Conference on Analogical Modeling of Language (AML)
 

Call for Papers


Date: Thursday and Friday, 23-24 March 2000
Location: Brigham Young University (BYU)
Provo, Utah USA

The purpose of this conference is to bring together researchers in Royal Skousen's theory of analogical modeling of language (AML) as well as various other exemplar-based approaches to describing language. Most of the conference will concentrate on AML, but invitations to present are extended to other exemplar-based researchers who have compared AML with their own work.

Brief description of AML:

During the last two decades, as rule approaches have encountered difficulties explaining language behavior, several competing non-rule approaches to language have been developed. First was the development (or rejuvenation) of neural networks, more commonly known in linguistics as connectionism. More recently, numerous researchers have turned to exemplar-based systems (sometimes known as instance-based systems or "lazy learning") to explain language behavior. These exemplar-based learning systems involve hunting for the most similar instances ("nearest neighbors") to predict language behavior. A more general theory of the exemplar-based approach is Royal Skousen's analogical modeling of language, which permits (under well-defined conditions) even non-neighbors to affect language behavior.

Confirmed invited speakers:
 
Walter Daelemans  (Antwerp, Tilburg)  comparing nearest neighbor approaches and AML 
Bruce Derwing  (University of Alberta) experimental testing 
Steve Chandler  (University of Idaho) psycholinguistic evidence 
David Eddington  (Mississippi State) applying AML to Spanish morphology 
Doug Wulf (University of Washington) applying AML to German plural 

Submission information for papers to be presented at conference:

In addition to the public conference on 23-24 March 2000, there will be:


Local organizing committee for the conference:

Royal Skousen
Deryle Lonsdale
Dil Parkinson
Bill Eggington

with the assistance of other members of the AML research group at BYU:

Paul Baltes
Don Chapman
Dana Bourgerie
Kirk Belnap

For more details about the conference, as well as papers and the Perl program that runs AML, see the AML website.

For specific correspondence with the organizing committee, send e-mail to:  aml-conf@email.byu.edu
or write to:
 Royal Skousen
 Department of English
 Brigham Young University
 Provo, Utah 84602
 USA


Funding for foreign scholars:

Arrangements have been made with BYU's David M. Kennedy Center for International Studies to help support the travel expenses of visiting scholars from outside the U.S. The money will be competitively assigned, and will require participation in the conference by submitting an abstract that is subsequently accepted and presented.

Anticipated costs: