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CSLI Calendar, 3 March 1994, vol.9:19
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To: friends
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Subject: CSLI Calendar, 3 March 1994, vol.9:19
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From: Tom Burke <burke@arch.stanford.edu>
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Date: Wed, 2 Mar 94 12:29:00 PST
C S L I C A L E N D A R O F P U B L I C E V E N T S
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3 March 1994 Stanford Vol. 9, No. 19
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A weekly publication of the Center for the Study of Language and
Information (CSLI), Stanford University, Ventura Hall, Stanford, CA 94305-4115
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CSLI ACTIVITIES DURING 3 -- 11 MARCH 1994
THURSDAY, 3 MARCH
12:00 - CSLI TINLunch
Cordura Hall, Room 100
Order Independent Typed Default Unification
Alex Lascarides, Stanford Linguistics
Abstract below
4:15 - SSP Forum
Building 60, Room 61-F
Using Situation Theory as a Descriptive/Analytic Framework
in Studies of Interaction
Keith Devlin, Saint Mary's College
Abstract below
FRIDAY, 4 MARCH
12:00 - Philosophy Lecture
Building 90, Room 91-A
Are There Akratic Actions?
Ariela Lazar, UC Berkeley Philosophy
12:30 - PCD Seminar
Skilling Auditorium
Interfacing to the Information Highway
Terry Winograd, Stanford Computer Science
3:15 - Philosophy Colloquium
Building 90, Room 91-A
On Translatability
Alexander Duttmann, Stanford Philosophy
Abstract below
3:30 - Linguistics Colloquium
Cordura Hall, Room 100
Classifier Noun Incorporation: Lexicon or Syntax?
Mark Baker, McGill University / CASBS
Abstract below
TUESDAY, 8 MARCH
6:00 - Special Linguistics Colloquium
Ventura Hall, Room 17
Emics and Etics in Language and Culture
Kenneth Pike, Summer Institute of Linguistics
WEDNESDAY, 9 MARCH
7:00 - Structure of Discourse Discussion Group
Ventura Hall, Room 17
Title and speaker to be announced
THURSDAY, 10 MARCH
4:15 - SSP Forum
Building 60, Room 61-F
Psychopsychology: Consciousness, Folk Psychology, and Method
in Cognitive Science?
Alison Gopnik, Berkeley Psychology
Abstract below
7:30 - Phonology Workshop
Cordura Hall, Upstairs Lounge
Ghosts, Markedness, and Template Transparency in Yawelmani
Cheryl Zoll, Berkeley Linguistics
8:00 - Special Cognitive Science Lecture
CERAS, Room 112
Cognitive Science in a New Key: The Enactive Perspective
Francisco Varela, Centre Nationale de la Recherche Scientifique
Abstract below
FRIDAY, 11 MARCH
12:30 - PCD Seminar
Skilling Auditorium
Get into the Groove: Design Principles for Interactive
Live Performance
Amy Bilson, Paramount
Abstract below
3:15 - Philosophy Colloquium
Building 90, Room 91-A
Naturalized Platonism vs. Platonized Naturalism
Ed Zalta, CSLI
Abstract below
3:30 - Linguistics Colloquium
Cordura Hall, Room 100
Word Order Change and the Historical Semantics and Syntax
of Anatolian Relative Clauses
Andrew Garrett, University of Texas Linguistics
Abstract below
____________
The CSLI Calendar appears on Thursday of each week (more or less) throughout
the academic year. Announcements, abstracts, and other information to appear
in the Calendar on a given Thursday should be submitted by e-mail to
incalendar@csli.stanford.edu by 5:00 p.m. on the previous Tuesday.
Past issues of the CSLI Calendar, a quarterly schedule of upcoming CSLI
events, and other information about CSLI are available on-line by way of a
CSLI Gopher at kanpai.stanford.edu. The Calendar, with all available
abstracts, is also posted each week to the csli.bboard newsgroup.
