nl-kr-request@cs.rpi.edu (NL-KR Moderator Chris Welty) (06/05/89)
NL-KR Digest (Mon Jun 5 09:29:09 1989) Volume 6 No. 27 Today's Topics: New Welcome Message Conference on Dictionaries in the Electronic Age CSLI Calendar, June 1, 4:29 CSLI Calendar, May 25, 4:28 Submissions: nl-kr@cs.rpi.edu Requests, policy: nl-kr-request@cs.rpi.edu Back issues are available from host archive.cs.rpi.edu [128.213.1.10] in the files nl-kr/Vxx/Nyy (ie nl-kr/V01/N01 for V1#1), mail requests will not be promptly satisfied. If you can't reach `cs.rpi.edu' you may want to use `turing.cs.rpi.edu' instead. ----------------------------------------------------------------- To: nl-kr@cs.rpi.edu Date: Mon, 5 Jun 89 09:30:24 EDT >From: weltyc (Christopher A. Welty) Subject: New Welcome Message [This is an updated version of the `welcome' message that gets sent to all new subscribers. Since we had so many and since there were a few changes, I figured I send it to the whole list.] Welcome to the NL-KR mailing list, a digest form mailing list for discussion and announcements relating to the fields of Natural Language and Knowledge Representation. I am the moderator of this list, and therefore I am responsible for composing the digest from pending submissions, controlling the daily volume of mail, keeping an archive, and answering administrative requests. Expect NL-KR to be published weekly, at a minimum. You may submit material for the digest to nl-kr@cs.rpi.edu. Digests are sent to InterNET, BITNET, and to USENET readers as appropriate. (FYI: BITNET readers: your digest is being redistributed at by Anil Khullar, a PhD student at CUNY, who does a smashing job. If you are a BITNET subscriber, faster response to admin (add/delete) requests should go to nl_kr_bitnet@cunyvms1). Digests are also posted to the USENET News group comp.ai.nlang-know-rep. Administrative requests should be sent to nl-kr-request@cs.rpi.edu. Archival copies of all digests will be kept and are available via anonymous FTP from archive.cs.rpi.edu [128.213.1.10] in the files nl-kr/Vxx/Nnn, where xx is the Volume number and nn is the issue number (numbers start with 01 not 1, ie V01/N01); if you don't have FTP access, ask for back issues from nl-kr-request, but don't expect a quick answer. NL-KR is open to discussion of any topic related to natural language (both understanding and generation) and knowledge representation, both as subfields of AI. My own related interests are primarily in Knowledge Representation, Knowledge Engineering, Planning, KR applied to Software Engineering, and especially education. Contributions are also welcome on topics such as Cognitive Psychology (as related to NL/KR) Human Perception (same) Linguistics Machine Translation Computer and Information Science (as may be used to implement various NL systems) Logic Programming (same) Contributions may be anything from tutorials to speculation. In particular, the following are sought: Abstracts Reviews Lab Descriptions Research Overviews Work Planned or in Progress Half-Baked Ideas Conference Announcements Conference Reports Bibliographies History of NL/KR Puzzles and Unsolved Problems Anecdotes, Jokes, and Poems Queries and Requests Other NL/KR announcements This list is in some sense a spin-off of the AIList, and as such, a certain amount of overlap is expected. The primary concentration of this list should be NL and KR, that is, natural language (be it understanding, generation, recognition, parsing, semantics, pragmatics, etc.) and how we should represent knowledge (aquisition, access, completeness, etc. are all valid issues). Topics I deem to be outside the general scope of this list will be forwarded to AIList@AI.AI.MIT.EDU (or other more appropriate list, such as IRlist, addressed at fox%vtopus.cs.vt.edu which is on information retrieval) or rejected. I will certainly reject no article without informing the poster. NL-KR is a public information service provided to the Arpanet community and others though my own efforts, indirect support from my university, and the help of individuals and organizations at other sites. Readers are advised not to submit any material that is export controlled or classified. As moderator, I must assume that individuals have obtained all required clearances for their submissions to the list (and for the university bboard messages that NL-KR occasionally reprints). The export control laws are both broad and vague, but material that could be published in news magazines or publicly available scientific journals is probably safe. Scientific information "without engineering or military significance" is always permissible, but technical details of specific military or government-controlled systems should not be discussed in this forum. I have no objection to distributing material that is destined for conference proceedings or any other publication. You may want to send copies of your submissions to SIGART@ECLC.USC.EDU, ACL@CS.ROCHESTER.EDU (possibly WEISCHEDEL@G.BBN.COM depending on the type of submission, see the front cover of any recent issue of Computational Linguistics) or to the AI Magazine (currently Engelmore@SUMEX.STANFORD.EDU) for hardcopy publication. List items should be considered unrefereed working papers, and opinions to be those of the author and not of any organization. Copies of list items should credit the original author, not necessarily the NL-KR List. The list does not assume copyright, nor does it accept any liability arising from remailing of submitted material. As moderator of the list, however, I do bear some personal responsibility for anything that I broadcast. Please do not submit copyrighted material in any form that the copyright holder might object to, particularly newswire copy. I reserve the right to refuse to remail any contribution that I judge to be inappropriate. I and other readers frequently forward items from other digests and bboards. If you respond to the author of a message marked [Forwarded from ...], please be aware that he may not know that his posting has propagated beyond his local system. In general, permission should be sought for such repostings, but again, I cannot assume such responsibility for material sent to the list by someone else. I suggest that you "sign" submissions longer than a paragraph so that readers don't have to scroll backwards to see the FROM line. Editing of contributions will usually be limited to text justifications and spelling corrections; editorial remarks and elisions will be marked with square brackets. The author will be contacted if significant editing is required (normally only if some policy problem exists, as in the case of a lab description combined with a job posting). If you leave your current net address, please notify me or the person in charge of redistribution at your site. It is difficult for me to distinguish an abandoned address from ordinary mailer trouble, and tracing the source of mailer problems takes a fair amount of effort. Please contribute freely. I would rather deal with too much material than with too little. Replies to public requests for information should be sent, at least in "carbon" form, to this list unless the request states otherwise. When submitting, please try to make the subject line of any article you post informative. It is the subject line that appears in the table of contents section of the digest. Try not to post very large messages, in general I try to keep the size of the digest around 20K or less, and anything over 30K I won't post in full but will make available in the archives. If you have any suggestions, please let me know. If you like or dislike something, the feedback is very useful. There are over 500 addresses on my site, meaning approximately 600 readers not counting the immeasurable number who read the news group. -Chris ------------------------------ To: nl-kr@cs.rpi.edu Date: Thu, 1 Jun 89 23:36:13 EDT >From: walker@flash.bellcore.com (Donald E Walker) Subject: Conference on Dictionaries in the Electronic Age DICTIONARIES IN THE ELECTRONIC AGE Fifth Annual Conference of the University of Waterloo Centre for the New OED Jointly presented by Oxford University Press Oxford University Computing Service University of Waterloo St. Catherine's College, Oxford, England -- 18-19 September 1989 (For associated workshops on Dictionary Assessment and Criticism and on Developing Lexical Resources, see below.) "The complete Oxford English Dictionary ... likely to be very manageable indeed when compressed into the electronic microstructure of a chip." - Christopher Evans, "The Mighty Micro", 1979 Once it had become clear that computers could be used in the composition, analysis, and transmission of written texts, it was a natural step to try to yoke them together with dictionaries, the most complex of texts both to compile and to analyse. Pioneering early efforts were made during the 1950s and 1960s, when storage was limited and data entry was by punched card. The first dictionaries actually compiled in the form of a computer database appeared in the late 1970s. By this time professional analysts of language such as linguists and computer scientists had begun to realize that the dictionary was a ready-made mine of language. If it could be electronically analysed they would be freed from much of the labour of collecting or introspecting linguistic patterns. During the 1980s a fruitful symbiosis has grown up between lexicography, computing, and linguistics. Increasingly, dictionaries are designed as computer databases and compiled with the assistance of textual corpora. The lexicographer's desk has been reinterpreted as a multi- functional workstation. Linguists are exploiting the full resources of machine-readable dictionaries in order to build comprehensive models of linguistic data. Computer scientists are able to take over the information network built into the dictionary as a kind of ready-made