ONT Call: Workshop "Ontological knowledge and linguistic coding"
***WITH APOLOGIES FOR CROSS-POSTING***
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Call for Papers
WORKSHOP
"ONTOLOGICAL KNOWLEDGE AND LINGUISTIC CODING"
Munich, February 26-28, 2003
at the 25th annual meeting of the
German Linguistics Society
(Deutsche Gesellschaft fuer Sprachwissenschaft)
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The relation between nonlinguistic knowledge and linguistic competence is
still a most controversially discussed issue. This workshop will focus on a
less often addressed aspect of this domain: Given that every notion or
concept of the human cognitive system that is amenable to linguistic coding
can be assigned a position in the ontological hierarchies we have analytical
knowledge of, what is the relation between this systematic position and the
structure of the linguistic signs that encode it? Whereas phonetic
realisations are largely arbitrary, this does obviously not hold for semiotic
complexity. Cutting up the sign inventory of a language according to an
`expense' or `weight' hierarchy (roughly grammatical morpheme < lexical root
< derived stem < composed stem < phrase), it seems that the encoded concepts
tend to build a corresponding hierarchy of basicness or elementarity:
Grammatical morphemes preferably encode very elementary categories, whereas
concepts which require at least a phrase to be encoded are in general highly
derived.
The factual conditions are, of course, highly complex, one reason being the
combinatorial possibilities of the encoding means. Accordingly, the governing
principles are as yet known only in rough outline. Existing findings need to
be worked out, cf. Givón's (1990) `Less predictable information will be given
more coding material', the preference for root-encoding of basic-level
categories (Rosch 1978), or what could be called Talmy's (2000) law, which
states that roots of motion verbs tend to co-encode, alongside with the
superconcept of motion itself, exactly one additional factor such as path,
manner, figure etc. Universal preferences are equally interesting as
typological differences and among the corresponding cross-linguistic
investigations, cross-modal studies comparing sound and sign languages are
especially revealing and welcome.
A focal point will be on eventity ontologies, in particular those for motion
eventities and communicative acts. As these complex themes suggest an
interdisciplinary approach, not only linguists are hereby addressed, but also
computer scientists, psychologists and philosophers.
REFERENCES:
Givón, Talmy (1990): Syntax. vol II. Amsterdam, Philadelphia: Benjamins.
Talmy, Leonard (2000): Toward a Cognitive Semantics. Vol.1: Concept
Structuring Systems. Cambridge, MA, London: MIT Press. Chapter 1:
Lexicalization Patterns, 21-146.
Rosch, Eleanor (1978): Principles of Categorization. In: Rosch, Eleanor/
Barbara B. Lloyd (eds.) Cognition and Categorization, Hillsdale, NJ:
Lawrence Erlbaum, 27-48.
A more detailed description of the workshop can be found at
http://www.cis.uni-muenchen.de/~andrea/DGfS2003/
Invited speakers:
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Leonard Talmy
N.N.
We invite abstracts for a 30 minute presentation (including discussion).
Abstracts should not exceed one page (including references) and should be
sent electronically in one of the common formats (preferably ASCII) to
andrea@cis.uni-muenchen.de. Please send your abstract until July 31, 2002.
Notification of acceptance is: August 15, 2002. The program will be announced
on September 15.
Organizers:
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Andrea Schalley
Centrum für Informations- und Sprachverarbeitung (CIS)
Universität München
andrea@cis.uni-muenchen.de
Dietmar Zaefferer
Institut für Theoretische Linguistik
Universität München
zaefferer@germanistik.uni-muenchen.de
Important dates:
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deadline for abstracts: July 31, 2002
notification of acceptance: August 15, 2002
program announcement: September 15, 2002
workshop: February 26-28, 2003