Recent Developments in OT Syntax & Semantics
Date: July 2, 2005
Time: 8:30am-7pm
Location: Harvard, Emerson 101

OT is well-known as a theory of typology via constraint re-reranking, particularly suited to handling phenomena involving variation (cross linguistic or dialectal) and change (diachronic or developmental). A more recent trend focuses on the inherent bi-directionality of an OT grammar. While the standard approach is to take the input to be a meaning and the output the optimal form to express that meaning, an alternative is to take the input to be an expression and the output the optimal interpretation for that expression. A third trend of current research (Stochastic OT) concerns the gradient middle ground of distributions of linguistic phenomena, in contrast with prevailing categorical approaches which focus on their endpoints.

This workshop will bring together prominent researchers representing these three formal variants of OT as well as submitted contributions. Two sessions are planned: a morning session devoted to a variety of phenomena in syntax, semantics and the interfaces, and an afternoon session with a special focus on Case exemplifying the three current formal trends: typology by re-ranking; bi-directional OT, and stochastic OT.

Organizer:
Geraldine Legendre (Johns Hopkins)

Contact:
legendre@cogsci.jhu.edu

Invited Speakers and Commentators:
Judith Aissen (UCSC)
Helen de Hoop & A. Malchukov (Nijmegen)
Henriette de Swart (Utrecht)
Vieri Samek-Lodovici (UCL)
Ellen Woolford (UMass)

Deadline for abstract submission
March 1, 2005
http://www.cog.jhu.edu/events/lsa2005/