CALL FOR PAPERS Workshop on New Directions in Type-theoretic Grammars NDTTG 2007 http://let.uvt.nl/general/people/rmuskens/ndttg August 6 - 10, 2007 organized as part of the European Summer School on Logic, Language and Information ESSLLI 2007 www.cs.tcd.ie/esslli2007 6 - 17 August, 2007 in Dublin Workshop Organizer: Reinhard Muskens Workshop Purpose: In 1961 Haskell Curry published his by now famous paper on 'Some Logical Aspects of Grammatical Structure'. In this paper (large parts of which had already been written in the 1940's) he made a distinction between the 'tectogrammatics' and 'phenogrammatics' of language (a distinction similar to that between abstract syntax and concrete syntax in compiler theory), while also arguing against directionality in the type system used for language description. In 1953 Bar-Hillel had introduced a distinction between categories seeking material to their right and categories seeking material to the left. To date most categorial grammarians follow Bar-Hillel in this, but in Curry's architecture phenogrammatical structure can take care of word order, making directionality unnecessary. Curry's proposal was part of a classical phase in categorial grammar that started with Ajdukiewicz's paper on syntactic connexity and also included Joachim Lambek's pivotal work on the introduction of hypothetical reasoning. It led to many follow-ups. For example, in Richard Montague's work the tectogrammatics/phenogrammatics distinction reappeared as one between analysis trees and surface strings, while Montague also added a level of meaning as a third component. The grammatical architecture thus became one in which a central abstract component is interpreted on two levels. An explicit connection between Montague's set-up and that of Curry was given in David Dowty's work in the 1980's. Also in the 1980's, Aarne Ranta used the idea in a constructive type theory setting, while Reinhard Muskens used it for his Partial Montague Grammar and Johan van Benthem explored the logical and linguistic implications of LP*, the undirected version of the Lambek Calculus, or, in other words, the logic of simply typed linear lambda terms. Later years brought Richard Oehrle's insight that the interpreting levels of the theory (not only semantics but also phenogrammar) can be represented with the help of lambda terms. Since the central abstract component consists of LP* derivations in Oehrle's set-up, equivalent with linear lambda terms, in fact all levels of the grammar can now be represented with the help of lambda terms and the typed lambda calculus becomes the central mechanism for grammatical description (as it had been in Cresswell's lambda-categorial languages). Since the turn of the century there has been a heightened activity within a series of type-theoretical formalisms bearing a family resemblance to one another. All of these adopt the pheno/tecto distinction or undirectedness in one way or another and claim various descriptive and formal advantages. We mention Abstract Categorial Grammars (de Groote), De Saussure Grammar (Kracht), Minimalist Categorial Grammars (Lecomte, Retore), Lambda Grammars (Muskens), Higher Order Grammar (Pollard), and the Grammatical Framework (Ranta). The workshop intends to bring together researchers in this now very active field. It aims to provide a forum for advanced PhD students and researchers, enabling them to present their work and to discuss it with colleagues who work in the broad subject areas represented at ESSLLI. Workshop Topics: We solicit contributions on all aspects of undirected type-theoretic grammars, including their parsability, their learnability, their psycholinguistic adequacy, and various applications in syntax and semantics. We are also interested in practical issues relating to natural language processing and more theoretical issues such as the abstract/concrete syntax distinction in linguistics and computer science, the relation to compiling theory and the relation of undirected type-theoretic grammars to other linguistic formalisms. Particularly welcome are also contributions discussing the minimal requirements the approach imposes on the type theory that is used. Submission Details: Authors are invited to submit an extended abstract describing original work. The extended abstract should not exceed two pages and should be in the PDF format. Since reviewing will be anonymous, please make sure that your abstract does not contain author's names or references from which author identities can easily be deduced. Please upload your submission at the EasyChair website of the workshop, www.easychair.org/NDTTG2007/, by the deadline listed below. Submissions will be reviewed by the workshop's programme committee and additional reviewers. The accepted papers, which can be worked out to a maximum of 4000 words, will appear in the workshop proceedings published by ESSLLI. Workshop format: The workshop is part of ESSLLI and is open to all ESSLLI participants. It will consist of five 90-minute sessions held over five consecutive days in the first week of ESSLLI. There will be 2 slots for paper presentation and discussion per session. On the first day the workshop organizer will give an introduction to the topic. Invited Speakers: t.b.a. Workshop Programme Committee: Johan van Benthem Nissim Francez Philippe de Groote Makoto Kanazawa Marcus Kracht Alain Lecomte Glyn Morrill Richard Oehrle Carl Pollard Aarne Ranta Christian Retore Yoad Winter Important Dates: Submission deadline: 8 March, 2007 Notification: 21 April, 2007 Preliminary programme: 24 April, 2007 ESSLLI early registration: 1 May, 2007 Final papers due: 17 May, 2007 Final programme: 21 June, 2007 Workshop dates: 6-17 August, 2007 Local Arrangements: All workshop participants including the presenters will be required to register for ESSLLI. The registration fee for authors presenting a paper will correspond to the early student/workshop speaker registration fee. Moreover, a number of additional fee waiver grants will be made available by the ESSLLI organizing committee on a competitive basis and workshop participants are eligible to apply for those. There will be no reimbursement for travel costs and accomodation. Workshop speakers who have difficulty in finding funding should contact the local organizing committee to ask for the possibilities of a grant. Further information: About the workshop: http://let.uvt.nl/general/people/rmuskens/ndttg About ESSLLI: www.cs.tcd.ie/esslli2007