First Call for Papers
Finite-State Methods and Natural Language Processing 2017
(FSMNLP 2017)

http://fsmnlp2017.cs.umu.se/

The international conference series Finite-State Methods and Natural Language
Processing (FSMNLP) is the premier forum of the ACL Special Interest Group on
Finite-State Methods (SIGFSM). It serves researchers and practitioners working
on natural language processing (NLP) applications or language resources,
theoretical and implementational aspects, or their combinations, that make
use of finite-state methods.

FSMNLP 2017 is co-located with the 13th International Workshop on Tree
Adjoining Grammars and Related Formalisms (TAG+13, http://tag13.cs.umu.se),
fostering the scientific exchange between the two research communities. The
meeting will include a number of joint tutorial presentations, designed to
introduce attendees to a range of topics relevant to both communities.

Scope
=====

FSMNLP 2017 invites papers on natural language processing (NLP) with obvious
relevance or an explicit relation to finite-state methods as well as,
conversely, papers on finite-state methods that are motivated by or clearly
relevant to NLP. Topics include but are not limited to:

• NLP applications and linguistic aspects of finite-state methods
• Finite-state models of natural language and linguistic theories
• Practices for building morphological models using finite-state technology
• Machine learning of finite-state models of natural language
• Finite-state manipulation software and tools with relevance to NLP
• Practical implementations of linguistic descriptions with finite-state
technology, including grammars, machine learning tools, and
language-specific challenges to finite-state NLP
• Formal results with relevance to finite state machines and description
languages
• Applications of finite-state-based NLP in fields such as comparative
linguistics, field linguistics, applied linguistics and language teaching.


FSMNLP 2017 Special Theme
=========================

FSMNLP 2017 features the special theme

Finite-State Methods for Semantic Structures

covering, e.g., the creation, analysis, transformation of semantic structures
of various descriptions, learning and training methods for finite-state
devices processing semantic structures, etc.

The special theme is in no way intended to restrict the scope of papers.
Submissions relating to any dimension of finite-state NLP are encouraged,
whether or not they belong to the special theme. In particular, this includes
papers which apply finite-state methods to new domains beyond the traditional
focus of FSMNLP.

Important dates
===============

May 21, 2017 Abstract submission deadline
May 28, 2017 Paper submission deadline
July 9, 2017 Notification of acceptance
July 30, 2017 Camera-ready version due
September 4-6, 2017 Conference

Deadlines are midnight Swedish time (UTC+2).


Submissions
===========

Submissions are made in two stages, a submission of a preliminary abstract
later followed by a submission of the paper itself. Papers must present
original, unpublished research and implementation results. Simultaneous
submissions to FSMNLP and to another conference or workshop are allowed.
According to the ACL double submission policy
(https://www.aclweb.org/archive/policies/current/double-submission-policy.html),
doubly-submitted papers should indicate this fact on the title page. If
accepted at both FSMNLP and the other meeting, such a paper must be withdrawn
from one of them. Withdrawal from FSMNLP shall be as soon as possible but no
later than one week after the notification of acceptance at FSMNLP.

FSMNLP accepts two kinds of submissions:

• long papers (8 pages excluding references) reporting completed, significant
research,
• short papers (4 pages excluding references) reporting ongoing work
and partial results, implementations, grammars, practical tools,
interactive software demos, etc.

Short papers are expected to be presented as system demos, posters and/or
short presentations, while long papers are presented in full talks.

All submissions are electronic and in PDF format via a web-based submission
server. Authors are strongly encouraged to preparte their papers in LaTeX
using the ACL 2016 style files to produce the PDF document. The zip archive
of the style files can be downloaded here:

http://acl2016.org/files/acl2016.zip

Information about the author(s) and other identifying information such as
obvious self-references (e.g., “We showed in [12] …”) and financial or
personal acknowledgements should be omitted in the submitted papers whenever
feasible.

Papers must be submitted electronically in PDF at

https://www.easychair.org/conferences/?conf=fsmnlp2017.

A paper may contain a clearly marked appendix and data files to support its
claims. This material will not be published. While reviewers are urged to
consult this extra material for better comprehension, it is at their
discretion whether they do so. Such extra material should also be anonymized
to the extent feasible.

All accepted papers will be published and archived in the FSMNLP 2017
proceedings in the ACL Anthology. We plan to provide the opportunity to
submit revised and substantially extended versions of accepted papers to
a special issue of an appropriate high-quality journal.