____________
CSLI TINLUNCH
on Thursday, 3 March
12:00 p.m., Cordura Hall, Room 100
Order Independent Typed Default Unification
Alex Lascarides
Stanford Linguistics
alex@csli.stanford.edu
In this talk, I will define an order independent, and hence fully declarative,
version of default unification on typed feature structures (TFSs). The
operation extends that described by Young and Rounds in ACL93 in two important
respects. First, default information in an FS that is typed with a more
specific type will override conflicting default information in an FS typed
with a more general type, where the specificity is defined by the subtyping
relation in the type hierarchy. Second, the operation is able to handle TFSs
where reentrancies are default. This enables the operation to have at least
the same potential for linguistic application as Bouma's and Carpenter's
definitions of typed default unification, but with the added advantage of
being declarative.
I will demonstrate the utility of this version of default unification in
several linguistic applications. First, I will show how it can be used to
define multiple orthogonal default inheritance in the lexicon in a fully
declarative fashion. Second, I will describe how it can underpin feature
propagation principles, such as the Head Feature Convention in GPSG, without
restrictive procedural assumptions. And finally, I will discuss the pragmatic
phenomena of blocking and semi-productivity, and argue that they militate
against a purely abbreviatory use of default specifications in lexical
entries. If there's time, I will show how the representation of default
information in TFSs enables defaults to survive beyond the lexicon, and so
interact with discourse processing heuristics in the way that blocking and
semi-productivity demand.
____________
SYMBOLIC SYSTEMS FORUM
on Thursday, 3 March
4:15 p.m., Building 60, Room 61-F
Using Situation Theory as a Descriptive/Analytic Framework
in Studies of Interaction
Keith Devlin
Saint Mary's College
devlin@csli.stanford.edu
Situation theory was originally conceived as a mathematical theory that would
serve as a foundation for situation semantics. Much of the early development
of the theory was carried out at Stanford's CSLI.
Situation semantics attempts to provide mathematical structures to serve as
the formal "meanings" of various parts of speech. Mathematical structure is
intended to correspond to the structure of language. Situation semantics is
able to capture many features of language use normally classified as
"pragmatics", for example indexicality and various other issues to do with
context.
In joint work published last year, Duska Rosenberg and I used situation theory
for another purpose, namely as a descriptive/analytic tool in the study of
socially conditioned interaction.
We refer to the method we evolved as "zooming". Using this technique, an
initial analysis looks little different from a traditional analysis in
sociolinguistics. Where our approach offers something new is that we make use
of the mathematical tools provided by situation theory to give increased
precision at various key points of the analysis. The role played by situation
theory is in large part a methodological one. At every stage of the analysis,
we have to ask various precise questions. This forces us to adopt both a
uniform framework and a consistently high degree of precision, even at stages
that might not seem problematic. When a problem is encountered, we "zoom in"
on that part of the analysis, increasing the mathematical precision until a
level of detail is reached that is sufficient to provide a resolution to the
problem.
Given two hours, I could probably give a reasonably good account of this work.
I plan to speak for much less than an hour and give the overall flavor.
____________
PHILOSOPHY LECTURE
on Friday, 4 March
12:00 noon, Building 90, Room 91-A
Are There Akratic Actions?
Ariela Lazar
UC Berkeley Philosophy
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SEMINAR ON HUMAN-COMPUTER INTERACTION
on Friday, 4 March
12:30 p.m., Skilling Auditorium
Interfacing to the Information Highway
Terry Winograd
Stanford Computer Science
winograd@cs.stanford.edu
____________
PHILOSOPHY COLLOQUIUM
on Friday, 4 March
3:15 p.m., Building 90, Room 91-A
On Translatability
Alexander Duttmann
Stanford Philosophy
How do we overcome the difference between languages in the very experience of
translation? Is it possible to speak of something that remains essentially
untranslatable? What is the goal and what are the limits of translation?
This paper tries to answer these questions by analyzing the concept of
translation that is to be found in the work of the German philosopher Walter
Benjamin.
____________
LINGUISTICS COLLOQUIUM
on Friday, 4 March
3:30 p.m., Cordura Hall, Room 100
Classifier Noun Incorporation: Lexicon or Syntax?
Mark Baker
McGill University / CASBS
baker@casbs.stanford.edu
Over the past ten years there has been a sometimes vigorous debate over the
nature of noun incorporation which cuts across a variety of grammatical
frameworks. I and others have defended the view that it is syntactic, with
the incorporated noun counting as (part of) the grammatical object of the
verb. However, an important lexical alternative has been proposed by Di
Sciullo, Williams, and S. Rosen which looks superior in certain respects. In
this talk I will seek to clarify the conceptual and empirical issues at stake.