expert system. In 1984 the "Oxford English Dictionary" became the first large dictionary to be converted from printed format into a machine-readable database. In March this year the second edition of the OED was published, the offspring of a successful marriage of lexicography and computer technology. To mark this achievement this Fifth Annual Conference is being held at Oxford rather than at Waterloo. The publication of the new edition of the OED, together with the development, at the University of Waterloo Centre for the New OED, of programs for the rapid searching of large textual databases like the OED, and the appearance of a CD-ROM version of the first edition of the OED, are pointers towards the fulfilment of Evans's prediction. CONFERENCE PROGRAMME Sunday, 17 September 2.00-6.00 p.m. Registration, Porter's Lodge 6.00 p.m. Registration and Reception, Junior Common Room 7.00 p.m. Dinner, Dining Hall Monday, 18 September 8.30 a.m. Registration SESSION I Developing Lexical Resources Donald E. Walker, Bellcore Editing the OED in the Electronic Age Edmund S.C. Weiner, Oxford University Press Demonstration: Lexicographical Workstations Nicoletta Calzolari and Eugenio Picchi, Istituto di Linguistica Computazionale SESSION II La Constitution de la documentation du Tresor de la langue francaise: problemes et methodes Gerard Gorcy, Institut National de la Langue Francaise The Corpus of the Dictionary of Old English: Its Delimitation, Compilation and Application Ashley Crandell Amos, University of Toronto 7.00 p.m. Banquet, Dining Hall Guest speaker: Sir Randolph Quirk, University College London Tuesday, 19 September SESSION III The Concrete Lexicon and the Abstract Dictionary Martin Kay, Xerox PARC Lexicons for Computer Programs and Lexicons for People Sergei Nirenburg, Carnegie-Mellon University SESSION IV Discovering Relationships Among Word Senses Roy J. Byrd, IBM Research Center What is Text? Frank W. Tompa, University of Waterloo SESSION V Panel Discussion: Present and Future Challenges Panelists: Gaston H. Gonnet (Introducer), University of Waterloo Beryl T.S. Atkins, Oxford University Press Reinhard R.K. Hartmann, University of Exeter Michael E. Lesk, Bellcore Conference Chairman: Timothy J. Benbow, Oxford University Press Nominating Committee Chairman: Gaston H. Gonnet, University of Waterloo CONFERENCE ARRANGEMENTS: All Conference activities will take place at St Catherine's College, Oxford, with the main sessions taking place in the Bernard Sunley Building. ACCOMMODATION: Conference and workshop accommodation will be arranged in single study-bedrooms in St Catherine's College, Oxford. Most of these bedrooms have wash-basins, and there are washing and shower facilities on each floor. Soap, linen, and hand- towels are provided. TRANSPORT: There is a frequent coach service to Oxford from both Gatwick and Heathrow airports, and many trains (Paddington station) and coaches (Victoria coach station) from London. Timetables will be forwarded with the Conference information package to those who register. CONFERENCE FEES (in pound sterling): Basic fees cover all conference sessions, one copy of the conference proceedings, the reception, two lunches (Mon. and Tues.), two dinners (Sun. and Tues.), mid-session refreshments, and the banquet on Monday evening. Resident fees include the basic fees plus Sunday, Monday and Tuesday night bed and breakfast at St Catherine's College. All optional fees (see below) are additional to the conference fees. Registration must be received by 31 August 1989. If space permits, late registration will be available at an additional cost of L20.00. All fees must be paid in pounds sterling. Please make cheques payable to Oxford University Press. Access, Visa, and Barclaycard (MasterCard) credit cards will be accepted. The conference information package will be forwarded upon receipt of registration. Basic fees: Academic L149.50 Non-academic L287.50 Resident fees: Academic L207.00 Non-academic L345.00 There will be a late registration fee (after 31 August) of L20.00. Note: All charges include 15 per cent UK Value Added Tax where applicable. Additional conference proceedings will be available at L10.00 per copy. ASSOCIATED WORKSHOPS Both workshops will be held at St Catherine's College, Oxford. DICTIONARY ASSESSMENT AND CRITICISM Sunday, 17 September 1989: 10 a.m.-5 p.m. Organized by EURALEX Participants at the 1988 biennial EURALEX General Meeting in Budapest will recall requests for a more practical and explicitly lexicographical orientation to the Association's activities. Thus, this workshop has been organized to: 1. provide an introduction to the topic and to allow participants to work in small groups at an assessment of one dictionary and/or a comparison of two or more works, and 2. make suggestions for the structure and contents of the section on Dictionary Assessment and Criticism at the next EURALEX International Congress, in Malaga, August 28- September 2, 1990. The workshop should prove of interest to lexicographers, publishers, language teachers, linguists, researchers, reviewers and anyone else who uses dictionaries: in fact, to all types of dictionary producers and consumers. Euralex Workshop Fee: Member L22.00 Non-member L25.00 Includes lunch and refreshment breaks. DEVELOPING LEXICAL RESOURCES Wednesday, 20 September 1989, 9.30 a.m.