Call for papers Coling-ACL '98 workshop "Discourse Relations and Discourse Markers" August 15, 1998 Université de Montréal Montréal/Canada (See also: http://flp.cs.tu-berlin.de/~marker/aclcolingws.html) The notion of discourse relation has received many different 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: o What are sound methodologies for comparing similar discourse markers (contrastive studies, distribution analyses, etc.)? o What are sound methodologies for relating discourse relations with potential realizations? o Are there discourse relations that are always lexically signalled? Are there any that are never lexically signalled? o What non-lexical (i.e., syntactic or prosodic) means are used to signal a relation? o In production, how does one decide whether to signal a relation at all? o In production, how does one motivate a choice among candidate signals for a given relation? o In production, how does the choice of signal interact with other decisions (in particular, those of linearizing some tree or graph structure)? o In analysis, is it possible to reliably infer discourse relations from surface cues? o In analysis, how can one disambiguate polysemous signals such as "and", "since" (temporal or causal) etc.? o What are useful lexical representations of discourse markers, for both analysis and production? o 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? o Are there significant differences between realizations in spoken and written language? o How do individual languages differ in terms of any of the above issues? Organizing committee The workshop is organized by Manfred Stede (TU Berlin) Leo Wanner (University of Stuttgart) Eduard Hovy (ISI/USC, Marina del Rey) 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-acl98.iro.umontreal.ca/colaclsub.sty Papers can be submitted either electronically in PostScript format, or as hardcopies. Submissions 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 Group 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: March 10, 1998 Deadline for hardcopy submissions: March 13 (arrival date) Notification of acceptance: May 1, 1998 Final manuscripts due: June 12, 1998 Program committee Sandra Carberry (U Delaware) Barbara DiEugenio (U Pittsburgh) Eduard Hovy (USC/ISI) Alistair Knott (U Edinburgh) Alex Lascarides (U Edinburgh) Owen Rambow (Cogentex Inc.) Ted Sanders (U Utrecht) Donia Scott (U Brighton) Wilbert Spooren (U Tilburg) Manfred Stede (TU Berlin) Keith Vander Linden (Calvin College) Marilyn Walker (ATT Labs) Leo Wanner (U Stuttgart)