Newsletter 1/2001
From SIGSEM
----------------------------------------------------------------------
SIGSEM Newsletter 1/2001
----------------------------------------------------------------------
ACL Special Interest Group in Computational Semantics (SIGSEM)
SIGSEM Webpage: http://www.sigsem.org
Current SIGSEM Membership: 435
----------------------------------------------------------------------
CONTENTS
1. Editorial
2. IWCS-4
3. SIGSEM Business Meeting
4. ICoS-3
5. SIGSEM Endorsements for ESSLLI-XIII, Helsinki
6. Next Newsletter
----------------------------------------------------------------------
1. EDITORIAL
This is the very first SIGSEM newsletter. Over the course of the year
2000, the basic SIGSEM framework was put in place --- the website was
created, and a successful membership drive held --- and with the
dawning of a new year it seems time to push on to new things.
For a formal statement of SIGSEM objectives, see the SIGSEM website,
and in particular the SIGSEM constitution. But the goals of SIGSEM can
be stated more simply: it is basically intended to act as a `glue',
helping to draw the computational semantics community together.
In certain respects, this is an ambitious undertaking. In spite of the
its centrality, semantics has traditionally been eclipsed in the
linguistic community by syntax and phonology. Moreover, formal
investigations of natural language semantics have typically ignored
the computational dimension (an honorable exception being the work of
the AI community, stretching back to Terry Winograd's pioneering work
in the 1970s).
But there are signs that computational semantics is coming of age.
The success of the IWCS workshop series since 1994 has shown that
there is an active research community that feels `computational
semantics' best describes what it does. The more recent ICoS series
has shown there is an emerging subcommunity devoted to investigating
the role inference plays in computational semantics. Moreover, there
are signs of a generational shift --- a new group of researchers, with
diverse backgrounds and interests, are bringing new ideas to bear on
traditional problems. Finally, the level of SIGSEM membership itself
is testimony to the interest of the field: by 31 December 2000, 435
had signed up as SIGSEM members.
We hope that this newsletter --- along with the SIGSEM webpage, and
other SIGSEM activities --- will help bring focus and direction to an
exciting field. There is a lot going on in computational semantics
nowadays, perhaps more than you might expect. We hope that SIGSEM will
help you to find it.
----------------------------------------------------------------------
2. IWCS-4
The 4th International Workshop in Computational Semantics (IWCS-4),
hosted by the Computational Linguistics and Artificial Intelligence
Group at Tilburg University, is almost upon us --- it will be held in
Tilburg, the Netherlands, from 10-12 January 2001.
The IWCS is the leading workshop in computational semantics; indeed,
for several years it was the only workshop solely devoted to the
topic. First held in 1994, and thereafter in 1997 and 1999 (always in
Tilburg), the IWCS has now become established as a regular event for
computational semanticists.
The IWCS-4 program consists of 3 invited talks (by James Allen, Jan
van Eijck and Alex Lascarides), 22 submitted talks, and a number of
shorter presentations.
The IWCS-4 website is at http://pi0239.kub.nl/~sigsem/iwcs4.html. You
can also access this site, and the sites of the last two IWCSs,
directly from the SIGSEM homepage, http://www.sigsem.org.
----------------------------------------------------------------------
3. SIGSEM BUSINESS MEETING
A SIGSEM business meeting will be held during IWCS-4 in Tilburg.
Strategically scheduled to take place from 16.45 - 17.45, on 11
January 2001 --- that is, right before the IWCS-4 dinner! --- this
meeting offers you a chance to discuss SIGSEM and express your views
on the way it should evolve. All SIGSEM members are welcome to
attend.
----------------------------------------------------------------------
4. ICOS-3
The Inference in Computational Semantics Workshop (ICoS) workshop
series is relatively new. First held as one day event in Amsterdam on
15 August 1999, it was followed up by a two day workshop in Schloss
Dagstuhl, Germany, on 29-30 July 2000. Both meetings had a genuine
workshop atmosphere, with focussed discussion and debate. Both events
were highly rated by participants.
ICoS-3 will be held as a satellite event of IJCAR 2001, the
International Joint Conference on Automated Reasoning, which takes
place from 18-23 June 2001, in Siena, Italy. IJCAR 2001 is a large
one-time-only event made up by bringing together three main automated
reasoning conferences: CADE, FTP, and TABLEAUX. Thus ICoS-3 offers a
unique opportunity to meet a substantial part of the automated
reasoning community, and to see a wide range of state of the art
reasoning tools and what they can offer computational semantics.
As well as invited and contributed talks, ICoS-3 will be offering two
tutorials:
Automated Reasoning for Computational Semanticists
Ulrich Furbach
Computational Semantics for Automated Reasoners
Claire Gardent
The deadline for submissions to ICoS-3 is March 15, 2001. You can
find more information on the ICoS-3 homepage at
http://www.cs.cmu.edu/~kohlhase/event/icos3/. This page, and the
pages of previous ICoS meetings, can also be accessed directly from
the SIGSEM homepage, http://www.sigsem.org.
----------------------------------------------------------------------
5. SIGSEM ENDORSEMENTS FOR ESSLLI-XIII, HELSINKI
Probably most readers of this newsletter know about ESSLLI, the
European Summer Schools in Logic Language and Information. The first
was held in Groningen in 1989, and since then they've been held every
year in European cities ranging from Birmingham to Prague, Copenhagen
to Lisbon.
ESSLLIs are two week summer schools, traditionally held in August, and
offer a two week program of introductory lectures, advanced lectures,
workshops, student sessions, and invited lectures. Their programs
cover the full range of the Logic Language and Information spectrum: a
typical ESSLLI program is likely to offer courses and workshops on
topics ranging from lexical functional grammar and computational
phonology to constraint programming and model theory. Sometimes
attracting more than 500 participants, they have become one of
Europe's most lively multidisciplinary events.
ESSLLI-XIII, the latest in the series, will be held on 13-24 August
2001 in Helsinki, Finland. This year's program looks exceptionally
strong --- moreover, there is a wide range of courses and workshops
that should be of interest to SIGSEM members. Of these, SIGSEM has
selected the following for endorsement:
An Introduction to Computational Semantics
Patrick Blackburn and Johan Bos
The Information State Approach to Dialogue Management: Theory
and Implementation
Robin Cooper and David Traum
Information Structure, Discourse Structure and Discourse Semantics
Ivana Kruijff-Korbayova and Mark Steedman
Semantic Knowledge Acquisition and Categorisation
Alessandro Lenci, Simonetta Montemagni, Vito Pirrelli
You can find pointers to (three of these) course/workshop descriptions
on the SIGSEM webpages (click on EVENTS). More pointers and
information will be added to the SIGSEM webpage as they become
available.
Many of the other Helsinki courses are likely to be of interest to
SIGSEM members too --- you can check out the preliminary program at
http://www.helsinki.fi/esslli/.
----------------------------------------------------------------------
6. NEXT NEWSLETTER
The next SIGSEM newsletter will carry short reports on IWCS-4 and the
SIGSEM business meeting. It will be emailed in 4 months time (that is,
late April/early May 2001).
The SIGSEM newsletter is sent only to SIGSEM members, and by default
it is sent to all members. If you don't want to receive it again,
please send an email saying so to:
info@sigsem.org
We anticipate sending out the newsletter 3 times a year, at 4 month
intervals.
----------------------------------------------------------------------
SIGSEM Newsletter 1/2001 was edited by:
Patrick Blackburn, INRIA Lorraine.
(patrick@aplog.org, http://www.aplog.org)
----------------------------------------------------------------------
>> back to Newsletters
