12th European Summer School in
Logic, Language and Information
The University of Birmingham, England
6-18 August 2000

ESSLLI-2000 Programme

Language

Foundational

• Syntax in Categorical Grammar: An Introduction for Linguists (Mary McGee Wood)

Introductory

• Introduction to the Optimality Theory (Gisbert Fanselow, Caroline Féry)
• Presupposition (Bart Geurts)
• Varieties of Anaphora (Emiel Krahmer, Paul Piwek)

Advanced

• A Comparison of LFG and HPSG (Valia Kordoni)
• Polarity Phenomena in Natural Language (Anastasia Giannakidou)
• Dependency Grammar (Dick Hudson)

Workshop

• Paths and telicity in event structure (Hana Filip, Greg Carlson)

Logic

Foundational

• Proof Systems for All - A Vade Mecum (Krysia Broda)

Introductory

• Logic and Games (Johan van Benthem, Marc Pauly)
• Introduction to paraconsistent logic (Jean-Yves Béziau)
• Decidable fragments of first order logic and itemize logics (Yde Venema, Maarten Marx)

Advanced

• Logics for Topological Reasoning (Ian Pratt-Hartmann, Brandon Bennett)
• Abduction (John Woods, Dov Gabbay)
• Finite Model Theory (Anuj Dawar)

Workshop

• Hybrid Logics (Bringing Them All Together) (Carlos Areces, Patrick Blackburn)

Computation

Foundational

• Mathematical Tools for Domain Theory (Drew Moshier)

Introductory

• Computability and Complexity from a Programming Perspective (Neil D. Jones)
• Formal Grammars (Carlos Mart�¡n-Vide)
• Lambda Calculus: A Case for Inductive Definitions (Ralph Matthes)

Advanced

• Type systems for polynomial time (Martin Hofmann)
• Automatic Derivation of Logic Programs via Transformations (Alberto Pettorossi, Maurizio Proietti)
• Human-Oriented Mechanised Mathematical Reasoning (Mateja Jamnik, Manfred Kerber)

Workshop

• Integrating Information from Different Channels in Multi-Media-Contexts (Kenneth Holmqvist, Peter Kühnlein, Hannes Rieser)

Logic and Language

Foundational

• The Logic of Categorial Grammar: an Introduction to Natural Language Structures for Logicians and Computer Scientists (Christian Retoré)

Introductory

• Linear Logic for Linguists (Dick Crouch, Josef van Genabith)
• Partiality, Paradoxes, and Reasoning (Manfred Kerber)
• Dynamic Syntax (Ruth Kempson, Wilfried Meyer-Viol)

Advanced

• Contexts and contextual reasoning: foundations, logics and applications (Paolo Bouquet, Luciano Serafini)
• Intensionality (Fritz Hamm, Reinhard Kahle)
• Context dependence and Dynamics (Robert van Rooy, Thomas Ede Zimmermann)

Workshop

• Trees in logic, computer science and linguistics (Valentin Goranko)

Language and Computation

Foundational

• Automated Reasoning for Linguists (Christof Monz, Geert-Jan M. Kruijff)

Introductory

• Inductive Logic Programming for Learning Language in Logic (Stephen Muggleton, James Cussens)
• Architectures for intelligent language users (Aaron Sloman)
• An Introduction to Grammar Engineering using HPSG (Ann Copestake, Rob Malouf)

Advanced

• Word Sense Disambiguation (Bob Krovetz)
• Constraints and NLP (Denys Duchier)
• Advanced Grammar Engineering using HPSG (Dan Flickinger, Stephan Oepen)

Workshop

• Linguistic Theory and Grammar Implementation (Erhard Hinrichs, Detmar Meurers, Shuly Wintner)

Computation and Logic

Foundational

• From machine learning to Inductive Logic Programming: ILP made easy (Hendrik Blockeel)

Introductory

• Temporal logics of computations (Valentin Goranko)
• An introduction to interactive theorem proving (Sara Kalvala, Mike Squire)
• Semantics of Logic Programs and Non-monotonic Reasoning (José Júlio Alferes, David Pearce)

Advanced

• Verification of Systems by Model Checking (Mark Ryan, Marta Kwiatkowska)
• Metric and Layered Temporal Logics for Time Granularity (Angelo Montanari, Alberto Policriti)
• Logic and Databases (Andrei Voronkov)

Workshop

• Many-dimensional logical systems (Agnes Kurucz, Frank Wolter, and Michael Zakharyaschev)

More than 300 people turned up for the ESSLLI 2000 School. Most of them were students from different countries in Europe. I spotted one student each from Brazil, South Africa, Japan and the UAE. I was the only Indian (apart from UK residents, of course).

As you can see from the programme above, the school was divided into six categories, all of which ran in parallel in 90-minute lectures running from 9 to 6:30 every day (with a break in the afternoon). In each category, the material was developed from really introductory stuff to advanced workshops on quite technical topics. The faculty ranged from reputed people like John Woods and Dov Gabbay to less known (but excellent) teachers like Anuj Dawar, Yde Venema and Maarten Marx.

Let me just give an idea of how these went. Woods and Gabbay talked about abduction, which studies when, given a database $D$ and a conclusion $C$, one can add a hypothesis $H$ so that $D \cup \{H\} \vdash C$. The material was treated both from the philosophical angle (mostly by Woods) and from the AI one (mostly by Gabbay).

Venema and Marx spoke on decidability in modal and first order logic. Most logic textbooks present the subject as a ragbag of techniques. The authors presented the general technique of mosaics, originating from algebraic logic. They showed how it can be applied to modal logics, and also how it feeds back to prove decidability of fragments of first order logic.

Dawar spoke on finite model theory. Unfortunately, he was parallel to Venema and Marx, so I could not attend his lectures. Those who attended told me they were excellent.

Every set of lectures was accompanied by course notes, and some of the workshops distributed copies of the speakers' transparencies. For instance, the Abduction lectures were accompanied by a draft of the speakers' forthcoming book.

Accommodation was in flats with individual rooms and shared facilities (including a kitchen), which I found quite comfortable. When you reached Birmingham, got your key from the security and reached your room, you found there a little paper bag containing an apple, cookies, tea bags and coffee: this nice touch exemplifies the care that the organizers took.

The University campus is outside the city of Birmingham, quite near Edgbaston (which might be familiar to cricket lovers). Unlike in Indian meetings, food was left to the participants. Lunch was usually in the 2-3 cafeterias in the University, but for dinner one had the option of cooking or going for a longish walk to pubs and restaurants in nearby villages. On both Fridays, there were parties to let your hair down. The last one even had a live band.

In brief, it was just the kind of meeting which might inspire a young student to venture into research in logic, language or computing. That was the purpose of the School.

ESSLLI 2001 will take place in Helsinki from 13-24 August 2001. The preliminary programme of courses and workshops is now available on the ESSLLI'01 website, http://www.helsinki.fi/esslli/

Kamal Lodaya kamal@imsc.ernet.in
IMSc, Chennai