Background

FGTrento is the 7th conference on Formal Grammar held in conjunction with the European Summer School in Logic, Language and Information, which takes place in 2002 in Trento. Previous meetings were held in Barcelona (1995), Prague (1996), Aix-en-Provence (1997), Saarbruecken (1998), Utrecht (1999) and Helsinki (2001).

Aims and Scope

FGTrento provides a forum for the presentation of new and original research on formal grammar, with particular regard to the application of formal methods to natural language analysis.
Themes of interest include, but are not limited to,

• formal and computational syntax, semantics, pragmatics, and phonology;
• model-theoretic and proof-theoretic methods in linguistics;
• constraint-based and resource-sensitive approaches to grammar;
• foundational, methodological and architectural issues in grammar.

Special Session: Formal Grammar and Finite-State Methods

This year's conference will feature a special session on finite-state methods as they pertain to formal grammar. Potential topics include areas in which finite-state methods have traditionally played a larger role, such as computational morphology and text analysis, as well as:

• finite-state models of other levels of linguistic structure,
• (extended) finite-state models for processing with formal linguistic frameworks,
• finite-state approximation methods for more expressive formal devices, and
• finite-state methods for integrating multiple levels of linguistic structure or heterogeneous formal frameworks in applications.

Round-table Panel: Formal Grammar and the Curriculum

The conference will feature a panel on "Formal Grammar and the Curriculum". Courses focussing on Formal Grammar (introductory / advanced) are being offered at several universities and appropriate educational material has been developed over the last few years. The aim of this panel is to stimulate discussion and exchange of ideas on the following topics (among others):

• software and tools for teaching FG;
• web resources related to FG;
• innovative assignments and projects in teaching FG

The panel should create the basis for the development of an archive of educational material related to FG such as course notes, assignments, software and demos.

We solicit poster presentations which will create the basis for the panel discussion. Submissions should be 1 page long and do not have to be anonymous. Accepted abstracts will be included in a special section of the Proceedings.

CologNet-ELSNET Symposium

The 2002 Formal Grammar conference will also host a Symposium Session, co-sponsored by the Networks of Excellence in Computational Logic (CologNet) and Human Language Technologies (ELSNET). This is the first of three symposia devoted to the exploration of the common ground between the Logic and NLP Area of CologNet and the ELSNET agenda. The theme of the first installment is "Combining logical and data-oriented approaches in NLP". The symposium program will feature invited talks by leading researchers in the area as well as a number of contributed talks.

Submission Details

We invite e-mail submissions of abstracts for 30-minute papers (including questions, comments, and discussion). A submission should consist of two parts:

1. an information sheet (in plain text), containing:
   • title,
   • the name of the author(s),
   • affiliation(s),
   • e-mail and postal address(es),
   • indication of whether the submission is for the main conference, the special session on FG and finite-state methods, the CologNet-ELSNET Symposium, or the panel on Formal Grammar in the Curriculum.
2. an anonymous abstract, consisting of a description of not more than 5 pages, including figures and references (1 page for the round table panel on Formal Grammar and the Curriculum). Abstracts should be sent as email attachments in plain text (ASCII), PostScript or PDF. Preparation of the manuscript in LaTeX is highly recommended.

Proceedings

A full version of each accepted paper will be included in the conference proceedings, to be distributed at the conference. All papers will also be made available electronically.

Important Dates

• May 20, 2002: Deadline for submissions
• June 20, 2002: Notification of acceptance
• July 10, 2002: Final version due
• August 3-4, 2002: Conference dates

Program Committee

• Tonia Bleam (Northwestern)
• Gosse Bouma (Groningen)
• Miriam Butt (Konstanz)
• Maarten de Rijke (Amsterdam)
• Thilo Goetz (IBM)
• Mark Johnson (Brown)
• Ruth Kempson (London)
• Andras Kornai (Northern Light)
• Marcus Kracht (Berlin)
• Uwe Moennich (Tuebingen)
• Michael Moortgat (Utrecht)
• Mark-Jan Nederhof (Groningen)
• James Rogers (Earlham)
• Mark Steedman (Edinburgh)

Formal Grammar organizing committee

• Gerhard Jaeger, ZAS Berlin/University of Potsdam
• Paola Monachesi, OTS Utrecht
• Gerald Penn, University of Toronto
• Shuly Wintner, University of Haifa

CologNet-ELSNET Symposium organizers

• Raffaella Bernardi (OTS Utrecht, bernardi@let.uu.nl)
• Michael Moortgat (OTS Utrecht, moortgat@let.uu.nl)