CfP for Workshop on Semantic Spaces at the Intersection of NLP, Physics, and Cognitive Science (SemSpace2021)

CfP for Workshop on Semantic Spaces at the Intersection of NLP, Physics, and Cognitive Science (SemSpace2021)

[Sadrzadeh, Mehrnoosh]

Workshop on Semantic Spaces at the Intersection of NLP, Physics, and
Cognitive Science (SemSpace2021)

This year we are excited to be (virtually) co-located with IWCS:
https://iwcs2021.github.io/<https://eur01.safelinks.protection.outlook.com/?url=https%3A%2F%2Fiwcs2021.github.io%2F&data=04%7C01%7C%7Ca628c5792db94b7e23da08d8c911fe62%7C1faf88fea9984c5b93c9210a11d9a5c2%7C0%7C0%7C637480426458778490%7CUnknown%7CTWFpbGZsb3d8eyJWIjoiMC4wLjAwMDAiLCJQIjoiV2luMzIiLCJBTiI6Ik1haWwiLCJXVCI6Mn0%3D%7C1000&sdata=tFlgFdsLXftOcxMOmSkrtQPDpeXuQA1UlG2cjI99aEM%3D&reserved=0>
14-18 June, 2021

Website: https://sites.google.com/view/semspace2021/home<https://eur01.safelinks.protection.outlook.com/?url=https%3A%2F%2Fsites.google.com%2Fview%2Fsemspace2021%2Fhome&data=04%7C01%7C%7Ca628c5792db94b7e23da08d8c911fe62%7C1faf88fea9984c5b93c9210a11d9a5c2%7C0%7C0%7C637480426458788486%7CUnknown%7CTWFpbGZsb3d8eyJWIjoiMC4wLjAwMDAiLCJQIjoiV2luMzIiLCJBTiI6Ik1haWwiLCJXVCI6Mn0%3D%7C1000&sdata=TO09JcttwlFh38%2Bemi%2FdZgHDJO4VYIfKDs87bE2acxA%3D&reserved=0>

IMPORTANT DATES:
Paper submission: 26 March 2021
Notification to contributors: 16 Apr 2021
Camera Ready: 7 May 2021

AIMS AND SCOPE

Vector embeddings of word meanings have become a mainstream tool in large scale natural language processing tools. The use of vectors to represent meanings in semantic spaces or feature spaces is also employed in cognitive science. Unrelated to natural language and cognitive science, vectors and vector spaces have been extensively used as models of physical theories and especially the theory of quantum mechanics. Crucial similarities between the vector representations of quantum mechanics and those of natural language are exhibited via bicompact linear logic and compact closed categorical structures in natural language. Exploiting the common ground provided by vector  spaces, the proposed workshop will bring together researchers working at the intersection of NLP, cognitive science, and physics, offering to them an  appropriate forum for presenting their uniquely motivated work and ideas. The interplay between these three disciplines will foster theoretically motivated approaches to understanding how meanings of words interact with each  other in sentences and discourse via grammatical types, how they are determined by input from the world, and how word and sentence meanings interact logically.

Topics of interest include (but are not restricted to):
Reasoning in semantic spaces
Compositionality in semantic spaces and conceptual spaces
Conceptual spaces in linguistics and natural language processing
Applications of quantum logic in natural language processing and cognitive science
Modelling functional words such as prepositions and relative pronouns in compositional distributional models of meaning
Diagrammatic reasoning for natural language processing and cognitive science
Modelling so-called ‘non-compositional’ phenomena such as metaphor

SUBMISSIONS:
We welcome two types of submission:
- Archival papers of up to 8 pages should report on complete, original and unpublished research. Accepted papers will be published in the workshop proceedings and appear in the ACL anthology.

- Extended abstracts (up to 3 pages) may report on work in progress or work  that was recently published/accepted at a different venue. Extended abstracts will not be included in the workshop proceedings.

Both accepted papers and extended abstracts are expected to be presented at  the workshop.

Authors must submit non-anonymized extended abstracts or papers by March 26. Both extended abstracts and papers must be formatted according to the IWCS guidelines, and must be submitted via softconf  (link available soon). The extended abstracts should not contain an abstract section and may consist  of up to 3 pages of content, plus unlimited references. Archival papers may consist of up to 8 pages of content, plus unlimited references. Camera-ready versions of papers will be given one additional page of content so that  reviewers’ comments can be taken into account.


INVITED SPEAKERS
Ellie Pavlick, Brown University
Haim Dubossarsky, University of Cambridge

PROGRAMME COMMITTEE
Tai-Danae Bradley, X, the Moonshot Factory
Bob Coecke, Cambridge Quantum Computing
Gemma De Las Cuevas, Institute for Theoretical Physics, University of Innsbruck
Stefano Gogioso, University of Oxford
Peter Gärdenfors, Lund University
Peter Hines, University of York
Antonio Lieto, University of Turin
Dan Marsden, University of Oxford
Michael Moortgat, Utrecht University
Richard Moot, CNRS(LIRMM) & University of Montpellier
Dusko Pavlovic, University of Hawaii
Emmanuel Pothos, City University of London
Matthew Purver, Queen Mary University of London
Pawel Sobocinski, Tallinn University of Technology
Corina Stroessner, Ruhr University Bochum
Dominic Widdows, Serendipity Now!
Gijs Wijnholds, Utrecht University


ORGANIZATION COMMITTEE
Martha Lewis, University of Bristol
Mehrnoosh Sadrzadeh, UCL
Lachlan McPheat, UCL


[For admin and other information see: http://www.mta.ca/~cat-dist/ ]