Subject: ws - - discourse relations - - coling / acl , august , montreal

call for papers coling / acl 98 workshop discourse relations and discourse markers august 15 , 1998 universite de montreal montreal / canada the notion of discourse relation has received many interpretations , some of which are hardly compatible with one another . nonetheless , there is a consensus among researchers that intersegment relations hold between adjacent portions of a text and that these relations may be signalled by linguistic means , including so-called cue phrases , aspect and mood shifts , theme inversions , and other markers . the workshop intends to bring together researchers working on discourse relations and discourse markers in different linguistic traditions and different nlp applications . the particular focus of the workshop is the issue of discourse relations from the viewpoint of linguistic realization . specifically , contributions should address one or more of the following questions : * what are sound methodologies for comparing similar discourse markers ( contrastive studies , distribution analyses , etc . ) ? * what are sound methodologies for relating discourse relations with potential realizations ? * are there discourse relations that are * always * lexically signalled ? are there any that are * never * lexically signalled ? * what non-lexical ( i . e . , syntactic or prosodic ) means are used to signal a relation ? * in production , how does one decide whether to signal a relation at all ? * in production , how does one motivate a choice among candidate signals for a given relation ? * in production , how does the choice of signal interact with other decisions ( in particular , those of linearizing some tree or graph structure ) ? * in analysis , is it possible to reliably infer discourse relations from surface cues ? * in analysis , how can one disambiguate polysemous signals such as " and " , " since " ( temporal or causal ) etc . ? * what are useful lexical representations of discourse markers , for both analysis and production ? * what are useful representations of discourse relations ( and the entities they relate ) , such that they facilitate the realization decision ? what features would one like to have handy in a representation so that choices can be made easily ? * are there significant differences between realizations in spoken and written language ? * how do individual languages differ in terms of any of the above issues ? organizing committee the workshop is organized by manfred stede ( technical university , berlin ) leo wanner ( university of stuttgart ) eduard hovy ( isi / usc , marina del rey ) this call for papers as well as future information on the workshop can be found at http : / / www . cs . tu-berlin . de / ~ marker / aclcolingws . html requirements for submission papers are invited that address any of the topics listed above . maximum length is 8 pages including figures and references . please use a4 or us letter format and set margins so that the text lies within a rectangle of 6 . 5 x 9 inches ( 16 . 5 x 23 cm ) . use classical fonts such as times roman or computer modern , 11 to 12 points for text , 14 to 16 points for headings and title . latex users are encouraged to use the style file provided by acl : http : / / coling-acl 98 . iro . umontreal . ca / colaclsub . sty . papers can be submitted either electronically in postscript format , or as hardcopies . submission from north america should be sent to : eduard hovy information sciences institute 4676 admiralty way marina del rey , ca 90292-6695 u . s . a . hovy @ isi . edu submissions from elsewhere should be sent to either of the following : manfred stede leo wanner tu berlin computer science department kit project group intelligent systems sekr . fr 6-10 university of stuttgart franklinstr . 28 / 29 breitwiesenstr . 20-22 d-10587 berlin d-70565 stuttgart germany germany stede @ cs . tu-berlin . de wannerlo @ informatik . uni-stuttgart . de timetable deadline for electronic submissions : april 7 , 1998 deadline for hardcopy submissions : april 10 ( arrival date ) notification of acceptance : may 1 , 1998 final manuscripts due : june 12 , 1998 program committee o sandra carberry ( u delaware ) o barbara dieugenio ( u pittsburgh ) o eduard hovy ( usc / isi ) o alistair knott ( u edinburgh ) o alex lascarides ( u edinburgh ) o owen rambow ( cogentex inc . ) o ted sanders ( u utrecht ) o donia scott ( u brighton ) o wilbert spooren ( u tilburg ) o manfred stede ( tu berlin ) o keith vander linden ( calvin college ) o marilyn walker ( att laboratories ) o leo wanner ( u stuttgart ) - - - - - - - - - - - - - - - - - - - - - - - - - - - - - - - - - - - - - - - - - - - - - - - - - - - - - - - - - - - - - - - - - - - - - - - - - - - eduard hovy email : hovy @ isi . edu usc information sciences institute tel : 310-822 - 1511 ext 731 4676 admiralty way fax : 310-823 - 6714 marina del rey , ca 90292-6695 project homepage : http : / / www . isi . edu / natural-language / nlp-at - isi . html
