This book contains a selection of papers that were presented at the sixth CLIN (Computational Linguistics in the Netherlands) meeting. The meeting was held in Antwerp on December 1, 1995. It was organized under the auspices of the CLIN working group by the Center for Dutch Language and Speech of the department of Linguistics at the University of Antwerp (UIA).
The aim of the CLIN meetings is to provide a yearly opportunity for informal discussion of research in progress, mainly in the Netherlands and Belgium, although there is an increasing international participation. The keynote presentation of the meeting was delivered by Gerald Gazdar (University of Sussex, UK) who talked about a paradigm shift in computational linguistics.
In addition to the keynote lecture, there were 32 presentations. About 50 participants attended the meeting. 21 papers (a 40% increase compared to CLIN'94) were submitted for inclusion in the proceedings, which unfortunately made necessary a harsh selection. Submissions for the CLIN proceedings were peer-reviewed by the editors and for each paper one or two additional external reviewers. In case of involvement of editors in a paper, at least two external reviewers were asked to judge the paper, without involvement from the editors.
We would like to thank the people that contributed to the sixth CLIN meeting: the participants; the proceedings reviewers (Harry Bunt, Walter De Mulder, Theo Vosse, Jan Odijk, Bart Geurts, Craig Thiersch, Frank Van Eynde, Gertjan Vannoord, Anton Nijholt, Reinhard Muskens, Wilco ter Stal, Erik Sang, Khalil Sima'an, and Paola Monachesi); and the local helpers (Masja Kempen and Peter Berck). We also received generous support from the CLIN working group and from CLIF (Computational Linguistics in Flanders, the FWO research community on computational linguistics).
We are proud that the first extra muros CLIN meeting could be organized in Antwerp. UIA has a long and diverse history in Computational Linguistics, ranging from the pioneering work of Luc Steels and Koenraad De Smedt on object-oriented natural language processing in the seventies, over the work of Willy Martin's group on computational lexicology and tagging in the eighties, to the current research efforts of CNTS to apply machine learning techniques to linguistics, language technology, and cognitive modelling.
The seventh CLIN meeting will be held in Eindhoven on November 15. We are looking forward to seeing you there!
Antwerpen, September 1996
Gert Durieux, Walter Daelemans and Steven Gillis