Workshop on Formal Language Theory in Linguistics: New Orleans, LA - January 2020

Haverford College, Haverford PA

Investigators

Abstract

This workshop will bring linguists and computer scientists together to discuss recent advances in Formal Language Theory and its relevance both to linguistic theory and to language technologies. Formal Language Theory (FLT) is a means to independently assess how a given attested or predicted linguistic pattern compares to other patterns in terms of the expressive power required to describe it. A grammar formalism with the expressive power to generate all the grammatical patterns found in the languages of the world without generating the non-occurring patterns would facilitate the comparison of different linguistic theories and allow precise claims to be made about the bounds of linguistic complexity. This workshop has two aims. The first is to take stock of existing work in FLT and its impact on theories of language and of its learnability, and to showcase new directions in which this work is headed. The second is to bring together linguists and computer scientists in order to establish deeper points of contact between their goals and methods as they relate to how both humans and machines can learn and use language, and to identify the most fruitful directions for moving forward. Because of the general nature of FLT, this research can also lead to practical applications broadly, from natural language processing and artificial intelligence to bioinformatics and information systems. The workshop will take place during the third annual meeting of the Society for Computation in Linguistics (SCiL), which meets as a sister society at the annual meeting of the Linguistic Society of America (LSA). SCiL is designed to be a common meeting for research on the computational modeling of natural language from a variety of perspectives, particularly the theoretical linguistics and the natural language processing (NLP)/machine learning (ML) communities. The 2020 SCiL workshop on FLT in linguistics is particularly responsive to the society's mission as the formalisms that FLT research is based on are foundational to theoretical computer science. The workshop events will include a keynote address, a panel of three researchers, and two tutorials demonstrating some of the resources available for getting started on research in FLT in linguistics. There will also be mentoring sessions before, during, and after the workshop that pair young researchers interested in FLT/NLP/ML work with workshop participants, creating an opportunity to build an active network of young researchers as well as providing a venue for the organizers to receive feedback and assess the success of the workshop. This award reflects NSF's statutory mission and has been deemed worthy of support through evaluation using the Foundation's intellectual merit and broader impacts review criteria.