-4 p.m. Organized by the Association for Computational Linguistics and Bellcore We need to resolve the conflicts of interest that appear to exist among publishers, software developers, and the research community. The research community needs resources to do its work. The publishers have source materials but are concerned with protecting their intellectual property rights. The software developers are trying simultaneously to create tools and a market in which to use them. This open meeting will present the perspectives of these protagonists and attempt to work out strategies for resolving the perceived conflicts in ways that will be beneficial to all parties. There is no fee for this Workshop. However, please respond on the Conference registration form if you plan to attend, or contact Don Walker at the address below. INFORMATION For further information about the Conference and the EURALEX Workshop, contact either Katherine Manville (ext. 4533) or Sandra Johnston (ext. 4530) at: Dictionary Department Oxford University Press Walton Street Oxford OX2 6DP England Telephone: (0865) 56767 International: + 44 865 56767 Internet: oup@watsol.waterloo.edu For information about the Workshop on Developing Lexical Resources, contact: Dr. Donald E. Walker (Oxford) Bellcore, MRE 2A379 445 South Street, Box 1910 Morristown, NJ 07960-1910, USA telephone: (+1 201) 829-4312 fax: (+1 201) 292-0067 internet: walker@flash.bellcore.com usenet: uunet.uu.net!bellcore!walker ------------------------------ To: nl-kr@cs.rpi.edu Date: Wed, 31 May 89 16:39:21 PDT >From: emma@csli.Stanford.EDU (Emma Pease) Subject: CSLI Calendar, June 1, 4:29 C S L I C A L E N D A R O F P U B L I C E V E N T S _____________________________________________________________________________ 1 June 1989 Stanford Vol. 4, No. 29 _____________________________________________________________________________ A weekly publication of The Center for the Study of Language and Information, Ventura Hall, Stanford University, Stanford, CA 94305 ____________ CSLI ACTIVITIES FOR THIS THURSDAY, 1 June 1989 12:00 p.m. TINLunch Cordura Hall Realism in Mathematics Conference Room Penelope Maddy Department of Philosophy, U.C. Irvine Abstract in last week's Calendar 2:15 p.m. CSLI Seminar Cordura Hall Varieties of Context: Session 9 Conference Room Wrap-up No abstract 3:30 p.m. Tea Ventura Hall 4:00 p.m. STASS Seminar Cordura Hall Ordinary Properties and STASS: Conference Room Should `Kind of' be a Third Polarity? Mark Crimmins (crimmins@csli.stanford.edu) Abstract in last week's Calendar ____________ CSLI ACTIVITIES FOR NEXT THURSDAY, 8 June 1989 12:00 p.m. TINLunch Cordura Hall Reading: "Scope and Constituency" Conference Room by Joseph Aoun and Audrey Li Peter Sells (sells@csli.stanford.edu) Abstract below 3:30 p.m. Tea Ventura Hall ____________ ANNOUNCEMENT This will be the last CSLI Calendar of the Academic year. We will resume publication in late September. ____________ NEXT WEEK'S TINLUNCH Reading: "Scope and Constituency" by Joseph Aoun and Audrey Li (Linguistic Inquiry 20(1989):141-172) Discussion led by Peter Sells (sells@csli.stanford.edu) June 8 In this paper, Aoun and Li discuss differences in relative scope possibilities of quantified NPs in English and Chinese. They claim that the interpretive rules for quantifiers are the same in both languages, attempting to localize the difference in the underlying structure posited for the two languages. Specifically, they argue that the subject NP in English is generated inside the VP in the underlying structure, while it is not in Chinese. They also make a novel proposal for the analysis of double-object constructions. ____________ SYMBOLIC SYSTEMS FORUM Does Symbolic Anthropology have Anything to say to Symbolic Systems? Carol Delaney Department of Anthropology Friday, 2 June, 3:15, 60:62N Professor Delaney will give an introduction to Symbolic Anthropology through examples of her own work. The principle goal of the talk is to begin an answer to the following question: While both Symbolic Systems and Symbolic Anthropology use many of the same terms (the most notable being symbols and systems of symbols, along with a concept of meaning!), do their uses of the terms coincide in any meaningful way? Further, even if perhaps these disciplines disagree on the use of their terms, are there any issues that would be fruitful for interdisciplinary work? As Professor Delaney knows only a little about Symbolic Systems, her talk will focus on the presentation of Symbolic Anthropology as a beginning of an