Post-Coling workshop, Geneva
Enhancing and using electronic dictionaries
Michael Zock (Limsi, CNRS) & Patrick St. Dizier (Irit, CNRS)
Introduction
A dictionary is a vital component of any natural
language processing system. Its modern, digital
form has considerable potential, especially if it
is extended and built in a way compatible with
the needs and habits of the average language
user. There are many ways to make an electronic
dictionary useful for people in their daily tasks
of processing language. One could assist
1. reading and writing: adding a
transliterator and a morphological
generator/parser to a dictionary would put the
needed information at the distance of a mouse
click. Imagine someone trying to look up the
meaning (or translation) of a word in a script he
can=92t read.
2. language learning: combining dictionaries
with a parametrizable flashcard system and a
goal-driven exercice generator could help the
memorization and automation of words and basic
syntactic patterns. In such a system choosing a
goal would trigger syntactic templates, filling
the latter with words would yield (simple)
sentences.
3. lexical access (navigation): structuring
the dictionary in a similar way as the human
mind, i.e. building an associative network akin
to WordNet, but with many more links in
particular at the syntagmatic axis, could assist
the writer not only in finding new ideas
(brainstorming), but also the word he is looking
for. Within this framework, word access amounts
to entering and navigating in a huge, associative
network. To build such a tool one could extract
associations from an encyclopedia, label and add
them as links to a resource like WordNet.
As one can see, there are numerous ways to
enhance dictionaries. While the new hardware
offers many, sometimes surprising opportunities
for novel uses, seizing them requires some
rethinking. This is the goal of this one-day
workshop.
In particular, we=92d like to discuss interesting
extensions and enhancements of electronic
dictionaries. For example, one could consider
merging different, thesaurus-like dictionaries
and see what kind of conceptual and navigational
aids might be added to support the language user:
what are his needs, what information is he
looking for? Actually, a focus shift might be
necessary to move from the data (content and size
of the dictionary) to their organisation and
access. As, what is a huge dictionary good for,
if one cannot find the word one is looking for?
Target audience
The aim of this workshop is to bring together
leading researchers involved in the building of
electronic dictionaries to discuss modifications
of existing resources in line with the users=92
needs (i.e. how to capitalize on the advantages
of the digital form). Given the breadth of the
questions, we welcome reports on work from many
perspectives, including, but not limited, to
linguistics, computer science, psycholinguistics,
language learning, and ergonomics. We request
that each contribution addresses computational
aspects.
Topics
We would like to invite papers addressing any of the following issues :
type of information to be stored in the dictionary
representation and structuring (indexing) of the data;
management, visualization and useability of the data;
access (aids for navigation, interface, strategies);
acquisition of lexical data (corpus);
possibilities for editing entries (annotation, updating);
integration (combination of the dictionary with
other ressources, writer=92s workbench);
uses of dictionaries by people
(learning/teaching; writing) and by machines
(NLP).
Submission instructions
Papers should be original, hence report on
previously unpublished work. Papers
simultaneously submitted to other conferences
should reflect this fact on the title page.
As the review process will not be blind, papers
should contain the names and affiliations of
authors.
Submissions must be electronic only, and should
consist of full papers of max. 8 pages (inclusive
of references, tables, figures and equations).
Project notes and position papers should not
exceed 4 pages. Authors should follow the
COLING
2004 formating guidelines, available at:
http://www.is=
sco.unige.ch/coling2004/coling2004downloads.html.
All submissions should be made by email to the
following address
zock
limsi.fr. They should consist of a single PDF
file. Before submitting your document, please
verify that all non-standard fonts are correctly
embedded in your PDF file (you can do this by
disabling the "Use Local Font" option when
viewing your document with Adobe's Reader).
=46ormating requirements for the final version of
the papers will be posted as soon as they become
available.
Important dates
* Deadline for workshop paper submissions: 1st May 2004
* Notification of workshop paper acceptance: 1st June 2004
* Deadline for camera-ready workshop papers: 15th June 2004
* Workshop Date: 29th August 2004
Organising Committee:
* Michael Zock (Limsi-CNRS, Orsay, France) chair
* Patrick Saint Dizier (IRIT-CNRS, Toulouse, France)
Program Committee:
* Antonietta Alonge (University of Perugia, Italy)
* Christian Boitet (GETA, Grenoble, France)
* Nicoletta Calzolari (ILC-CNR, Pisa, Italy)
* Christiane Fellbaum (University of Princeton, USA)
* Graeme Hirst (University of Toronto, Canada)
* Mathieu Mangeot-Nagata (NII, Tokyo)
* Rada Mihalcea (University of North Texas, USA)
* Alain Polgu=E8re (OLST, University of Montreal, Canada)
* James Pustejovsky (University of Brandeis, USA)
* Gilles S=E9rasset (GETA, Grenoble, France)
* Patrick Saint Dizier (IRIT-CNRS, Toulouse, France)
* Takenobu Tokunaga (Tokyo Institute of Technology, Tokyo, Japan)
* Dan Tufis (RACAI, Bucharest, Roumania)
* Jean V=E9ronis (University of Aix en Provence, France)
* Piek Vossen (Irion Technologies, Delft, The Netherlands)
* Leo Wanner (University of Stuttgart, Germany)
* Michael Zock (Limsi-CNRS, France)
Contact
For any queries please contact Michael Zock:
zock
limsi.fr
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