International Conference

on

Linguistic Evidence

Original Call

International Conference

on

Linguistic Evidence.

Empirical, Theoretical, and Computational Perspectives

Tübingen, January 29 - 31, 2004

organized by the

Sonderforschungsbereich 441

"Linguistic Data Structures"

University of Tübingen Germany

/sfb441/ling.evidence

Aims and Scope:

The renaissance of corpus linguistics and promising developments in experimental linguistic techniques in recent years has led to a remarkable revival of interest in issues of the empirical base of linguistic theory in general, and the status of different kinds of linguistic evidence in particular. Consensus is growing (a) that even so-called primary data (from introspection as well as authentic language production) are inherently complex performance data only indirectly reflecting the subject of linguistic theory, (b) that for an appropriate foundation of linguistic theories evidence from different sources such as introspective data, corpus data, data from (psycho-)linguistic experiments, historical and diachronic data, typological data, neurolinguistic data and language learning data are not only welcome but also (often) necessary. It is in particular by contrasting evidence from different sources with respect to particular research questions that we may gain a deeper understanding of the status and quality of the individual types of linguistic evidence on the one hand, and of their mutual relationship and respective weight on the other.

It is the aim of this conference to bring together researchers from different areas of linguistics to discuss their views on the above issues and their use of different types of evidence in dealing with linguistic research questions of different generality, and thereby help establish a better understanding of the nature of linguistic evidence. We therefore invite original contributions from all fields of linguistics (including syntax, semantics, pragmatics, phonology, morphology, computational linguistics, psycholinguistics, neurolinguistics historical linguistics, typology) on any of the above issues concerning linguistic evidence. Preference will be given to papers addressing these issues in relation to specific linguistic research problems.

Invited speakers:

Harald Baayen (MPI Nijmegen),
Christiane Fellbaum (U Princeton/Ak.d. Wiss. Berlin),
Manfred Krifka (Humboldt-U Berlin),
Anthony Kroch (U Pennsylvania),
Carson Schuetze (UCLA).

Submissions:

We invite abstracts for 30+5 or 20+5 minute presentations, and also poster presentations (please indicate on your abstract). Anonymous abstracts should be 2 pages long plus an additional page for figures, references, data. The abstract should have a 1 inch margin on all sides, and should be written in at least 11 point font. Attach a separate card (in case of electronic submissions, a file) with the relevant personal information: title of abstract, author's name, affiliation, e-mail and postal address, telephone and fax number. Electronic submission is strongly encouraged. Only if that does not work, please send 3 hard copies by ordinary mail. Abstracts sent by fax will not be accepted. We accept plain ASCII, ps, or pdf.

Hard copy abstracts should be addressed to Stephan Kepser from the local organising committee, at the address given below. Please specify the key word "linguistic evidence" on the envelope. Abstracts submitted electronically should be sent to .

A paper accepted for presentation at the conference cannot be presented or have been presented at any other meeting with publicly available published proceedings. A pre-proceedings volume with extended abstracts (5 pages) will be available at the conference. Negotiations are under way to publish selected papers in a separate proceedings volume. There will be a conference fee.

Important Dates:

Deadline for receipt of abstracts: September 1, 2003

Notification of acceptance: November 8, 2003

Papers for proceedings: December 8, 2003

Conference: January 29 - 31, 2004

Programme Committee:

Harald Baayen (MPI Nijmegen),
Sam Featherston (U Tübingen),
Christiane Fellbaum (U Princeton/Ak.d. Wiss. Berlin),
Erhard Hinrichs (U Tübingen),
Mary Kato (U Campinas),
Stephan Kepser (U Tübingen, co-chair),
Peter Koch (U Tübingen),
Manfred Krifka (Humboldt-U Berlin),
Anthony Kroch (U Pennsylvania),
Ewald Lang (ZAS, Berlin),
Paola Merlo (U Geneva),
Karel Oliva (AIAI, Vienna),
Marga Reis (U Tübingen, co-chair),
Carson Schuetze (UCLA),
Arnim v. Stechow (U Tübingen).

Post-Conference Workshop:

"Information Structure and the Architecture of Grammar"
February 1 & 2, 2004.

Address of the local organizing committee:

Sonderforschungsbereich 441
Universität Tübingen
Nauklerstr. 35
72074 Tübingen
Germany
WWW: /sfb441/ling.evidence