2nd CfP: Workshop on comparing approaches to measuring linguistic differences

[Doug Cooper]

Subject: 2nd CfP: Workshop on comparing approaches to measuring linguistic 
differences
Date: Sat, 02 Apr 2011 09:26:35 +0200
From: Lars Borin <lars.borin at svenska.gu.se>
Important Dates:
	- 15 April 2011: Submission deadline
	- 15 May 2011: Acceptance notification
	- 24-25 October 2011: Workshop
http://spraakbanken.gu.se/eng/workshop2011

Since the introduction of lexicostatistics in the 1950s, researchers
have been investigating methods for the grouping of languages and
dialects. The input for these methods are relevant abstractions of
linguistic data (most often based on fixed lists of senses, e.g., the
Swadesh lists).

The abstractions are traditionally character-based (as in work by
Swadesh, Dyen, Ringe, Warnow, Gray and many others), which can be said
to define distances on the level of languages. In these approaches, a
particular item either is or is not present in a language.

More recently, drawing on advances in computer software and hardware,
methods aiming at measuring and aggregating distances among individual
linguistic items have been explored (as in work by Kessler, Wichmann,
Nerbonne, Kondrak, McMahon and others). In these approaches, individual
items are (dis)similar to some quantifiable degree between two languages.

A number of such methods for measuring linguistic differences have been
proposed in the literature, but so far, researchers have mostly explored
individual methods. Some authors have made explicit comparisons among
some of the methods (e.g., Kessler, Kondrak, Nerbonne), but this aspect
is still largely unexplored.

There is also a need to contrast the more recent automatic methods with
a more traditional historical- comparative methodology (e.g. as recently
surveyed and critiqued by Campbell and Poser), which generally draws on
a broader range of linguistic phenomena than have so far been used with
the automatic approaches, including semantic and grammatical
characteristics.

This two-day workshop is intended as a forum to discuss these issues in
more depth.
Invited speakers

      * Michael Cysouw (Ludwig-Maximilians-Universität München)
      * Lars Johanson (Universität Mainz)
      * William McGregor (University of Aarhus)
      * John Nerbonne (University of Groningen)
      * Søren Wichmann (MPI Leipzig)
      * Roman Yangarber (University of Helsinki)

Second call for papers

We invite researchers working on these and related problems to submit
proposals for presentations at the workshop, including but not limited
to topics such as:

      * explicit comparison/evaluation of different methods using the
same data
      * what do the methods measure? -- linguistically informed
evaluation of automatic approaches to measuring linguistic differences
      * beyond lexicostatistics: quantification of grammatical and
semantic differences, in an automatic or non-automatic framework
      * methodological challenges for historical-comparative linguistics
      * quantitative aspects of traditional methods in historical linguistics
      * new data sources for measuring linguistic differences and their
methodological challenges
      * case studies on individual languages, language families or
linguistic areas

Abstracts should be one (A4 or letter) page long, with 25 mm/one inch
margins and the text in a 12 point Roman font. A second page may be
included for references and/or data. Abstracts -- in pdf format only --
should be sent to: <workshop2011(at)svenska(d)gu(d)se> (change the
parenthesized expressions into the appropriate characters).

Mouton have expressed their interest in publishing a volume based on a
selection of presentations at this workshop.
Venue

The workshop will take place in Gothenburg, in the Faculty of Arts
building at the University of Gothenburg.
Important dates

      * 15 April 2011: Submission deadline
      * 15 May 2011: Acceptance notification
      * 24-25 October 2011: Workshop

Registration

While there is no registration fee for the workshop, for planning
purposes registration is obligatory. This can be done by sending an
email to <workshop2011(at)svenska(d)gu(d)se> (change the parenthesized
expressions into the appropriate characters). The registration deadline
is 30th September, 2011.
Workshop organization

Organizing committee
Lars Borin (University of Gothenburg)
Anju Saxena (Uppsala University)
K. Taraka Rama (University of Gothenburg)

Program committee
Lars Borin (University of Gothenburg)
Bernard Comrie (MPI Leipzig/UC Santa Barbara)
Östen Dahl (Stockholm University)
Anju Saxena (Uppsala University)

The workshop is a joint arrangement by the project partners (University
of Gothenburg, Uppsala University and the Max Planck Institute for
Evolutionary Anthropology, Leipzig). The funding for this workshop is
provided by the Swedish Research Council's research projects and by the
The Royal Swedish Academy of Letters, History and Antiquities.

If you have any questions, feel free to contact us at:
<workshop2011(at)svenska(d)gu(d)se> (change the parenthesized
expressions into the appropriate characters).

-- 
Lars Borin
Språkbanken • Centre for Language Technology
Institutionen för svenska språket
Göteborgs universitet
Box 200
SE-405 30 Göteborg
Sweden

office +46 (0)31 786 4544
mobile +46 (0)70 747 8386

<http://språkbanken.gu.se/personal/lars/>

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