<OT> Workshop on Computational Modelling of Sound Pattern Acquisition

[Rutgers Optimality Archive]

Workshop on Computational Modelling of Sound Pattern Acquisition

When and where: University of Alberta, Edmonton, February 13-14, 2010.
 Robert Kirchner and Anne-Michelle Tessier, organizers

Theme: Major advances have been made in recent years towards explicit
modelling of phonological acquisition, including increasingly
sophisticated OT learning algorithms, as well as application of
general machine learning techniques (e.g. expectation maximization and
maximum entropy learning). At the same time, evidence of token and
type frequency sensitivity in the propagation of both categorical and
gradient patterns in speech has spurred growing interest in
exemplar-based models of acquisition and processing.  This workshop
aims to bring together these two strands of research, promoting
dialogue between those pursuing symbolic and subsymbolic approaches to
acquisition of the sound patterns of spoken language. We invite oral
and poster presentations from phonologists, phoneticians,
psycholinguists, computational linguists, and speech scientists on
this general theme.  Though relevant analytic, programmatic, or
experimental presentations are also welcome, priority will be given to
abstracts reflecting original computational modelling results for some
aspect of phonological/phonetic acquisition.

Invited speakers will include: Adam Albright (MIT), Michael Becker
(Harvard), Andries Coetzee (Michigan), Robert Daland (UCLA), Bruce
Hayes (UCLA), Jeff Mielke (Ottawa), Ben Munson (Minnesota), James
Myers (CCU, Taiwan), Janet Pierrehumbert (Northwestern), Alan Yu
(Chicago).  Titles to be announced.

Funding and registration fee: The organizers anticipate sufficient
funding to cover travel and hotel costs of all presenters whose
abstracts are accepted, above and beyond the invited speakers.  A
registration fee of $70 ($50 students) will be charged to cover the
cost of coffee break refreshments.  Late registration (after Jan. 1,
2010) is $100 ($75 students).  Registrants are encouraged to order
tickets for a Saturday evening banquet, at an additional cost of $35.
All prices are in Canadian dollars.

Submission: Abstracts for oral or poster presentations should be no
longer than one page (US letter or A4, 11 pt, 1 inch margins) with a
second page for references, data and/or figures. Abstracts should be
emailed as a PDF attachment to
phonmod at ualberta.ca, deadline: midnight (Mountain Time), November 20, 2009.
Unless the submitter indicates otherwise, the organizers will consider
each abstract's suitability for oral or poster presentation. Authors
should include the title, name(s), and affiliation(s) in the body of
the email.

See http://www.ualberta.ca/~kirchner/cmspa.htm for more information.