Subject: usage - based models - symposium

announcing the sixth biennial symposium of the rice university department of linguistics usage-based models of language rice university march 15-18 , 1995 invited speakers : mira ariel tel aviv university joan bybee university of new mexico john du bois university of california , santa barbara michael israel university of california , san diego sydney lamb rice university ronald langacker university of california , san diego tom givon university of oregon brian macwhinney carnegie - mellon university janet pierrehumbert northwestern university john sinclair university of birmingham ( u . k . ) arie verhagen university of utrecht description : the goal of this symposium is to explore approaches to linguistic theory that have in common the aim of accounting for linguistic usage . the empirical data for such theories is not restricted to linguistic intuitions about acceptibility , but comes from usage events of varied types . the focus is on the patterns found in the various sorts of usage data examined , and how those patterns can be extracted , represented , and used by the human mind . research from a variety of traditions will be represented , including corpus-based analyses , discourse studies , experimental studies of language processing and language acquisition , and instrumental phonetics . the approaches taken can be called data-driven , rather than model-driven , in that the fewest possible prior assumptions are made about what types of data are relevant , and that large sets of usage events are observed so that the detailed patterns found in actual usage can emerge . moreover , the various approaches taken show signs of converging toward a view of language as a dynamic system in which linguistic knowledge is not separate from its processing in language use . the linguistic models representing this view are usage-based by virtue of three factors : ( 1 ) the importance placed on usage data for theory construction ; ( 2 ) the direct incorporation of processing ( production and comprehension ) into linguistic theory ; and ( 3 ) the requirement that the models arrived at , whatever the direct source of evidence , must be testable with reference to language use . registration : no charge . symposium attendance on a space-available basis . for further information , contact suzanne kemmer ( kemmer @ ruf . rice . edu ) or michael barlow ( barlow @ ruf . rice . edu ) snailmail : dept . of linguistics , rice university , houston tx 77251-1892 .