Then I will show how an understanding of the nonconfigurational syntax that is
typical of languages having noun incorporation affects the logic of the
arguments and their empirical predictions. Finally, I will test some of these
new predictions with data from agreement, disjoint reference, and question
formation in Mohawk and certain other languages. The results support the
syntactic analysis for a wide range of cases.
____________
SPECIAL LINGUISTICS COLLOQUIUM
on Tuesday, 8 March
6:00 p.m., Ventura Hall, Room 17
Emics and Etics in Language and Culture
Kenneth Pike
Summer Institute of Linguistics
This talk will examine the difference between the general classifications of
an analyst studying all languages and cultures versus the structure discovered
in any one language or culture.
____________
STRUCTURE OF DISCOURSE DISCUSSION GROUP
on Wednesday, 9 March
7:00 p.m., Ventura Hall, Room 17
Title and speaker to be announced
____________
SYMBOLIC SYSTEMS FORUM
on Thursday, 10 March
4:15 p.m., Building 60, Room 61-F
Psychopsychology: Consciousness, Folk Psychology,
and Method in Cognitive Science?
Alison Gopnik
UC Berkeley Psychology
gopnik@cmsa.berkeley.edu
This paper explores the relations between conscious phenomenology, "folk
psychology", and scientific psychology. I propose a distinction between two
uses of mental terms, they pick out both underlying causal psychological
states and psychological experiences with a particular, distinctive
phenomenology. It is possible to scientifically investigate the relations
between psychological experiences and psychological states, just as
psychophysics investigates the relation between "physical" experiences and
physical states. I call this "psychopsychology". Ordinary people have a "folk
psychophysics" and a "folk psychopsychology" strongly influenced by
commonsense and possibly innate beliefs about the mind and the world. In both
cases this view has been revised in scientific psychology. In particular, the
commonsense folk psychopsychology proposes a strong distinction between
knowledge of ones own mental states and those of others, a distinction
preserved in many philosophical accounts. I will argue that this distinction
is undermined by psychological evidence.
Alison Gopnik studied philosophy and psychology at McGill University and then
at Oxford University. She received her PhD, in experimental psychology from
Oxford in 1981. She was a Social Sciences and Humanities Research Council of
Canada postdoctoral fellow and then a Natural Sciences and Engineering
Research Council of Canada University Research Fellow at the University of
Toronto from 1981--1988. Since 1988 she has been in the Department of
Psychology of the University of California at Berkeley, where she is currently
an associate professor. Her empirical work has focused on relations between
language and cognition in one and two year olds, and "theory of mind"
development in children from 2--5. Her theoretical work has involved relations
between philosophy and psychology, particularly the problem of first-person
knowledge, and the relation between theory change in science and cognitive
development in children. She is the president-elect of the Society for
Philosophy and Psychology, an associate editor of the British Journal of
Developmental Psychology and is on the editorial boards of Child Development
and Cognitive Development.
____________
PHONOLOGY WORKSHOP
on Thursday, 10 March
7:30 p.m., Cordura Hall, Upstairs Lounge
Ghosts, Markedness, and Template Transparency in Yawelmani
Cheryl Zoll
UC Berkeley Linguistics
zoll@garnet.berkeley.edu
____________
SPECIAL COGNITIVE SCIENCE LECTURE
The Cognitive Science Graduate Students Society
Distinguished Speaker for 1994
on Thursday, 10 March
8:00 p.m., CERAS, Room 112
Cognitive Science in a New Key: The Enactive Perspective
Francisco Varela
Centre Nationale de la Recherche Scientifique, Paris
This lecture is a report on the development of an enactive view of cognitive
science which is centrally concerned with situated, embodied agents whose
historical coupling is inseparable from the world they come to know. I shall
provide some key ideas, illustrate with an example from neuroscience, and
briefly consider some current research topics.
This event has been made possible by the Department of Philosophy, the ASSU
Program Board, the Symbolic Systems Students Society, and the Cognitive
Science Graduate Students Society.
