South Asian Languages: Formal Approaches and Computational Resources

CALL FOR PAPERS

South Asian Languages: Formal Approaches and Computational Resources
July 23-24, 2011
in conjunction with LSA Summer School
University of Colorado
Boulder, Colorado, USA
http://dl.dropbox.com/u/1329068/Treebank-Hyderabad/lsass-cfp.html

Invited Speaker: Emily Manetta (University of Vermont)

This workshop has two primary goals. The first is to encourage
discussion on the role of corpora and computational resources
(lexicons, PropBanks, taggers, treebanks) for formal linguistic
research and to solicit feedback for one such resource: the currently
under construction Hindi-Urdu Treebank
(http://dl.dropbox.com/u/1329068/Treebank-Hyderabad/treebank.html).
Towards the first goal, the workshop will include a tutorial on how to
use the Hindi-Urdu Treebank to answer linguistic questions. The
second is to provide a venue for discussion of formal work on various
aspects of South Asian languages.

Abstracts are invited for talks on any aspects of the syntax,
semantics, and morphology of South Asian languages that explore the
use of corpora and computational resources for theoretical work. This
exploration can take one of the following three forms: actual use of
existing corpora in formulating an analysis, feedback on existing
corpora, and discussion of what kinds of resources would be useful for
the problem being addressed. Papers that interface with other aspects
of linguistics such as phonology or which exploit experimental and
computational techniques are also welcome.

We would be particularly interested in abstracts that address the
following topics that have confronted us in the design of the
Hindi-Urdu treebank:
1. The unaccusative-unergative distinction
2. Complex Predicates
3. The Ezafe construction
4. Non-finite relative clauses (participial and infinitival `vaalaa’
relatives)
5. Rightward Movement and placement of material to the right of the
finite verb.
6. Representation of Ellipsis

The workshop will be held at the University of Colorado at Boulder as
part of the LSA Summer School on July 23-24, 2011.

Submission Details:
Length Requirements: 2 pages, 11pt. text, including text, examples,
and references. All abstracts must be sent as pdf files to
fasal.workshop@gmail.com. Abstracts should be anonymous and contact
information should be included in the body of the email.

Abstract deadline: June 1, 2011
Notification: June 10, 2011
Workshop: July 23-24, 2011

Any questions about the workshop can be directed to the organizers
Rajesh Bhatt (University of Massachusetts) and
Fei Xia (University of Washington)
at fasal.workshop@gmail.com.