Ambigo: Workshop on Ambiguity – Theory, Development, and Processing will take place at the University of Göttingen on 4–6 July 2018.

Workshop website: https://www.uni-goettingen.de/en/583801.html

Ambiguity, defined as the property enjoyed by words and utterances that bear multiple interpretations, is pervasive in natural languages. The way in which human cognitive and linguistic systems deal with ambiguity has been an object of study for centuries by philosophers, linguists, psychologists and cognitive scientists.

The aim of the current workshop is to discuss this topic at three different levels:

• Theory: how theoretical accounts speak of the issue of how to relate different meanings of words/utterances to multiple underlying representations of that word/utterance.
• Development: how language learners cope with ambiguity, how they are able to acquire the meaning and the use of words and utterances that are represented by more than one structure or representation, or that perform several linguistic functions
• Processing: how ambiguous words and utterances are processed by the cognitive system and in the brain, and how ambiguity resolution takes place in real time

We therefore invite the submission of abstracts that investigate ambiguity phenomena in natural language, with specific focus on – but not limited to – lexical ambiguity, structural/syntactic ambiguity, semantic/pragmatic ambiguity, temporary ambiguity and resolution.

Keynote Speakers:

• Gennaro Chierchia, Harvard University, Boston, MA, USA
• Stephen Crain, Macquarie University, Sydney, Australia
• Rosalind Thornton, Macquarie Univesity, Sydney, Australia
• Lyn Tieu, Western Sydney University, Australia
• Jacopo Romoli, Ulster University, Belfast, Northern Ireland
• Clemens Mayr, ZAS Berlin, Germany
• Jing Lin, Leiden University, Netherlands

Call for papers:

We encourage submission of theoretical or empirical works investigating – but not limited to – the following topics: lexical ambiguity (homonymy, polysemy), structural/syntactic ambiguity (scope ambiguity, phrase attachment ambiguity), semantic/pragmatic ambiguity (interpretation and scope of logical operators, implicatures, speech acts), temporary ambiguity (garden paths, reference resolution).

Abstracts must be anonymous and be written in 12pt font. The main text should be at most 2 pages (US Letter or A4) in length with an optional third page for pictures, graphs, examples and references. We welcome oral presentation (30 mins plus 15 mins for discussion) and poster presentations.

The extended deadline for applications is due to the 28st of April. Notification of acceptance will be due to the 7th of May.