Workshop on Computing and Phonology

A small workshop on computational aspects of phonology is held at the University of Groningen (RUG), the Netherlands, on December 8, 2006. The workshop is open to anyone, but we kindly ask you to register not later than December 4. Should you have any question, please feel free to contact Tamás Bíró at birot @ nytud.hu

Location:
Harmony Building, H13.309 (Multimediazaal)
Oude Kijk in't Jatstraat 26, 9712 EK Groningen.

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Program:

Chair: Dicky Gilbers
9:30Opening: John Nerbonne
9:40Tamas Biro (ACLC, Universiteit van Amsterdam):
Simulated Annealing for Optimality Theory: A performance model for phonology

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10:20Bart Cramer and John Nerbonne (CLCG, Rijksuniversiteit Groningen):
Scaling Minimal Generalization

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11:00Coffee

Chair: Petra Hendriks
11:30Gerhard Jäger (Universität Bielefeld):
Exemplar dynamics and George Price's General Theory of Selection

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12:10Paul Boersma (ACLC, Universiteit van Amsterdam):
The emergence of markedness
In a parallel Optimality-Theoretic model with multiple levels (phonetic form, phonological form, underlying form), the gradual acquisition of comprehension leads automatically to a ranking of faithfulness constraints in comprehension according to cue reliability and frequency of occurrence. If the speaker uses the same faithfulness constraint ranking in production, this leads to a correlation between phonological activity on the one hand and cue reliability and frequency on the other. Markedness, therefore, emerges as a result of an acquisition bias. Phonological theory therefore needs neither innate markedness hierarchies, nor synchronically functionalist (i.e. teleological) principles.

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13:00Lunch

Chair: Gosse Bouma
14:30Adam Albright (MIT, Cambridge, MA):
Modeling gradient phonotactic well-formedness as grammatical competence

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15:30Closing and coffee

Registration:

If you intend to participate in the workshop, please register before December 4, in order to facilitate organisation.

I would like to register.

Further information:

Information Science/Humanities Computing
Center for Language and Cognition Groningen (CLCG)
Rijksuniversiteit Groningen (RUG)

From Wilbert Heeringa's page:
A list of hotels in Groningen (please note that the prices are outdated).
Travel information

Thanks to Gerlof Bouma for the design.