A workshop on interface conditions, in the memory of Tanya Reinhart will be held in conjunction with The 18th International Congress of Linguists (CIL 18).



Organizer:
Anna Maria Di Sciullo, Université du Quebec à Montréal
http://www.interfaceasymmetry.uqam.ca



Sponsors:
Social Sciences and Humanities Research Council of Canada
Major Collaborative Research Initiative on Interface Asymmetries
Fonds québécois de recherche sur la societé et la culture



Invited speakers: Tecumseh Fitch, Sandiway Fong, Jim Higginbotham, Norbert Hornstein, Eric Reuland, Mark Steedman, Charles Yang



Description:
Works in Minimalism aim at reducing interface conditions, including the Binding theory and theta-theory, to deeper properties of the grammar (e.g., Hornstein 2002, Kayne 2002), thereby approaching explanation of linguistic phenomena. Works on the properties of interfaces bring to fore the role of computational efficiency and processing considerations in sentence production and comprehension (e.g., Reinhart 2006, Yang 2005). The purpose of this workshop is to discuss the interactions of grammar specific properties and computational/processing properties, and their effects at the interfaces. The workshop, more broadly, aims at exploring further the three factors that according to Chomsky (2006) enter into to growth of language in the individual, and in particular the independent principle of efficient computation (Hauser, Chomsky & Fitch 2002; Fitch & Hauser 2004).



Call for Papers:
In addition to the invited talks, a small number of papers will be accepted for presentation at the conference. We invite submissions for thirty-minute talks (20 minutes for presentation plus 10 minutes for questions) on research focusing on the role of computational efficiency and human processing restrictions in language growth. Papers focusing on how language independent principles can explain key properties of language are encouraged to apply. A representative, but not exhaustive, list of topics for potential papers includes the following:
- The manifestation of language independent principles at the interfaces.
- Language and language independent principles determining language growth.
- The architectural constraints that determine and limit possible attainable languages.



Important Dates:
- August 31, 2007: Deadline for submitting the abstract.
- November 31, 2007: Notification of acceptance.
- February 15, 2008: Deadline for submitting the final version of the accepted abstract for publication in the proceedings of CIL18.
- September 30, 2008: Deadline for submitting the final version of the presented paper to be published in CD.



Form and submission of abstracts:
An abstract (.pdf or .doc file) should be up to 3-pages long, including data and references. The abstract should start with the title of the paper, followed by the text of the abstract. Please do not include the author's name in the abstract. On a separate page, please give the author's name, affiliation, e-mail address, telephone number, mailing address, the paper title and the session number(title).

Abstracts:
Invited Talk: Asymmetry and interface conditions
Anna Maria Di Sciullo, Université du Quebec à Montréal

Invited Talk: A Mechanism for analyzing compounds in the Penn TreeBank
Mary Dungan, Sandiway Fong, Josh Harrison, University of Arizona at Tucson

On the locus of the linearization algorithm
Noureddine Elouazizi, Lieden University

Invited Talk: The sensory-motor Interfaces in language and music compared
Tecumseh Fitch, University of St Andrews

Invited Talk: Reversibility and interface conditions
Norbert Hornstein, University of Maryland, College Park

Interface conditions and language contact phenomena
Michael B. Paradowski, University of Warsaw

Invited Talk: The need for asymmetry as a source of invariance
Eric Reuland, Utrecht institute of Linguistics OTS

Invited Talk: The computational problem of interface acquisition
Marc Steedman, University of Edinburgh

Invited Talk: Learning, optimization, and language design
Charles Yang, Department of Linguistics and Computer Science, University of Pennsylvania



Practical Information:
The official Languages for CIL 18 are English, French, German and Spanish

  Accomodation

  Transportation

  Guidelines for CIL18 authors

Venue Information:
The Incheon International Airport (IIA), in the city of Incheon, is the biggest and main international airport in Korea. It is an about 60-minute car ride to Korea University. It costs you about U$40 for regular taxi and U$60 for deluxe taxi. For more information on transportation from the airport to downtown Seoul, please visit the IIA web site.
All fares are payable KRW only. currecy converter
Taxi fares from Incheon International Airport to Korea University are quite expensive. Since Seoul subways are not directly connected to the Incheon Airport, we recommend taking the Limousine Bus from the airport and transferring to a taxi at a bus stop near the university.

  Campus map

  More visitor information

Contact:
For more information please visit the conference website or contact the organizer at di_sciullo.anne-marie@uqam.ca
http://www.interfaceasymmetry.uqam.ca