Implicit learning of recursive context-free grammars

Context-free grammars are fundamental for the description of linguistic syntax. However, most artificial grammar learning experiments have explored learning of simpler finite-state grammars, while studies exploring context-free grammars have not assessed awareness and implicitness. This paper explores the implicit learning of context-free grammars employing features of hierarchical organization, recursive embedding and long-distance dependencies. The grammars also featured the distinction between left- and right-branching structures, as well as between centre- and tail-embedding, both distinctions found in natural languages. People acquired unconscious knowledge of relations between grammatical classes even for dependencies over long distances, in ways that went beyond learning simpler relations (e.g. n-grams) between individual words. The structural distinctions drawn from linguistics also proved important as performance was greater for tail-embedding than centre-embedding structures. The results suggest the plausibility of implicit learning of complex context-free structures, which model some features of natural languages. They support the relevance of artificial grammar learning for probing mechanisms of language learning and challenge existing theories and computational models of implicit learning

Unsupervised Extraction of Representative Concepts from Scientific Literature

This paper studies the automated categorization and extraction of scientific concepts from titles of scientific articles, in order to gain a deeper understanding of their key contributions and facilitate the construction of a generic academic knowledgebase. Towards this goal, we propose an unsupervised, domain-independent, and scalable two-phase algorithm to type and extract key concept mentions into aspects of interest (e.g., Techniques, Applications, etc.). In the first phase of our algorithm we propose PhraseType, a probabilistic generative model which exploits textual features and limited POS tags to broadly segment text snippets into aspect-typed phrases. We extend this model to simultaneously learn aspect-specific features and identify academic domains in multi-domain corpora, since the two tasks mutually enhance each other. In the second phase, we propose an approach based on adaptor grammars to extract fine grained concept mentions from the aspect-typed phrases without the need for any external resources or human effort, in a purely data-driven manner. We apply our technique to study literature from diverse scientific domains and show significant gains over state-of-the-art concept extraction techniques. We also present a qualitative analysis of the results obtained.Comment: Published as a conference paper at CIKM 201

Developmental changes in the role of different metalinguistic awareness skills in Chinese reading acquisition from preschool to third grade

Copyright @ 2014 Wei et al. This is an open-access article distributed under the terms of the Creative Commons Attribution License, which permits unrestricted use, distribution, and reproduction in any medium, provided the original author and source are credited.The present study investigated the relationship between Chinese reading skills and metalinguistic awareness skills such as phonological, morphological, and orthographic awareness for 101 Preschool, 94 Grade-1, 98 Grade-2, and 98 Grade-3 children from two primary schools in Mainland China. The aim of the study was to examine how each of these metalinguistic awareness skills would exert their influence on the success of reading in Chinese with age. The results showed that all three metalinguistic awareness skills significantly predicted reading success. It further revealed that orthographic awareness played a dominant role in the early stages of reading acquisition, and its influence decreased with age, while the opposite was true for the contribution of morphological awareness. The results were in stark contrast with studies in English, where phonological awareness is typically shown as the single most potent metalinguistic awareness factor in literacy acquisition. In order to account for the current data, a three-stage model of reading acquisition in Chinese is discussed.National Natural Science Foundation of China and Knowledge Innovation Program of the Chinese Academy of Sciences

Producing power-law distributions and damping word frequencies with two-stage language models

Standard statistical models of language fail to capture one of the most striking properties of natural languages: the power-law distribution in the frequencies of word tokens. We present a framework for developing statisticalmodels that can generically produce power laws, breaking generativemodels into two stages. The first stage, the generator, can be any standard probabilistic model, while the second stage, the adaptor, transforms the word frequencies of this model to provide a closer match to natural language. We show that two commonly used Bayesian models, the Dirichlet-multinomial model and the Dirichlet process, can be viewed as special cases of our framework. We discuss two stochastic processes-the Chinese restaurant process and its two-parameter generalization based on the Pitman-Yor process-that can be used as adaptors in our framework to produce power-law distributions over word frequencies. We show that these adaptors justify common estimation procedures based on logarithmic or inverse-power transformations of empirical frequencies. In addition, taking the Pitman-Yor Chinese restaurant process as an adaptor justifies the appearance of type frequencies in formal analyses of natural language and improves the performance of a model for unsupervised learning of morphology.48 page(s

Longitudinal effects of task performance and self-concept on preadolescent EFL learners’ causal attributions of grammar success and failure

Learners’ academic self-concepts and attributions have been widely evidenced to substantially regulate their educational development. Develop­men­tally, they will not only oper­ate in a mu­tually reinforcing manner. Rather, self-concepts will di­­­­rectly affect learners’ out­come attri­bu­­tions in a particular academic set­ting. Current research in the English as a foreign language (EFL) context has increasingly anal­­yzed learners’ attributions and self-concepts on a task-spe­­cific construct level. Never­the­less, there still exist certain research gaps in the field, partic­ularly con­cerning learners’ gram­mar self-con­cept and attributions. There­fore, the present study aimed at anal­yzing lon­gi­tu­dinal re­­lat­ions of prior performance and self-concept with subsequent attri­bu­tions of gram­mar suc­cess and failure in a samp­le of preadolescent EFL learners. Findings demonstrated that attri­bu­tional pat­terns most­­­­ly but not en­tire­ly depended on learn­ers’ grammar self-concept. Poor per­­form­ing learn­ers hold­ing a low self-concept dis­­played a maladaptive attri­bu­tion pattern for ex­­plain­ing both gram­­­mar suc­cess and failure. Though not with respect to all causal factors, these findings largely con­firm the crucial role of task-spe­cific self-concept in longitudinally explaining re­­lated control beliefs in the EFL con­text

JAVANESE CULTURE DEPICTED IN THE USE OF KINSHIP ADDRESS TERMS

The Javanese system of kinship terms of address relies tightly on its social construction mirroring not only culture but also point of view of the Javanese people. It is undeniable that the society has long been structured vertically hierarchical. There is always upper to lower social relationship among social practices. Hence it is manifested in the form of Javanese speech levels illustrating that a speaker should consider both role and circumstance. The levels of speech presumably fall into some smaller linguistic features, one of which is address term particularly maintaining kinship relationship. Javanese culture considers ascending generation as the polar asserting that father’s/mother’s big brothers/sisters, father’s/mother’s big brother’s/sister’s sons/daughters, father’s/mother’s big brother’s/sister’s son’s/daughter’s sons/daughters would be addressed as all terms equivalent to big or older sibling

Effective strategy groups used by readers of Chinese as a foreign language

Second language (L2) reading research suggests that successful reading comprehension usually involves a repertoire of strategies. Although Chinese is considered to be a challenging language for foreign language readers, thus far, few studies have investigated how strategies are orchestrated by readers of Chinese as a foreign language (CFL) to enhance comprehension. This study investigated how L2 Chinese readers grouped multiple strategies to comprehend a Chinese text. Through think-aloud and recall protocols, observations, and interviews, it identified several strategy clusters and pairs that helped adult CFL readers to infer words, monitor comprehension, and segment words successfully. It also revealed interrelations between and among strategies within each cluster and pair. The results showed that successful use of strategies in CFL reading usually involves context and multiple linguistic cues. In addition, vocabulary and grammar knowledge play important roles in CFL readers’ use of reading strategies