Workshop on formal frame theories

Forschergruppe Funktionalbegriffe und Frames,
Heinrich-Heine-Universität Düsseldorf, June 25.-26. 2010

Frames, or similar conceptions like schemes or feature structures,
yield a general and flexible approach to concept decomposition. At
their core, frames are recursive attribute-value structures. This
makes them interesting for models of mental representation. Thus, when
frames were first introduced, as by Minsky and Barsalou, the aim was
towards cognition. The frame approach allows to switch from seeing
concepts as atomic units to modeling them as structures. With the
focus on cognition, the first approaches did not establish a
completely formalized theory of frames. Over time, several formal
approaches to frames have been developed, foremost those under the
name of feature structures. With the focus on formalization, they
concentrated on simple, static frames that can ideally be represented
by tree-like structures. Representing relational concepts or dynamic
and cognitive aspects was not on their agenda. In our workshop, we aim
to close this gap. We will discuss what kind of extensions and
modifications should be incorporated in formal frame theories to make
them fit to model relationality or temporal and causal dynamics.

June 25.-26. 2010, Heinrich-Heine University Düsseldorf, Germany, Forschungszentrum der Philosophischen Fakultät, Raum 23.21 00.44B


Program:

Friday, 25.6.:
11:30-13:00
Wiebke Petersen (University of Düsseldorf): Approaches to a formal frame theory

13:00-14:00         Lunch

14:00-16:00
Rafal Urbaniak (University of Gdansk/ Ghent): Similarity and Frames

16:00-17:00
Ralf Naumann (University of Düsseldorf): tba

17:00-18:00
Christof Rumpf (University of Düsseldorf): Default-inheritance in
constrained-based frameworks

Saturday, 26.6.:

10:00-12:00
Frank Richter (University of Tübingen): What is a Feature Structure, and what does it mean?

12:00-13:30
Tanja Osswald (University of Düsseldorf): Frames in the
lambda-Calculus and Frame Composition

13:30-14:30      Lunch

14:30-16:00
Rainer Osswald (University of Düsseldorf): On the Logic and Denotation of Type Hierarchies and Attribute-Value Descriptions

16:00 -17:00
closing discussion


Registration:
Participation is free. Please register at tosswald@phil-fak.uni-duesseldorf.de

contact and coordination:
Wiebke Petersen, Computerlinguistik, Universität Düsseldorf,
wiebke.petersen@uni-duesseldorf.de
Tanja Osswald, allgemeine Sprachwissenschaft, Universität Düsseldorf,
tosswald@phil-fak.uni-duesseldorf.de