Games and Decisions in Pragmatics

24/25 October 2003 - ZAS Berlin

Game and Decision Theory (GDT) are widely used frameworks for modelling rational interacting agents. They are natural candidates if we look for a foundation of linguistic pragmatics. Recently there has been some progress in applying game and decision theory to problems related e.g. to bidirectional optimality theory (OT), Griceian pragmatics and extensions of dynamic semantics (questions, presuppositions). This workshop offers an opportunity for discussing possibilities and limits of game and decision theory in linguistics. We welcome contributions which (a) show new applications of GDT in semantics, discourse analysis, dialogue theory, language evolution and diachronic aspects; or (b) discuss GDT as foundation for approaches like:

Optimality Theory
Radical Pragmatics
Relevance Theory
Speech Act Theory

Submissions related to other topics will be considered, including computational models of GDT in pragmatics.

Invited Speakers

Nicholas Asher (Austin, Texas)
Prashant Parikh (Philadelphia)
Robert van Rooy (Amsterdam)

Submissions

Authors should submit an anonymous abstract. The length of abstracts for talks should be at most 3 single-column pages including literature. All submissions should also include a separate cover page specifying the authors' names, affiliation, address, e-mail address and title of the paper.
The abstracts should be submitted electronically (preferably pdf, dvi or .doc format) to: benz@zas.gwz-berlin.de

Important Dates

1. September 2003: Deadline for Submission
21. September 2003: Notification of Acceptance
24/25 October 2003: Conference

Reviewing Board

(to be updated)

Nicholas Asher (Austin, Texas)
Anton Benz (Berlin)
Gerhard Jäger (Potsdam)
Yukiko Morimoto (Berlin)
Prashant Parikh (Philadelphia)
Klaus Robering (Kolding)
Robert van Rooy (Amsterdam)

Organization

Hosted by the ZAS Berlin
Organised by Anton Benz and the Optimality Theory Project at ZAS
Contact