linguistlist.org>
Editor for this issue: Sarah Murray <sarahlinguistlist.org>
essex.ac.uk>University or Organization: University of Essex Department: Computer Science Rank of Job: Researcher Specialty Areas: Computational Linguistics, Underspecification Anaphora Semantics Corpus Ling Description: RESEARCH POSITION IN UNDERSPECIFICATION AND ANAPHORA Applications are invited for a three year Senior Research Officer (RAIA) position at the Department of Computer Science, University of Essex. The successful applicant will participate to ARRAU (AnaphoRa Resolution And Underspecification), a joint project directed by Massimo Poesio (University of Essex, Computer Science and Cognitive Science), and Tony Sanford and Patrick Sturt (University of Glasgow, Psychology) and funded by the EPSRC. The goal of the project is to study ''difficult'' cases of anaphora resolution - reference to plurals, events, and other abstract objects - using a combination of corpus annotation, computational modeling, and psychological experimentation. One of the project's goals will be to carry out an investigation of cases of anaphoric reference in which the anaphoric expression does not have a clear antecedent, trying also to determine whether the identification of such an antecedent is necessary for understanding. These questions are related to an issue of more general theoretical interest, the role of underspecification in semantics; we expect the project to contribute to our understanding of this more general issue, as well. A second goal of the project will be to produce an annotated corpus that can be used to develop and evaluate algorithms for resolving such 'difficult' anaphoric references. A third goal is to take advantage of the results of the empirical analysis to modify an anaphora resolution system under development at the University of Essex. The participants in the project are an interdisciplinary team of psycholinguists and computational linguists. Both universities offer excellent environments for this kind of research; information about current projects and other activities at the two locations can be found at the websites http://www.cs.essex.ac.uk/LAC and http://www.psy.gla.ac.uk/. The researcher in Essex will be responsible for the corpus annotation activity, including adapting existing annotation tools for the purpose, and for incorporating the findings of the project into an anaphora resolution system. The ideal candidate would have an excellent background in computational linguistics (a PhD from a Computer Science or Linguistics department would be desirable, but candidates with equivalent experience in one of the relevant areas will be considered). The candidate should be familiar with formal semantics, have experience with directing corpus annotation projects and with corpus annotation tools, and would have been involved in the development of robust NLP systems. Experience with anaphora resolution, underspecification, and collaboration with psycholinguists would be advantages, as would be a good working knowledge of Java. The successful candidate should also be creative, have good problem-solving skills, and be willing to get involved in the activities of our research group. Appointment to this fixed-term post will commence on April 1st 2004 or as soon as possible thereafter, for a period of three years (36 months). The starting salary will be in the range of 20311 - 22191 GBP per annum (at Dec 22nd's rate, this translates to between Euro 28786 / US $ 35788 and Euro 31450 / US $ 39101 - we cannot of course predict the value at the time of taking the post). Informal enquiries for the position in Essex can be made to Massimo Poesio (telephone: +44-1206 872686, e-mail poesioMail to author|Respond to list|Read more issues|LINGUIST home page|Top of issue