearson et al. 2010; Grimm 2013) and polarity sensitivity (Chemla et al. 2011).

Nonetheless, Experimental Semantics has been slower to establish itself as a specialization in its own right. To some extent this is due to the challenges inherent to research on semantic meaning, including difficulties in representing meanings non-linguistically, in eliciting the necessary subtle judgments from naïve subjects, and in particular in distinguishing underlying semantic content (literal meaning) from the results of pragmatic inferencing.  Not the least, however, is the lack of a dedicated forum where findings can be highlighted and where scholars with diverse theoretical interests can share learning relating particularly to the role of experimentation in formal semantics.

The goal of ExAS is to provide a platform for the presentation of theoretically relevant experimental research in formal semantics, as well as for the discussion of the benefits and challenges in conducting experiments into semantic questions.  

ExAS will take place as part of the 27th European Summer School in Logic, Language and Information (ESSLLI 2015).

Invited Speakers:

Greg Carlson (University of Rochester)
Britta Stolterfoht (University of Tübingen)

Workshop Organizers:

Scott Grimm (University of Rochester)
Stephanie Solt (ZAS Berlin)

Contact email: experimental.semantics.workshop at gmail.com 

Local Arrangements:

All workshop participants, including speakers, will be required to register for ESSLLI.

2nd Call for Papers:

We invite submissions for 30-minute talks on any topic relating to the general theme of Experimental Semantics, including but not limited to:

- Experimental tests of the predictions of formal semantic theories
- Investigations aimed at resolving disputed linguistic judgments
- Psycholinguistic research (processing, acquisition) whose results have a bearing on semantic theory
- New experimental methodologies for research in semantics

We particularly welcome contributions that address the challenges involved in designing and interpreting experimental studies into semantic questions, and/or the limitations of such approaches.

As there are multiple other forums dedicated to Experimental Pragmatics, submissions addressing topics entirely on the pragmatics side of the semantics/pragmatics interface will be given less priority. 

Submissions are to be a maximum of 2 pages long (single spaced, 11pt or larger, 1-inch margin on A4 or letter size paper), and must be anonymous. Abstracts should be submitted by March 1, 2015 as pdf files through the EasyChair conference system:

https://easychair.org/conferences/?conf=exas2015

Abstracts will be reviewed by members of the program committee.

Program Committee:

Sam Alxatib
Greg Carlson
Judith Degen
Scott Grimm
Michael Franke
Dan Lassiter
Galit Sassoon
Stephanie Solt
Britta Stolterfoht
Kristen Syrett

Important Dates:

Submission Deadline: 1 March 2015
Notice of Acceptance: 15 April 2015
Extended Abstracts for Proceedings: 15 May 2015
Workshop: 3-7 August 2015

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