____________
SEMINAR ON HUMAN-COMPUTER INTERACTION
on Friday, 11 March
12:30 p.m., Skilling Auditorium
Get into the Groove: Design Principles for
Interactive Live Performance
Amy Bilson
Paramount
bilson.a@applelink.apple.com
As on-line communities become more responsive and media-rich, CyberSpace takes
on more and more of the properties of a live performance. In this talk, I look
at many different forms of live performance - theater, school, parades,
demonstrations, religious services, musical events - and examine the social
and artistic structures in these situations which encourage interactivity. I
then discuss design principles for facilitating participation during live
performance, and explore how these ideas can be applied to the design of
CyberSpace and Interactive Television.
Amy Jo Bilson recieved her Ph.D. in Visual Psychophysics in 1986, at which
point a promising career in vision science was derailed by a fascination with
building things that people use. Since then, she has been architecting
software, designing user interfaces, and playing in African dance bands.
Currently, she is Producer/Designer of Interactive Music and Audio at the
Paramount Technology Group, where she is building prototypes of musical
experiences in CyberSpace.
____________
PHILOSOPHY COLLOQUIUM
on Friday, 11 March
3:15 p.m., Building 90, Room 91-A
Naturalized Platonism vs. Platonized Naturalism
Ed Zalta
CSLI
zalta@csli.stanford.edu
In this paper, we develop an account of knowledge of abstract objects that is
consistent with naturalism. A naturalist is someone who accepts only to those
objects required by the explanations of the natural sciences. But both
properties and mathematical objects are needed to explain scientific laws and
scientific theories. This has led some naturalists to introduce properties
and sets into the causal order, and to suggest that truths about properties
and sets are empirical, discovered a posteriori, and subject to revision. In
our view, however, this naturalized Platonism is hardly recognizable as a kind
of Platonism.
Rather than naturalize Platonism, our strategy is to Platonize naturalism. We
argue that a Platonistic theory based on comprehension principles that assert
the existence of a plenum of abstract objects (both properties and abstract
individuals) is consistent with naturalist standards of ontology, knowledge,
and reference. Such comprehension principles, however, are synthetic, and we
argue that they are known a priori on the grounds that they form a seamless
part of the logic in which naturalistic theories should be formulated.
Mathematical objects are identified among the abstract individuals, and our
knowledge of mathematical truths is linked to our knowledge of these
comprehension principles.
Coauthor: Bernard Linsky, University of Alberta.
____________
LINGUISTICS COLLOQUIUM
on Friday, 11 March
3:30 p.m., Ventura Hall, Room 17 (note the room change)
Word Order Change and the Historical Semantics and
Syntax of Anatolian Relative Clauses
Andrew Garrett
University of Texas Linguistics
garrett@emx.cc.utexas.edu
This paper will consider the relation between meaning and (syntactic) form.
In the area of language change, three prominent models of this relation can be
stereotyped as follows:
(1) Semantics only. There is no syntactic change.
(2) Independence. Syntactic change is an independent kind of change
best understood in syntactic terms alone.
(3) Semantics drives syntax. Syntactic change is in some cases an
automatic by-product of semantic changes that are motivated by
familiar mechanisms of change in meaning; in other cases it is
a species of analogy (extension or levelling).
Model (2) has been prevalent in the generative tradition of diachronic
syntactic work, e.g., under the rubric "(radical) reanalysis". I will argue
for model (3). In particular, I will discuss the change from an adjoined
(correlative) relative clause system to an embedded relative clause system and
its connection with the change from verb-final to verb-initial or verb-medial
word order. Both changes are characteristic of various branches of
Indo-European -- in most cases at least partly during unattested prehistory --
but are sort of directly observable in the attested history of Anatolian
(Hittite, Hieroglyphic Luvian, Lycian, etc.). Based on this history I will
suggest that independent changes in relative clause semantics/pragmatics more
or less directly caused syntactic changes that were part of the overall
restructuring of the syntax as indicated. The model suggested is one along
the very general lines of, e.g., Paul (1880, 1920), where changes in meaning
and phonetic implementation are the primary forces behind language change, and
are repaired by morphological and syntactic change such as levelling and
generalization (suitably analyzed).
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