7.0242 Robustness Conference (1/252)
Elaine Brennan (EDITORS@BROWNVM.BITNET)
Mon, 18 Oct 1993 10:00:06 EDT
Humanist Discussion Group, Vol. 7, No. 0242. Monday, 18 Oct 1993.
Date: Thu, 14 Oct 1993 15:21:19 +0100
From: Onderzoeks Instituut Taal en Spraak <ots@let.ruu.nl>
Subject: Robustness Conference
THE ROBUSTNESS OF THE LANGUAGE FACULTY:
COPING WITH INCOMPLETE INFORMATION
Organized by the Research Institute for Language and Speech (OTS)
on the occasion of its 5th anniversary
28-30 October 1993
Theme Description
The human language faculty shows a remarkable robustness with respect
to incomplete information. Many possible features are not realized in the
signal of a normal linguistic utterance; and on the meaning side too, the
interpretation is highly underdetermined by the expression itself. Yet, in
the normal case, understanding is not in any way hampered by this. It
may well be that the availability of knowledge from other cognitive
domains contributes to the overall success, or perhaps this robustness is
caused by the modular structure of the linguistic system itself. Information
that disappears from one module would be compensated for via another
module. The central question of this conference will be how this
robustness of the language system can be explained, focusing in particular
on the role of non-linguistic information and higher order redundancy.
PROGRAMME
Wednesday, October 27 1993
(OTS Building, Trans 10)
18.00-21.00 Registration & drinks
Thursday, October 28 1993
(Academy Building, Domplein 29)
9.00-10.00 Registration
10.00 Opening Wiecher Zwanenburg
(Dean Faculty of Humanities, Utrecht)
10.15-11.30 Theme: Language Acquisition
Speaker: Ken Wexler (MIT)
Title: `Recent developments in the modular theory
of language acquisition: Parameter-setting
and the underspecification of tense'
Comments: Juergen Weissenborn (MPI, Nijmegen)
11.30-12.00 Coffee
12.00-13.15 Theme: Aphasia
Speaker: Greg Dogil (Stuttgart)
Title: `Coping with incomplete information in aphasia'
Comments: Leo Blomert (MPI, Nijmegen)
13.15-14.45 Break
14.45-16.00 Theme: Language Processing
Speaker: Michael Tanenhaus (Rochester)
Title: `Toward a constraint-based framework for
language processing'
Comments: Louis des Tombe & Steven Krauwer (Utrecht)
16.00-16.30 Tea
16.30-17.45 Theme: Sign Language
Speaker: David Perlmutter (San Diego/Rochester)
Title: `What happens when the language faculty
encounters a non-natural language?'
Comments: Ann Mills (Amsterdam)
18.00- Reception
Friday October 29 1993
(CSB Building, Kromme Nieuwegracht 29)
Theme: Partial information
9.30-10.15 Speaker: Ivan Sag (Stanford)
Title: `Toward a constraint-based framework for
knowledge of language'
10.15-11.00 Speaker: Ruth Kempson (SOAS, London)
Title: `How we understand sentences.
And fragments too?'
11.00-11.30 Coffee
11.30-12.15 Speaker: Henk Verkuyl (Utrecht)
Title: `The lazy ticket controller. or: How do
we manage to (under-)inform each other?'
12.15-12.45 Comments: Johan van Benthem (Amsterdam)
12.45-13.00 General Discussion
13.00-14.30 Break
Theme: Overdetermination and underspecification in phonology
14.30-15.15 Speaker: Paul Kiparsky (Stanford)
Title: `On the architecture of the phonological component'
15.15-16.00 Speaker: Rene Kager (Utrecht)
Title: `Generalized alignment and morphological
parsing'
16.00-16.30 Tea
16.30-17.15 Speaker: K.P. Mohanan (Singapore)
Title: `The formal interpretation of robustness:
Storage or processing?'
17.15-17.45 Comments: Stephen Anderson (Johns Hopkins)
17.45-18.00 General Discussion
Evening lecture
(Academy Building, Domplein 29)
20.00-21.00 Speaker: David Lightfoot (Maryland)
Title: `Small causes: Big effects'
21.00- Party (Kromme Nieuwegracht 80)
Saturday, October 30
(CSB Building, Kromme Nieuwegracht 39)
Theme: Phonetic Underspecification
9.30-10.15 Speaker: Bjorn Lindblom (Austin)
Title: `The H&H Hypothesis'
10.15-11.00 Speaker: Chris Darwin (Sussex)
Title: `Separating speech from other sounds'
11.00-11.30 Coffee
11.30-12.15 Speaker: Stephen Anderson (Johns Hopkins)
Title: to be announced
12.15-12.45 Reaction & Comments: Louis Pols (Amsterdam)
Title: `Vowels in context: Production and perception'
12.45-13.00 General Discussion
13.00-14.30 Break
Theme: Contextual vs Grammatical Conditions on Interpretation
14.30-15.15 Speaker: Tanya Reinhart (Tel Aviv/Utrecht)
Title: `Syntactic encoding of referential properties'
15.15-16.00 Speaker: Molly Diesing (Cornell)
Title: `NP types and conditions on interpretation'
16.00-16.30 Tea
16.30-17.15 Speaker: James Huang (Irvine)
Title: `Two types of donkey sentences'
17.15-17.45 Comments Denis Delfitto (Utrecht)
17.45-18.00 General Discussion
Organization
Peter Coopmans Research Institute for Language & Speech
Martin Everaert Utrecht University
Eric Reuland Trans 10, 3512 JK Utrecht
Wim Zonneveld tel:+31-30-536006, fax:+31-30-536000, e-mail:ots@let.ruu.nl
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Accommodation:
The organisation will not take care of hotel accommodation. Please
contact the VVV Tourist Information Office:
Utrecht VVV Tourist Information Office
address: VVV Utrecht
Vredenburg 90
Postbus 19107
3501 DC Utrecht
Holland
tel.: +31-6-34034085
fax: +31-30-331417
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Registration
Fee for registration:
Employed: Dfl 90
Unemployed/student: Dfl 60
Payment: All payments must be made in Dutch guilders.
****************************************************************************
- You can transfer the appropriate amount to our bank account:
Coopmans en/of Buenen, Inz.Congres
Account no 40.84.68.939
ABN-AMRO Bank
Postbus 362
3500 AJ Utrecht
Reference : OTS-Robustness registration fee
A copy of the bank transfer should be sent to us together with
your registration form. Make sure you add transfer charges.
- You can use MasterCard/Eurocard and VISA credit cards.
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Registration Form
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Send this form, with full payment, to:
Robustness Organizing Committee
OTS
Trans 10
NL-3512 JK Utrecht
The Netherlands.
Tel: +31-30-536006
Fax: +31-30-536000
Email: OTS@let.ruu.nl