Statistical Physics, Pattern Identification and Language Change (Satellite Workshop)

February 1-26, 2000

Complexo Interdisciplinar da Universidade de Lisboa

Programme

Organizing Committee

Sónia Frota (Departamento de Linguística, Universidade de Lisboa), Antonio Galves (Instituto de Matemática e Estatística, USP), Rui Vilela Mendes (Grupo de Física Teórica, Universidade de Lisboa)

Scientific Committee

Robert Berwick (Artificial Intelligence, MIT), Marzio Cassandro (Dipartimento di Fisica, Roma La Sapienza), Pierre Collet (Centre de Physique Théorique, CNRS-Ecole Polytechnique), Charlotte Galves (Instituto de Estudos da Linguagem, UNICAMP), Joel Lebowitz (Mathematics Department, Rutgers University), Ricardo Lima (Centre de Physique Théorique, CNRS-Luminy), Marina Nespor (Facolta' di Lettere, Univ. Ferrara / HIL, Univ. Amsterdam), Diana Santos (SINTEF Telecom and Informatics, Oslo)

List of Participants

Miguel Abadi (Instituto de Matemática e Estatística, USP), Maria Bernadete Abaurre (Instituto de Estudos da Linguagem, UNICAMP), Amália Andrade (Centro de Linguística da Universidade de Lisboa), Renato Assunção (Departamento de Estatística, UFMG), Pilar Barbosa (Departamento de Português, Universidade do Minho), Eckhard Bick (Department of Linguistics, University of Aarhus), Joaquim Brandão de Carvalho (Université de Paris 3), Xavier Bressaud (Institut de Mathématiques de Luminy), Helena Britto (Instituto de Estudos da Linguagem, UNICAMP), Marzio Cassandro (Dipartimento di Fisica, Roma La Sapienza), Pierre Collet (Centre de Physique Théorique, CNRS-Ecole Polytechnique), João Costa (Departamento de Linguística, Universidade Nova de Lisboa), Ernesto D'Andrade (Departamento de Linguística, Univ. Lisboa), Roberto D'Autilia (Dipartimento di Fisica, Roma La Sapienza), Emmanuel Dupoux (Lab. Sciences Cognitives et Psycholinguistique, EHESS), Inês Duarte (Departamento de Linguística, Universidade de Lisboa), Roberto Fernández (Département de Mathématiques, Université de Rouen), Marcelo Finger (Instituto de Matemática e Estatística, USP), Sónia Frota (Departamento de Linguística, Universidade de Lisboa), Davide Gabrielli (Instituto de Matemática e Estatística, USP), Antonio Galves (Instituto de Matemática e Estatística, USP), Charlotte Galves (Instituto de Estudos da Linguagem, UNICAMP), Francesco Guerra (Dipartimento di Fisica, Roma La Sapienza), Gianni Jona-Lasinio (Dipartimento di Fisica, Roma La Sapienza), Anthony Kroch (Linguistics Department, University of Pennsylvania), Ricardo Lima (Centre de Physique Théorique, CNRS-Luminy), Philippe Martin (Phonetics Laboratory, University of Toronto), Ana Maria Martins (Departamento de Linguística, Universidade de Lisboa), Gabriela Matos (Departamento de Linguística, Universidade de Lisboa), Marina Nespor (Facolta' di Lettere, Univ. Ferrara / HIL, Univ. Amsterdam), Partha Niyogi (Bell-Labs), Cláudia Peixoto (Instituto de Matemática e Estatística, USP), Pierre Picco (Centre de Physique Théorique, CNRS-Luminy), Filomena Sândalo (Instituto de Estudos da Linguagem, UNICAMP), Diana Santos (SINTEF Telecom and Informatics, Oslo), Bernard Schmitt (Laboratoire de Topologie, Université de Bourgogne), Luciani Tenani (Departamento de Linguística, UNESP) , Maria do Céu Viana (Centro de Linguística da Universidade de Lisboa), Marina Vigário (Departamento de Português, Universidade do Minho), Rui Vilela Mendes (Grupo de Física Teórica, Universidade de Lisboa)

Short Summary of the Workshop

The aim of this workshop is to investigate how Statistical Physics can help elucidating two long-standing linguistic questions: How does language change proceed in time, and what triggers syntactic change, in particular what is the role of prosody in syntatic change.

