UNL Series

The UNL Series is a set of publications addressing technical issues of the UNL. The first volume of the UNL Series, to be released in May 2013, is dedicated to the lexical aspects of the UNL.

Deadline

February 15th, 2013.

Call for Papers

In order to organize the discussion about the necessary changes and updates to the present specifications of the UNL, the UNDL Foundation set a three-chapter dialogue with the UNL Community and other researchers. Each chapter includes a panel and a publication, which will serve as a guide to the UNDL Foundation in the process of revising and enhancing the UNL. The first chapter is dedicated to the lexical aspects of the UNL. This was the object of the I UNL Panel, which took place in Mumbai on Dec 15th, as an associated event to Coling 2012, and this is now the object of the first volume of UNL Series, to be published next May, and for which we request contributions in the form of papers addressing any or all the questions referred to below:

• What is to be considered a "Universal Word"?
• Which named entities should be introduced in the dictionary of UW's, if any?
• UW's must correspond to roots, to stems or to word forms?
• Antonyms should be represented as a single UW or as different UW's?
• When a multiword expression must be represented as a UW?

These topics illustrate theoretical and practical issues concerning UW's and have been receiving several different possible answers inside the UNL Community. The main goal of this first volume of the UNL Series is to discuss which answers would be more appropriate and feasible, considering the nature and role of the UNL, and the state of the art of the theory and technology on natural language processing. Participants may discuss particular cases as starting points for their presentations, but we would expect them to suggest some general procedures to be adopted, which could either confirm or deny our current practices, which have been object of revision. Participants should understand, however, that only the structure of UNL is under discussion. The commitments, assumptions and properties of the UNL, which are the keystones of the language, should be taken for granted, and are expected to be used as the general framework for all answers.

The specialists are requested to explain their positions in a paper in a question-answer format, with 5 to 30 pages, according to the instructions below. The participation is open to the whole community, including those that are not registered at the www.unlweb.net or that did not participate in the I UNL Panel. The draft version of the papers should be sent to r.martins@undlfoundation.org before February 15th, 2013, and will be reviewed by the editors, which will select the best papers for publication in a book planned to be released by May 2013.

Structure (tentative)

I.Introduction
II.First Part (invited papers from the participants of the I UNL Panel)

Sameh ALANSARY (University of Alexandria, Library of Alexandria)

Pushpak BHATTACHARYYA (IIT-Bombay)

Igor BOGUSLAVSKY(Universidad Politécnica de Madrid/Institute for Information Transmission Problems, Russian Academy of Sciences)

Nicoletta CALZOLARI (Istituto di Linguistica Computazionale Antonio Zampolli, Pisa)

Mike DILLINGER (eBay)

Eric WEHRLI (Université de Genève)

III.Second Part (selected papers from the open Call for Papers)

Instructions to authors

The paper must be submitted to r.martins@undlfoundation.org before February 15th, 2013.

• Format: .docx, .doc, .rtf or .odt
• Length: from 5 to 30 pages
• Page: A4 with margins of 2.5 cm.
• Title: Times 16, centralized. Each paper must have its own title (do not use "Lexical Aspects of UNL", "I UNL Panel" or other very general titles)
• Authors: Times 14, centralized, two lines after the title, separated by comma (in case of more than one author)
• Authors' afiliation: Footnote
• Abstract (from 150 to 250 words): Times 12, two lines after the authors
• Headings: Times 14, justified, numbered (1, 1.1, 1.1.1), with an extra line before each heading
• Body: Times 12, justified, single spacing, indentation of 1.25 cm in the first line of each paragraph
• Footnotes: Times 10, justified, single spacing. Use footnotes instead of end notes. Footnotes should not contain figures, tables and/or the bibliographic details of a reference.
• Tables and figures should have a number and a caption. Do not use color.
• Citations: use the Harvard System. For instance: Redman (2006, p.22) or (Redman, 2006, p.22)
• References: use the Harvard System. For instance: Redman, P., 2006. Good essay writing: a social sciences guide. 3rd ed. London: Open University.

Additional material

• Commitments, assumptions and properties of the UNL (to be used as the background for the discussion)
• Universal Words (current position on the UW's, to be criticized, if necessary)
• I UNL Panel (material of the I UNL Panel, including the presentations and the practical questions that were addressed by the participants)