53,257 research outputs found
Information structure in linguistic theory and in speech production : validation of a cross-linguistic data set
The aim of this paper is to validate a dataset collected by means of production experiments which are part of the Questionnaire on Information Structure. The experiments generate a range of information structure contexts that have been observed in the literature to induce specific constructions. This paper compares the speech production results from a subset of these experiments with specific claims about the reflexes of information structure in four different languages. The results allow us to evaluate and in most cases validate the efficacy of our elicitation paradigms, to identify potentially fruitful avenues of future research, and to highlight issues involved in interpreting speech production data of this kind
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Simulating the referential properties of Dutch, German and English Root Infinitives in MOSAIC
Children learning many languages go through an Optional Infinitive stage in which they produce non-finite verb forms in contexts in which a finite verb form is required (e.g. âThat go thereâ instead of âThat goes thereâ). MOSAIC (Model of Syntax Acquisition in Children) is a computational model of language learning that successfully simulates the developmental patterning of the Optional Infinitive (OI) phenomenon in English, Dutch, German and Spanish (Freudenthal, Pine, Aguado-Orea & Gobet, 2007). In the present study, MOSAIC is applied to the simulation of certain subtle but theoretically important phenomena in the cross-linguistic patterning of the OI phenomenon that are typically assumed to require a more complex formal analysis. MOSAIC is shown to successfully simulate 1) The Modal Reference Effect: the finding that Dutch and German children tend to use Root Infinitives in modal contexts, 2) The Eventivity constraint: the finding that Dutch and German Root Infinitives refer predominantly to actions rather than static situations, and 3) The absence or reduced size of these effects in English. These results provide strong support for input-driven explanations of the Modal Reference Effect as well as MOSAICâs mechanism for producing Root Infinitives, and the wider claim that it is possible to explain key aspects of childrenâs early multi-word speech in terms of the interaction between a resource-limited distributional learning mechanism and the surface properties of the language to which children are exposed
A Data-Oriented Approach to Semantic Interpretation
In Data-Oriented Parsing (DOP), an annotated language corpus is used as a
stochastic grammar. The most probable analysis of a new input sentence is
constructed by combining sub-analyses from the corpus in the most probable way.
This approach has been succesfully used for syntactic analysis, using corpora
with syntactic annotations such as the Penn Treebank. If a corpus with
semantically annotated sentences is used, the same approach can also generate
the most probable semantic interpretation of an input sentence. The present
paper explains this semantic interpretation method, and summarizes the results
of a preliminary experiment. Semantic annotations were added to the syntactic
annotations of most of the sentences of the ATIS corpus. A data-oriented
semantic interpretation algorithm was succesfully tested on this semantically
enriched corpus.Comment: 10 pages, Postscript; to appear in Proceedings Workshop on
Corpus-Oriented Semantic Analysis, ECAI-96, Budapes
Estimating Performance of Pipelined Spoken Language Translation Systems
Most spoken language translation systems developed to date rely on a
pipelined architecture, in which the main stages are speech recognition,
linguistic analysis, transfer, generation and speech synthesis. When making
projections of error rates for systems of this kind, it is natural to assume
that the error rates for the individual components are independent, making the
system accuracy the product of the component accuracies.
The paper reports experiments carried out using the SRI-SICS-Telia Research
Spoken Language Translator and a 1000-utterance sample of unseen data. The
results suggest that the naive performance model leads to serious overestimates
of system error rates, since there are in fact strong dependencies between the
components. Predicting the system error rate on the independence assumption by
simple multiplication resulted in a 16\% proportional overestimate for all
utterances, and a 19\% overestimate when only utterances of length 1-10 words
were considered.Comment: 10 pages, Latex source. To appear in Proc. ICSLP '9
Quantity superlatives in Germanic, or, âLife on the fault line between adjective and determiner'
This paper concerns the superlative forms of the words many, much, few, and little, and their equivalents in other Germanic languages (German, Dutch, Swedish, Norwegian, Danish, Dalecarlian, Icelandic, and Faroese). It demonstrates that every possible relationship between definiteness and interpretation is attested. It also demonstrates that agreement mismatches are found with relative readings and with proportional readings, but different kinds of agreement mismatches in each case. One consistent pattern is that a quantity superlative with adverbial morphology and neuter singular agreement features is used with relative superlatives. On the other hand, quantity superlatives with proportional readings always agree in number. I conclude that quantity superlatives are not structurally analogous to quality superlatives on either relative or proportional readings, but they depart from a plain attributive structure in different ways. On relative readings they can be akin to pseudopartitives (as in a cup of tea), while proportional readings are more closely related to partitives (as in a piece of the cake). More specifically, I suggest that the agreement features of a superlative exhibits depend on the domain from which the target is drawn (the target-domain hypothesis). When the target is a degree, as it is with adverbial superlatives and certain relative superlatives, default neuter singular emerges. Definiteness there is driven by the same process that drives definiteness with adverbial superlatives. With proportional readings, the target argument of the superlative is a subpart or subset of the domain indicated by the substance noun, hence number agreement. Subtle aspects of how the comparison class and the superlative marker are construed determine definiteness for proportional readings.http://eecoppock.info/germanic.pdfAccepted manuscrip
Owning Heller
Recent historical research using big-data techniques casts doubt on whether District of Columbia v. Heller was rightly decided according to originalist methods. These new discoveries put originalists in a bind. Do they embrace âfaint heartedâ originalism: the idea that as between the need for stability in prior decision making, settled expectations, and the coherence of the law, some adulterated decisions must remain enforced for the greater good? Or do they follow Justice Thomasâs reasoning in Gamble v. United States, remain stout-hearted, and reject any prior decision that cannot be supported by the common linguistic usage of the founding era â even if that means rejecting Heller? One thing this new research makes abundantly clear: the Second Amendment is in the Courtâs hands. How it developsâfor good or illâwill be a function solely of the wisdom with which the Court articulates its mandates
Owning Heller
Recent historical research using big-data techniques casts doubt on whether District of Columbia v. Heller was rightly decided according to originalist methods. These new discoveries put originalists in a bind. Do they embrace âfaint heartedâ originalism: the idea that as between the need for stability in prior decision making, settled expectations, and the coherence of the law, some adulterated decisions must remain enforced for the greater good? Or do they follow Justice Thomasâs reasoning in Gamble v. United States, remain stout-hearted, and reject any prior decision that cannot be supported by the common linguistic usage of the founding era â even if that means rejecting Heller? One thing this new research makes abundantly clear: the Second Amendment is in the Courtâs hands. How it developsâfor good or illâwill be a function solely of the wisdom with which the Court articulates its mandates
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