answer to these questions. ____________ NEW VISITOR CSLI welcomes back Stephen Neale, Department of Philosophy, Princeton University. He will be here from now until the end of June and then again from the beginning of August through most of the coming academic year. He is working on a new book on the interpretation of plural noun phrases in natural language, and---when time permits---a manuscript on free will. Stephen's email address is neale@csli.stanford.edu. ------------------------------ To: nl-kr@cs.rpi.edu Date: Wed, 24 May 89 17:00:25 PDT >From: emma@csli.Stanford.EDU (Emma Pease) Subject: CSLI Calendar, May 25, 4:28 C S L I C A L E N D A R O F P U B L I C E V E N T S _____________________________________________________________________________ 25 May 1989 Stanford Vol. 4, No. 28 _____________________________________________________________________________ A weekly publication of The Center for the Study of Language and Information, Ventura Hall, Stanford University, Stanford, CA 94305 ____________ CSLI ACTIVITIES FOR THIS THURSDAY, 25 May 1989 12:00 p.m. TINLunch Cordura Hall General Logics: Part 2 Conference Room Jose Meseguer (meseguer@csl.sri.com) Abstract in last week's Calendar 2:15 p.m. CSLI Seminar Cordura Hall Varieties of Context: Session 8 Conference Room Meaning, Content, and Literary Interpretation Jon Barwise (barwise@russell.stanford.edu) Respondent: Brian Smith Abstract below 3:30 p.m. Tea Ventura Hall 4:00 p.m. STASS Seminar Cordura Hall Substitutional Recursion on Non-well-founded Sets Conference Room and an Application to the Logic of Situation Theory Tim Fernando (fernando@csli.stanford.edu) Abstract in last week's Calendar ____________ CSLI ACTIVITIES FOR NEXT THURSDAY, 1 June 1989 12:00 p.m. TINLunch Cordura Hall Realism in Mathematics Conference Room Penelope Maddy Department of Philosophy, U.C. Irvine Abstract below 2:15 p.m. CSLI Seminar Cordura Hall Varieties of Context: Session 9 Conference Room Wrap-up No abstract 3:30 p.m. Tea Ventura Hall 4:00 p.m. STASS Seminar Cordura Hall Ordinary Properties and STASS: Conference Room Should `Kind of' be a Third Polarity? Mark Crimmins (crimmins@csli.stanford.edu) Abstract below ____________ THIS WEEK'S CSLI SEMINAR Meaning, Content, and Literary Interpretation Jon Barwise (barwise@russell.stanford.edu) 25 May Is there such a thing as the CORRECT interpretation of a literary text? For that matter, just what is the meaning, or content, or interpretation of the previous question? In our book, *Situations and Attitudes*, Perry and I contrasted meaning and what we called interpretation. But this use of "interpretation" is at odds with the way the term is used in literary theory. In this talk, I will review the perspective of situation semantics, and then try to use it to shed some light on the relationships between the meaning, content, and interpretation of a literary text. The talk will be based on my paper, "On the circumstantial relationship between meaning and content" (chapter 3 of my book *The Situation in Logic*, and also a CSLI report). ____________ NEXT WEEK'S TINLUNCH Realism in Mathematics Penelope Maddy Dept. of Philosophy, U.C. Irvine 1 June Professor Maddy will speak on realism in mathematics, and its connection to realism in philosophy in general. ____________ NEXT WEEK'S STASS SEMINAR Ordinary Properties and STASS: Should `Kind of' be a Third Polarity? Mark Crimmins (crimmins@csli.stanford.edu) 1 June If STASS has been anything, it has been realistic about properties and relations---they are among the basic elements of infons, propositions, and so on. But our realism in this regard couldn't straight-facedly be called a deeply and seriously considered view uniformly and conscientiously applied to our uses of the theory in semantics. Why not? For reasons that have at one time or another bothered Frege, Russell, Wittgenstein, Quine, Dummett, and recently Peter Unger, reasons, namely, having to do with the vagueness and open-endedness of what we ordinarily would call properties. In addition to calling into doubt our various assumptions of bivalence and coherence, these problems threaten the "change of typeface" paradigm in semantics, in which we hope to pick out real properties (for inclusion in semantic-value structures) by italicizing our ordinary predicate expressions, like "tall", "chair" and "red". Various problems confronting semantics for such ordinary expressions will be considered in this survey (and exhibition) of vagueness. Nothing terribly new will be said about the underlying issues. However, beer and snacks will be available. ____________ SYMBOLIC SYSTEMS FORUM Symbolic Systems Honors Presentations The Architecture of Hyperproof Alan Bush, (bush@csli.stanford.edu) and Neural Nets Wendy Chow, (w.wino@macbeth.stanford.edu) Friday, 26 May, 3:15, 60:62N Symbolic Anthropology Carol Delaney Friday, 2 June, 3:15, 60:62H ------------------------------ End of NL-KR Digest *******************