Courses' slots:

Week one 9:00 - 10:30

Week one 11:00 - 12:30

Week one 14:00 - 15:30

Logic and Computation workshop:
Logical Methods for Social Concepts.

Organizers

Course material: AquilkhanBanerjee.pdf BalbianiDitmarschSeban.pdf Broersen.pdf DegremontKurzen.pdf Dimitri.pdf EckertHerzberg.pdf GenotJacot.pdf GhoshVelazquez.pdf GierasimczukKurzenVelazquez.pdf HakliNegri.pdf LonginNguyen.pdf RousselCholvy.pdf Tuomela.pdf

External page

Abstract:

Both computer science and the social sciences are interested in concepts such as power, cooperation, responsibility, delegation, trust, reputation, convention, agreement, commitment, etc. The aim of the workshop is to study whether logical approaches developed in the multi-agent system (MAS) domain are adequate to express them in an accurate way. In particular, are existing logical approaches sufficiently expressive to capture the main features of these social concepts? Are the basic assumptions in the existing logics for MAS too strong to capture the fundamental aspects of social phenomena? Are some concepts relevant for social theory missing in these logics?

We encourage not only works focused on the technical aspects of logics for multi-agent system, but also works including multidisciplinary aspects from social sciences (e.g. economics, sociology, social philosophy) and providing a critical analysis of the existing logical frameworks for the specification of social concepts. Indeed, the workshop is intended to bring together logicians and social theorists in order to provide a better understanding of the potentialities and limitations of logical methods for the analysis of social reality.

The following are some examples of topics that are relevant for the workshop.

- Logics of individual and collective powers - Logical approaches to game theory - Public announcements logics and logics of communication - Logical approaches to trust and reputation - Logical approaches to organizational concepts (e.g. roles, responsibility, delegation) - Logics of social commitment and collective attitudes (e.g. common belief and common knowledge, collective acceptance, joint intentions)

- Logics for mechanism design

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Language and Computation workshop:
Parsing with Categorial Grammars

Organizer
  • Gerald Penn ()

External page

Keywords: categorial grammar, parsing, semantic inference

Abstract:

Among computational linguists, there has been an enormous resurgence of interest recently in parsing with categorial grammars, both because of their extreme lexicalism and because of their well-defined connection to interpretable semantic terms. The recent work of Clarke, Curran and others on Combinatory Categorial Grammars, and of Moot, Baldridge and others on multimodal extensions of categorial grammar, in particular, has produced a collection of efficient and expressive parsing tools that have only just begun to make an impact on tasks such as the Pascal RTE challenge. As the CL community attempts to push the state of the art from mere syntactic annotation into parsers that actually allow for semantic inference, CG's position can only improve. At the same time, there is no shortage of variations on "categorial grammar," and there has not to date been a great deal of communication between the adherents of these various strands on their relative linguistic or semantical merits, nor on more technical concerns of algorithm design and numerical parametrization.

The aim of this workshop is to bring researchers in these various strands to share and assess their progress in the spirit of promoting categorial grammar's overall advancement. ESSLLI has a long and distinguished history of offering CG courses and workshops, most recently Glyn Morrill's course on Type-Logical Grammar (2007), but these have typically mixed lectures on connections to linguistic theory with more formal lectures on parsing and tractability within one strand of scholarship. The focus of this workshop, however, will be squarely on the formal / computational side, with the intention of representing work across all variations of categorial grammars.

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Week one 17:00 - 18:30

Logic and Computation workshop:
Structures and Deduction 2009.

Organizers
  • Michel Parigot ()
  • Lutz Strassburger ()

Course material: structures_deduction.pdf

External page

Abstract:

The topic of this workshop is the application of algebraic, geometric, and combinatorial methods in proof theory. In traditional proof theory, research is focussed on syntax, but in recent years many researchers have proposed approaches to avoid "syntactic bureaucracy" in the presentation of proofs. Examples are proof nets, atomic flows, new deductive systems based on deep inference, and new algebraic semantics for proofs. These efforts have also led to new methods of proof normalisation and new results in proof complexity.

Thus the workshop is relevant to a wide range of people. The list of topics includes among others: algebraic semantics of proofs, game semantics, proof nets, deep inference, tableaux systems, category theory, deduction modulo, cut elimination, complexity theory, computational interpretation of proofs, etc.

The goal of the workshop is twofold: first, to bring together researchers from various fields who share the interest in reducing the dependency of logic from low-level syntax, and second, to provide an opportunity for PhD students and researchers to present and discuss their work with colleagues who work in the broad subject areas that are represented at ESSLLI.

The workshop is intended to be a sequel of the ICALP-workshop SD05 in Lisbon 2005 .

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Language and Logic workshop:
Vagueness in Communication.

Organizers

Course material: vic09-alxatib-pelletier.pdf vic09-daniel-lassiter.pdf vic09-ewan-klein.pdf vic09-gottfried-vosgerau.pdf vic09-harald-bastiaanse.pdf vic09-lavi-wolf.pdf vic09-pablo-cobreros.pdf vic09-paul-egre.pdf vic09-stephanie-solt.pdf vic09-zardini-sweeney.pdf

External page

Abstract:

Although vagueness has long since been an important topic in philosophy, logic and linguistics, some recent advances have made the functions of vagueness in natural language communication an exciting and timely research area. This renewed interest has a distinct cross-disciplinary character and has spawned many new research questions. While the classical instruments of dealing with vagueness -- like multi-valued logics, truth value gaps or gluts, or supervaluations -- have not been significantly extended, new approaches investigate questions like context-sensitivtiy of vagueness (Kyburg & Moreau 2000), the sharpening of vague predicates in context (Barker 2002), and the modeling of precision levels with expressions like 'roughly' or 'like' (Kennedy 2007). Within the study of comparatives and degree modification, moreover, researchers are now exploring cross-linguistic aspects of vagueness (Beck et al 2004). On a more fundamental level, the question why there is vagueness to begin with, what role vagueness serves in human communication, has been addressed. For example, it has been argued that vagueness is an epiphenomenon of the impossibility of complete shared knowledge about the extension of many terms (e.g. Williamson 1994), hence a consequence of the cognitive limitations of humans. It has been shown why this does not affect the utility of these terms in communication (Parikh 1994). Game-theoretic methods have been employed that show that being vague or imprecise can be beneficial for communication even if the speaker could truthfully use more precise terms (de Jaegher 2003). Furthermore, the important role of vagueness became evident in a number of empirical domains beyond obvious examples such as the language of diplomacy -- for example, in geographical terms (e.g. Bennett 2008) or in the description of measures of economy (Qizilbash 2005). There are also initial experimental investigations into the ways how speakers interpret vague terms (e.g., Bonini e.a. 1999).

The workshop aims to bring together researchers whose work contributes to the broad inter-disciplinary line of inquiry outlined here. In particular, we welcome:

* papers that broaden the empirical base for the study of vagueness, be it linguistic or otherwise; * papers offering a synthesis of theories from different disciplines; and * papers addressing the pragmatics of vagueness.

The workshop aims to provide a forum for researchers (including advanced PhD students) to present and discuss their work with colleagues and researchers who work in the broad subject of the disciplines relevant for vagueness in communication, as represented in ESSLLI.

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Week two 9:00 - 10:30

Week two 11:00 - 12:30

Week two 14:00 - 15:30

Language and Logic workshop:
New Directions in the Theory of Presupposition.

Organizers

External page

Abstract:

The last ten years has seen a wealth of new developments on the topic of presupposition and, in particular, the projection problem for presupposition. While there had been considerable interest in the seventies in developing entirely pragmatic accounts of presupposition triggering and projection (Wilson, 1974, Stalnaker 1977, Grice, 1981), these accounts had generally not been sufficiently developed to match the dynamic accounts developed in the eighties in predictive power. Recent work, such as that of Schlenker (2006, 2008), however, has shown that broadly pragmatic accounts can also have considerable predictive power. In addition, trivalent approaches based on such techniques as supervaluations and the Strong Kleene connectives, which were dismissed by many long ago, have recently attracted new interest (Beaver and Krahmer, 2001, George, 2008, Fox, 2008) and have been shown capable of handling many empirical issues in presupposition projection. Thus there is no longer a clear consensus on how we should explain presupposition projection. In addition, experimental work has raised interesting questions about what the basic facts of presupposition projection are and suggests that real empirical work is needed to determine some of the subtleties (Chemla 2007). There has also been renewed interest in the triggering problem (Simons, 2001, Abusch, 2002) which naturally links up to the projection problem, as well as recent theoretical work on foundational issues such as the notion of common ground and accommodation (Beaver and Zeevat, 2004, von Fintel, 2001, 2006, Stalnaker, 2002). The purpose of this workshop is to bring together researchers on presupposition to discuss these new developments and connect some of the different theoretical and empirical questions, which are too often considered in isolation.

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Week two 17:00 - 18:30

Language and Logic workshop:
Formal approaches to sign languages.

Organizers
  • Carlo Cecchetto ()
  • Carlo Geraci ()

Course material: 02 Brentari Eccarius ESSLLI 2009.pdf 03 Schlenker ESSLLI 2009.pdf 04 Koulidobrova ESSLLI 2009.pdf 05 Davidson Caponigro Mayberry ESSLLI 2009.pdf 06 Neidle et al ESSLLI 2009.pdf 08 MathurRathmann ESSLLI 2009.pdf 09 Bernaht ESSLLI 2009.pdf 10 Aboh Pfau 2009 ESSLLI.pdf 11 Donati Branchini ESSLLI 2009.pdf

External page

Abstract:

The recognition that sign languages are natural languages in their own right, and not collections of gestures or impoverished codes lacking an autonomous grammar, begins with Stokoe (1960). With Stokoe's work, the methods linguists use to describe and investigate spoken languages are applied to sign languages as well. In recent years, linguistic work on sign languages has also developed in formal frameworks, in the areas of phonology, syntax, and semantics. One goal of the workshop is to bring together researchers from different areas of formal linguistics who are investigating sign languages. The grammars of sign languages are as highly complex as the grammars of spoken languages and share with them many universal features, despite the difference in modality between spoken languages (which use the auditory channel) and sign languages (which use the visual channel). Yet, sign languages also differ from spoken languages in radical ways: morphological information in sign languages is often conveyed simultaneously by different articulators rather than linearly; moreover, certain aspects of their phonological, syntactic and semantic structures are not commonly found in spoken languages. These differences raise an interesting challenge for existing formal linguistic frameworks, which are designed to account for the grammars of spoken languages. By bringing together formal linguists working on sign languages, the workshop should contribute to meet this challenge.

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