Empirical data will be provided by the recent history of the pronominal clitic system of Portuguese. The Tycho Brahe Parsed Corpus of Historical Portuguese (http://www.ime.usp.br/~tycho/) will be intensively exploited for this purpose.

The theoretical frameworks of the discussion are the Generative Grammar approach to language and the Thermodynamical Formalism from Statistical Physics. The former includes the Minimalist version of the Theory of Principles and Parameters and Optimality Theory. The latter has been used in recent years as a basis for models of pattern identification, and for understanding critical phenomena in complex systems. In the present discussion, the Thermodynamical Formalism provides a model for the interaction between prosody and syntax in language acquisition.

The topics to be discussed during the workshop included:

• the interface between prosody and syntax in the general arquitecture of grammar
• the implementation of a model for the interaction between syntax and prosody through the Thermodynamical Formalism
• the relationship between acoustic data and phonological descriptions
• the notions of Energy-Harmony in Optimality Theory as a tool to define stress patterns
• combinatorial problems in the research of optimal rhythmic patterns, and the development of the Sotaq processor
• parameters involved in the change which took place from Classical to Modern European Portuguese
• language changes and generic bifurcations of dynamical systems, relations with genetic evolution
• linguistic and computational issues related to the construction of historical linguistic corpora, including the implementation of tagging algorithms to morphologically rich languages
• the design of syntactic parsers for non-rigid word order languages
• statistical issues in linguistic description

Talks and Debates

Laboratory Sessions

Besides the talks and debates scheduled above, there were permanent laboratory sessions, in which available samples of empirical data were extensively analyzed. Moreover, the effort of developing pertinent linguistic, mathematical and statistical models and tools for the issues raised by the project were continued in these sessions. Laboratory sessions included:

• Acoustic data and phonological description of Portuguese data
  Coordinators: Maria Bernadete Abaurre, Sónia Frota, Philippe Martin, Marina Nespor and Filomena Sândalo
• Computational tools and dynamical systems models in phonetics
  Coordinators: Roberto D'Autilia and Francesco Guerra
• Linguistic descriptions of Portuguese historical data
  Coordinators: Helena Britto, Charlotte Galves and Anthony Kroch
• Computational Portuguese
  Coordinators: Eckhard Bick, Marcelo Finger and Diana Santos
• Mathematical modeling of language acquisition and change
  Coordinators: Xavier Bressaud, Pierre Collet and Roberto Fernández
• Statistical tools of the project
  Coordinators: Renato Assunção and Cláudia Peixoto

The Sotaq processor, the Tycho Brahe Corpus of Historical Portuguese, and a collection of papers related to the topics of the meeting are available at the web site of the project. Samples of acoustic data will be available during the meeting.

Sponsors

The meeting has the sponsorship of the Associação Portuguesa de Linguística and of the Complexo interdisciplinar of the University of Lisbon and is supported by the Fundação para a Ciência e a Tecnologia (FCT) (Portugal).

The workshop will take place at the Complexo interdisciplinar of the University of Lisbon as an activity of the Mathematical Physics group. It is a satellite activity of ZiF's project The Sciences of Complexity and is part of the Fapesp's thematic project Rhythmic Patterns, Parameter Setting and Language Change.

The organizers express their gratitude to the agencies and laboratories which made this meeting possible by providing individual support to most foreigner participants: CNPq, FAPESP, FINEP, Universidade de S. Paulo, UNICAMP (Brazil), CNRS, Ecole Polytechnique and Université de Bourgogne (France), CNR and Università di Roma La Sapienza (Italy), Universidade de Lisboa and Fundação Gulbenkian (Portugal), Bell Labs and NSF (USA). We thank the Câmara Municipal de Cascais for inviting the participants of the meeting to visit the town

Further Information

The workshop takes place at the Complexo Interdisciplinar of the University of Lisbon, Av. Prof Gama Pinto 2, 1649-003 Lisbon, Portugal.

Related papers.

For further information please contact Antonio Galves (galves@ime.usp.br) or Sónia Frota (sonia.frota@mail.telepac.pt).