-- Claudia Sassen Universitaet Dortmund Emil-Figge-Strasse 50 IDSuL D-44227 Dortmund http://129.70.104.40/~csassen/ http://www.hrz.uni-dortmund.de/~hytex/storrer/cs/
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Workshop on Constraints in Discourse 3-5 June, 2005 Dortmund, Germany http://www.constraints-in-discourse.de
For a long time, the development of precise frameworks of discourse interpretation has been hampered by the lack of a deeper understanding of the dependencies between different discourse units. The recent 15 years have seen a considerable advance in this field. A number of strong constraints have been proposed that restrict the sequencing and attaching of segments at various descriptive levels, as well as the interpretation of their interrelations. Early, and very influential, work on the sequencing and ordering of discourse segments has been done by Grosz & Sidner (1986). One of the best-known of the constraints on sequencing and accessibility of expressions across sentence boundaries is the RFC (Right Frontier Constraint), often associated with a paper of Polanyi (1988). Other relevant constraints are, e.g. the CSC (Coordinate Structure Constraint, Ross 1967) or the recently expressed MDC (Maximal Discourse Coherence, Asher & Lascarides 2003) principle.
The goal of this workshop is to provide a forum for presenting recent research on constraints in discourse. The target areas include the recognition of discourse structure as well as the interpretation and generation of discourse in a broad variety of domains. The workshop offers a forum for researchers from diverse formal approaches, including but not limited to: - Rhetorical Structure Theory (RST) - Segmented Discourse Representation Theory (SDRT) - Tree Adjoining Grammars - The QUD Modell - Plan Based Reasoning - Abductive Reasoning - Gricean Pragmatics - Speech Act Theory
We invite talks that further our theoretical understanding of the role of constraints in discourse, as well as empirical studies that shed light on their empirical validity. The conference is explicitly intended for discussion and comparison of theoretical accounts that lay the ground for applications. It is not intended as a platform for system demonstrations. Specific topics might relate to - Anaphora Resolution - Co-reference - Dialogical vs. Monological Discourse - Questions and Answers - Lexicon and Discourse Relations - Cognitive Modeling - Underspecification and Nonmonotonic Inferences etc.
The organisers are planning to publish a selection of the results of the workshop either as a special issue of a journal or as a book.
Publication (and workshop) language is English
The workshop is endorsed by SIGdial, the Special Interest Group on Discourse and Dialogue, and SIGsem, the Special Interest Group on Semantics, of ACL.
Invited Speakers ================ Nicholas Asher, Univ. of Texas (Austin), USA Claire Gardent, LORIA/CNRS, France Barbara Grosz, Harvard Univ., USA Livia Polanyi, Palo Alto Research Center, USA David Schlangen, Univ. Potsdam, Germany
Paper Submission ================
Researchers interested in contributing a paper to the workshop are invited to submit an abstract that spans not more than 3 pages in PDF or PS (single column, 10pt font size, a4 paper, including a bibliography) using the form at the workshop website (http://www.constraints-in-discourse.de). Reviews will be done blindly; the abstracts may accordingly not include explicit hints that allow the identification of the authors (such as "in paper (...) we show that").
Important Dates =============== Conf: 3-5 June, 2005 Deadline for Submissions: 1 March, 2005 Notification of Acceptance: 1 April, 2005 Final Abstracts due: 15 May, 2005
Program Committee =================
Nicholas Asher, Univ. of Texas (Austin) Anton Benz, Univ. of Southern Denmark, Kolding Kurt Eberle, Linguatec ES, Germany Claire Gardent, LORIA/CNRS, France Barbara Grosz, Harvard Univ., USA Anke Holler, Ruprecht-Karls-Univ., Germany Peter Kuehnlein, Univ. Bielefeld, Germany Livia Polanyi, Palo Alto Research Center Claudia Sassen, Univ. Dortmund, Germany David Schlangen, Univ. Potsdam, Germany
Organisation ============
Organisation Committee: Anton Benz, Univ. of Southern Denmark, Kolding Peter Kuehnlein, Univ. Bielefeld, Germany Claudia Sassen, Univ. Dortmund, Germany
Local Organisation: Claudia Sassen (claudia.sassen@uni-dortmund.de)
Coordinates =========== The workshop will take place from 3-5 June, 2005. It will be hosted by the University of Dortmund, Germany. Dortmund is situated in the Eastern region of the Ruhrgebiet and can easily be reached via car, airplane or train.
Fees ==== We thank the Deutsche Forschungsgemeinschaft (DFG = German NSF) for the funding.
Their support allows us to keep the fees generally low. The fees are
People from countries with weak economy: free Students, including PhD students: EUR 20 Other participants from Academia: EUR 40 Participants from commercial enterprises: EUR 160
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