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-====== Lexical Semantics Workshop (ESSLLI 2008)  ====== 
- 
-**Bridging the gap between semantic theory and computational simulations**\\ 
-//Workshop at [[http://www.illc.uva.nl/ESSLLI2008/|ESSLLI 2008]], Hamburg, August 4-9 2008//  
- 
-{{icon_tip.png}} 
- 
- 
- 
-===== Background and motivation ===== 
- 
-[[http://wordspace.collocations.de/lib/exe/fetch.php/esslli:lexical_semantics_workshop_-_motivational_poster.pdf?id=esslli%3Astart&cache=cache|{{ esslli:motivational_poster_thumb.jpg|Motivational Poster}}]] 
- 
-Corpus-based distributional models (such as LSA or HAL) 
-have been claimed to capture interesting aspects of word meaning 
-and provide an explanation for the rapid acquisition of semantic 
-knowledge by human language learners.  
-However, although these models have been proposed as 
-plausible simulations of human semantic space organization, 
-careful and extensive empirical tests of such claims are still lacking. 
- 
-Systematic evaluations typically focus on large-scale 
-quantitative tasks, often more oriented towards engineering 
-applications (see, e.g., the recent SEMEVAL evaluation campaign) than 
-towards the challenges posed by linguistic theory, 
-philosophy and cognitive science.  This has resulted in a great divide  
-between corpus-driven computational approaches to semantics on the one 
-hand and theory-driven symbolic approaches on the other -- a situation that 
-is characteristic of the linguistic and of most 
-of the cognitive tradition. 
-Moreover, whereas human lexical semantic competence is obviously 
-multi-faceted -- ranging from free association to taxonomic judgments to 
-relational effects -- tests of distributional models tend to focus on a 
-single aspect (most typically the detection of semantic similarity), 
-and few if any models have been tuned to tackle 
-different facets of semantics in an integrated manner. 
- 
-Our workshop purports to fill these gaps by inviting research teams and 
-individual scholars to test their computational models on a variety of small but 
-carefully designed tasks that aim to bring out linguistically and 
-cognitively interesting aspects of semantics 
-([[#Tasks and data sets|see below]] for details).  To this effect, annotated 
-datasets are available to the participants, who are 
-encouraged to explore them and highlight interesting aspects of their 
-models' performance, conduct quantitative and qualitative error analysis, etc. 
- 
-The focus is NOT on competition, but on understanding how different 
-models highlight different semantic aspects, how far we are from 
-an integrated model, and which aspects of semantics are beyond the 
-reach of purely distributional approaches.  
-In fact, we believe that at the current state of the art in 
-computational and distributional semantics, our goal should not be 
-to develop the best-performing model for a specific application, but rather 
-to enlarge our understanding of the limits and potentialities  
-of different approaches when confronted with cognitively realistic tasks.  
- 
-In addition to these practical tasks, theoretical and experimental papers 
-discussing the relation between distributional and symbolic approaches to meaning 
-are also invited.  We are particularly interested in papers that analyze our 
-task data sets from a theoretical perspective or that discuss simulation results 
-and their implications for semantic and cognitive theory. 
- 
-Through collaborative preparatory work on the Word Space wiki ([[http://wordspace.collocations.de/|wordspace.collocations.de]]) and thanks to the ESSLLI multiple-day workshop format, we hope that this initiative will foster 
-collaboration among the nascent community of researchers interested in computational semantics from a theoretical rather than engineering-oriented point of view. 
- 
-For further information, please write to [[lexsem08@gmail.com|lexsem08@gmail.com]], and/or subscribe to the [[http://wordspace.collocations.de/doku.php/wiki_subscription|workshop wiki RSS feed]]. 
- 
- 
- 
- 
- 
- 
- 
-===== Tasks and data sets ===== 
- 
-In order to reach a better understanding of the possibilities and limitations 
-of distributional models of word meaning, we envisaged a number of tasks that 
-focus on linguistic and cognitive challenges rather than application engineering. 
- 
-Small annotated data sets are available on the workshop page and participants are invited 
-to apply their computational models and conduct a thorough analysis of the results. 
-The goal is not to achieve better precision than competitors, but to understand 
-the strengths and weaknesses of individual models, analyze and explain errors, etc. 
