Proceedings of the 4th International Workshop on Constraints and Language Processing, CSLP 2007

The present volume contains the proceedings of CSLP 2007, the 4th International Workshop on Constraints and Language Processing which takes place in Roskilde, Denmark, on 20 August, 2007. CSLP 2007 is a�liated with Context07: Sixth International and Interdisciplinary Conference on Modeling and Using Context. We would like to thank the organizers of Context07, especially its workshop chair Stefan Schulz, for hosting the workshop. Constraints are widely used in linguistics, computer science, and psychology. How they are used, however, varies widely according to the research domain: knowledge representation, cognitive modelling, problem solving mechanisms, etc. These different perspectives are complementary, each one adding a piece to the puzzle. For example, linguistics proposes in-depth descriptions implementing constraints in order to filter out structures by means of description languages, constraint ranking, etc. The constraint programming paradigm, on the other hand, shows that constraints have to be taken as a systematic whole and can thus play a role in building the structures (or can even replace structures). Finally, psycholinguistics investigates the role of constraint systems for cognitive processes in comprehension and production as well as addressing how they can be acquired. The CSLP@Context07 workshop considers the role of constraints in the representation of language and the implementation of language processing. This theme should be interpreted inclusively: contributions from linguistics, computer science, psycholinguistics and related areas are welcome, and an interdisciplinary perspective is of particular interest. The collocation with the Context07 conference underlines the application of constraints for context comprehension and discourse modelling. We are honoured to present our invited speaker, Annelies Braffort, who will talk on the modelling of spatio-temporal constraints in sign language processing. We will also express a special thanks to Barbara Hemforth who accepted to send us a late paper which emphasizes the importance of the psycholinguistic dimension in this research. This volume contains papers accepted for the workshop based on an open call, and each paper has been reviewed by three or four members of the program committee. As editors, we would also like to thank the other members of the organization committee, Philippe Blache and Veronica Dahl, whose involvement has been important for the establishment of the forum around the CSLP workshops. Revised papers from the 1st CSLP were published as Springer Lecture Notes in Artificial Intelligence (volume 3438). We want to thank the program committee listed below, the invited speaker, and all researchers who submitted papers to the workshop and all participants in the CSLP workshops 2004 (Roskilde, Denmark), 2005 (Sitges, Spain; with ICLP), 2006 (Sydney, Australia; with COLING/ACL) and 2007, once again in Roskilde a�liated with CONTEXT. We expect to continue the CSLP series, which to us is a stimulating research forum concerning an important, interdisciplinary field, possibly locating with central conferences for an increased exchange of knowledge. The workshop is supported by the CONTROL pro ject, CONstraint based Tools for RObust Language processing, funded by the Danish Natural Science Research Council, and the Programming, Logic and Intelligent Systems Research Group & the Department of Communication, Business and Information Technologies, Roskilde University, Denmark. Finally we dedicate this volume to Peter Rossen Skadhauge, who sadly and unexpectedly passed away last year. He has been a member of the program committee for the previous CSLP workshops and co-editor of the mentioned LNAI volume. We will miss Peter personally as well as for his contribution to the CSLP workshop series.

Roskilde, July 2007

Henning Christiansen
Jørgen Villadsen