Call for Participation in Connectionist Natural Language Processing

[cpd@aic.hrl.hac.com]

			AAAI Spring Symposium
	    Connectionist Natural Language Processing

Recent results have lead some researchers to propose that connectionism 
is an alternative to AI/Linguistic approaches to natural language 
processing, both as a cognitive model and for practical applications.  
This symposium will bring together both critics and proponents of 
connectionist NLP to discuss its strengths and weaknesses.  

This symposium will cover a number of areas, spanning from new phonology 
models to connectionist treatments of anaphora and discourse issues.  
Participants should address what is new that connectionism brings to the 
study of language. The purpose of the symposium is to examine this issue 
from a range of perspectives including: 

	Spoken language understanding/generation
	Parsing
	Semantics
	Pragmatics
	Language acquisition
	Linguistic and representational capacity issues
	Applications

Some of the questions expecting to be addressed include:

	What mechanisms/representations from AI/Linguistics
	are necessary for connectionist NLP?  Why?

	Can connectionism help integrate signal processing 
	with knowledge of language?

	What does connectionism add to other theories
	of semantics?

	Do connectionist theories have implications for 
	psycholinguistics?

Prospective participants are encouraged to contact a member of the 
program committee to obtain a more detailed description of the 
symposium's goals and issues.  Those interested in participating in this 
symposium are asked to submit a 1-2 page position paper abstract and a 
list of relevant publications.  Abstracts of work in progress are 
encouraged, and potential participants may also include 3 copies of a 
full length paper describing previous work. Submitted papers or 
abstracts will be included in the symposium working notes, and 
participants will be asked to participate in panel discussions.

Three (3) copies of each submission should be sent to arrive by November 
16, 1990 to:

Charles Dolan, Hughes Research Laboratories, RL96, 3011 Malibu Canyon 
Road, Malibu CA, 90265

All submissions will be promptly acknowledged.

E-Mail inquiries may be sent to:
cpd at aic.hrl.hac.com

Program Committee: Robert Allen, Charles Dolan (chair),
James McClelland, Peter Norvig, and Jordan Pollack.