-Theoretical discussions of the data sets from a linguistic or cognitive perspective 
-are also invited and will complement the empirical findings. 
- 
-Ongoing work on data set preparation can be monitored at [[http://wordspace.collocations.de/doku.php/data:start|http://wordspace.collocations.de/doku.php/data:start]].  
- 
-We offer the following tasks (click on the links for detailed task descriptions and downloads): 
- 
-  * **categorization** 
-    * [[data:Concrete Nouns Categorization|concrete nouns categorization]] 
-    * [[data:Abstract/Concrete Nouns Discrimination|abstract/concrete nouns discrimination]] 
-    * [[data:Verb Categorization|verb categorization]] 
-  * **modelling free association** 
-    * [[data:Correlation with Free Association Norms|correlation with free association norms]] 
-  * **generation of salient properties of concepts** 
-    * [[data:Comparison with Speaker-Generated Features|comparison with speaker-generated features]] 
- 
- 
-===== Workshop information ===== 
- 
-=== Dates === 
- 
-  * **April 4, 2008**: Paper submission deadline 
-  * **April 24, 2008**: Notification 
-  * **August 4-9, 2008**: Workshop in Hamburg (during the first week of ESSLLI) 
- 
- 
-=== Programme Committee === 
- 
-Marco Baroni (University of Trento) **(co-organizer)**\\ 
-Reinhard Blutner (University of Amsterdam)\\ 
-Gemma Boleda (UPF, Barcelona)\\ 
-Peter Bosch (University of Osnabrück)\\ 
-Paul Buitelaar (DFKI, Saarbrücken)\\ 
-John Bullinaria (University of Birmingham)\\ 
-Katrin Erk (UT, Austin)\\ 
-Stefan Evert (University of Osnabrück) **(co-organizer)**\\ 
-Patrick Hanks (Masaryk University, Brno)\\ 
-Anna Korhonen (Cambridge University)\\ 
-Michiel van Lambalgen (University of Amsterdam)\\ 
-Alessandro Lenci (University of Pisa) **(co-organizer)**\\ 
-Claudia Maienborn (University of Tübingen)\\ 
-Simonetta Montemagni (ILC-CNR, Pisa)\\ 
-Rainer Osswald (University of Hagen)\\ 
-Manfred Pinkal (University of Saarland)\\ 
-Massimo Poesio (University of Trento)\\ 
-Reinhard Rapp (University of Mainz)\\ 
-Magnus Sahlgren (SICS, Kista)\\ 
-Sabine Schulte im Walde (University of Stuttgart)\\ 
-Manfred Stede (University of Potsdam)\\ 
-Suzanne Stevenson (University of Toronto)\\ 
-Peter Turney (NRC Canada, Ottawa)\\ 
-Tim Van de Cruys (University of Groningen)\\ 
-Gabriella Vigliocco (University College, London)\\ 
-Chris Westbury (University of Alberta) 
- 
- 
- 
- 
- 
- 
- 
- 
-===== Paper submission ===== 
- 
-We welcome papers reporting results of experimenting 
-with word space models on one or more workshop tasks, as well as 
- comparing different models on the same task(s) (authors are asked to carry out their own evaluation, using, if possible, the tools provided on the Website). 
- 
-We also welcome papers focussing on: 
-  * methodological and theoretical issues concerning word space models; 
-  * open challenges for distributional methods for semantic analysis; 
-  * interactions with formal approaches to meaning; 
-  * interaction with cognitive research on human semantic memory. 
- 
-The papers should not be longer than 8 pages, and they should be 
-submitted anonymously in PDF format following the 
-[[http://www.ling.ohio-state.edu/acl08/stylefiles.html|ACL 2008 stylesheet]]. 
- 
-Submission must be sent to [[lexsem08@gmail.com|lexsem08@gmail.com]], 
-no later than **April 4**, 
-specifying PAPER SUBMISSION in the subject and the authors' 
-names and affiliation in the message body. 
- 
- 
-=== Workshop homepage === 
-[[http://wordspace.collocations.de/doku.php?id=esslli:start|http://wordspace.collocations.de/doku.php?id=esslli:start]] 
- 
-=== ESSLLI 2008 homepage === 
-[[http://www.illc.uva.nl/ESSLLI2008/|http://www.illc.uva.nl/ESSLLI2008/]] 
- 
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