2011Q3 Reports: SIGMORPHON
2010-2011 Annual Report
SIGMORPHON (Computational Morphology, Phonology, and Phonetics)
Jason Eisner
Membership
SIGMORPHON is ACL's special interest group for computational morphology, phonology, and phonetics. Membership currently stands at 120, up from 55/73/90/96/105 in July 2006/2007/2008/2009/2010 respectively.
Workshop
We held our 11th SIG workshop at ACL 2010, with 12 of 26 submissions accepted, and 20-25 people in attendance. Interestingly, several of the submissions focused on orthographic systems, which is not part of the SIG's charter but fits well since it considers other sub-word phenomena that interact with morphology, phonology, and phonetics. The workshop also included a good discussion of directions in the field and future SIG activities.
We have customarily held workshops in even-numbered years. In keeping with this schedule, we will propose to hold our 12th SIG workshop at one of the 2012 conferences. We are currently discussing possible special themes and shared tasks.
Online Activities
sigmorphon.org serves the community by maintaining a mailing list and (outdated) online bibliographies at its website. We are considering adding some tutorial materials for newcomers to the field. We also plan to continue advertising the SIG's expanded scope in order to recruit new members to the SIG and increase discussion on its mailing list. We have begun emailing our membership to notify them of relevant new papers, starting with this highlighted ACL 2011 program.
Elections
Our current board's term will expire on February 4, 2012. In keeping with the SIG Constitution, we will hold new elections on the following schedule:
- Sunday, November 6, 2011 (or sooner): Nominations solicited
- Sunday, December 4, 2011 (or sooner): Voting opens (for any contested positions)
- Saturday, February 4, 2012: Voting closes