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Call for Papers: AMTA 2016 Workshop on Semitic Machine Translation (SeMaT), Collocated with EMNLP-2016
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Semitic languages are used by a significantly large population of native speakers and belong to a family that includes classical Arabic, a large number of Arabic dialects, Hebrew, Amharic, Maltese and other languages. These languages are characterized by a system of word formation based on roots and patterns, a rich and productive morphology (including non-concatenative processes), a diversity of orthographic conventions and, unfortunately, limited language resources suitable for computational research and development.

Research on machine translation of Semitic languages is still in its early stages. Accurate translation of Arabic, Hebrew, Amharic, Maltese and other Semitic languages requires treatment of unique linguistic characteristics, some of which are common to all Semitic languages, others specific to each of these individual languages and their dialects.

The goal of this workshop is to bring together researchers and research specifically concerned with issues pertaining to machine translation to, from, and among Semitic languages. Furthermore, the workshop will be an opportunity for the Special Interest Group on Computational Approaches to Semitic Languages (the SIG) to meet and discuss future direction in Computational Linguistics and Natural Language Processing approaches to Semitic Languages.

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Important Dates
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Submission (DEADLINE EXTENDED): August 28th, 2016 (11:59pm PDT)
Notification for acceptance: September 12th, 2016
Camera ready paper submission: September 19th, 2016

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Paper Submission Instructions
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Submission Types:
There are two possible submissions types:
Long papers (8 pages + 2 pages for references)
Short papers (4pages + 2 pages for references)

Blind Reviewing Policy:
The workshop follows a blind reviewing policy. The authors should omit their names and affiliations from the paper and avoid self-references that reveal their identity. Papers that do not conform to these requirements will be rejected without review.

Submission Format:
All submissions must be electronic in PDF and must be formatted using the EMNLP 2016 style files available at http://www.emnlp2016.net/submissions.html

Submission Site:
Papers should be submitted via the START Conference Manager at :
https://www.softconf.com/amta2016/SeMaT2016/

Multiple Submission Policy:
Papers that have been or will be submitted to other meetings or publications must indicate this at submission time. Authors must inform organizers immediately once a paper is to be withdrawn from the workshop for any reason. Attempting to publish the same paper or with a large overlap (50%) may lead to rejection of the paper even after an acceptance notification have gone out.

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Workshop Organizers
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Mona Diab, GWU
Mahmoud Ghoneim, GWU
Houda Bouamor, CMU-Qatar
Ahmed Elkholy, Microsoft
Yuval Marton, Microsoft

For more information, please visit the workshop webpage (https://semitic-mt.seas.gwu.edu)