La phonétisation comme un problème de translittération

International audiencePhonetizing is a crucial step to process oral documents. In this paper, a new word-based phonetization approach is proposed ; it is automatic, simple, portable and efficient. It relies on machine learning ; thus, the system is built from examples of words with their pho- netic representations. More precisely, it makes the most of a technique inferring rewriting rules initially developed for transliteration and translation. In order to evaluate the performances of this approach, we used several datasets from the Pronalsyl Pascal challenge, including different languages. The obtained results equal or outperform those of the best known systems.La phonétisation est une étape essentielle pour le traitement de l'oral. Dans cet article, nous décrivons un système automatique de phonétisation de mots isolés qui est simple, portable et performant. Il repose sur une approche par apprentissage ; le système est donc construit à partir d'exemples de mots et de leur représentation phonétique. Nous utili- sons pour cela une technique d'inférence de règles de réécriture initialement développée pour la translittération et la traduction. Pour évaluer les performances de notre approche, nous avons utilisé plusieurs jeux de données couvrant différentes langues et divers alphabets phonétiques, tirés du challenge Pascal Pronalsyl. Les très bons résultats obtenus égalent ou dépassent ceux des meilleurs systèmes de l'état de l'art

The role of phonology in visual word recognition: evidence from Chinese

Posters - Letter/Word Processing V: abstract no. 5024The hypothesis of bidirectional coupling of orthography and phonology predicts that phonology plays a role in visual word recognition, as observed in the effects of feedforward and feedback spelling to sound consistency on lexical decision. However, because orthography and phonology are closely related in alphabetic languages (homophones in alphabetic languages are usually orthographically similar), it is difficult to exclude an influence of orthography on phonological effects in visual word recognition. Chinese languages contain many written homophones that are orthographically dissimilar, allowing a test of the claim that phonological effects can be independent of orthographic similarity. We report a study of visual word recognition in Chinese based on a mega-analysis of lexical decision performance with 500 characters. The results from multiple regression analyses, after controlling for orthographic frequency, stroke number, and radical frequency, showed main effects of feedforward and feedback consistency, as well as interactions between these variables and phonological frequency and number of homophones. Implications of these results for resonance models of visual word recognition are discussed.postprin

Interactive effects of orthography and semantics in Chinese picture naming

Posters - Language Production/Writing: abstract no. 4035Picture-naming performance in English and Dutch is enhanced by presentation of a word that is similar in form to the picture name. However, it is unclear whether facilitation has an orthographic or a phonological locus. We investigated the loci of the facilitation effect in Cantonese Chinese speakers by manipulating—at three SOAs (2100, 0, and 1100 msec)—semantic, orthographic, and phonological similarity. We identified an effect of orthographic facilitation that was independent of and larger than phonological facilitation across all SOAs. Semantic interference was also found at SOAs of 2100 and 0 msec. Critically, an interaction of semantics and orthography was observed at an SOA of 1100 msec. This interaction suggests that independent effects of orthographic facilitation on picture naming are located either at the level of semantic processing or at the lemma level and are not due to the activation of picture name segments at the level of phonological retrieval.postprin

Towards a cognitive linguistic approach to language comprehension

This thesis develops a cognitive linguistic approach to language comprehension. The cognitive approach differs from traditional linguistic approaches in that linguistic description is seen as an integral part of the description of cognition, and that the object of description is the nature of conceptual structures, the processes which relate these conceptual structures, and the effect of context upon these processes. As a cognitive description within cognitive science, a computational approach is adopted: language comprehension is described in terms of two modules, a linguistic processing module and a discourse processing module. Within these modules, conceptual structures and processes are given a uniform characterization: structures are characterized as partial objects which are extended by processes into (potentially) less partial objects. In the linguistic processing module, linguistic expressions are characterized as signs which combine as head and modifier. The conceptual structu..

Bootstrapping Information Extraction from Field Books

We present two machine learning approaches to information extraction from semi-structured documents that can be used if no annotated training data are available, but there does exist a database filled with information derived from the type of documents to be processed. One approach employs standard supervised learning for information extraction by artificially constructing labelled training data from the contents of the database. The second approach combines unsupervised Hidden Markov modelling with language models. Empirical evaluation of both systems suggests that it is possible to bootstrap a field segmenter from a database alone. The combination of Hidden Markov and language modelling was found to perform best at this task.

The Processing of Emotional Sentences by Young and Older Adults: A Visual World Eye-movement Study

Carminati MN, Knoeferle P. The Processing of Emotional Sentences by Young and Older Adults: A Visual World Eye-movement Study. Presented at the Architectures and Mechanisms of Language and Processing (AMLaP), Riva del Garda, Italy

Loan Phonology

For many different reasons, speakers borrow words from other languages to fill gaps in their own lexical inventory. The past ten years have been characterized by a great interest among phonologists in the issue of how the nativization of loanwords occurs. The general feeling is that loanword nativization provides a direct window for observing how acoustic cues are categorized in terms of the distinctive features relevant to the L1 phonological system as well as for studying L1 phonological processes in action and thus to the true synchronic phonology of L1. The collection of essays presented in this volume provides an overview of the complex issues phonologists face when investigating this phenomenon and, more generally, the ways in which unfamiliar sounds and sound sequences are adapted to converge with the native language’s sound pattern. This book is of interest to theoretical phonologists as well as to linguists interested in language contact phenomena

Neurobiology of incremental speech comprehension

Understanding spoken language requires the rapid transition from perceptual processing of the auditory input through a variety of cognitive processes involved in constructing the mental representation of the message that the speaker is intending to convey. Listeners carry out these complex processes very rapidly and accurately as they hear each word incrementally unfolding in a sentence. However, little is known about the specific spatiotemporal patterning of this wide range of incremental processing operations that underpin the dynamic transitions from the speech input to the development of a meaning interpretation of an utterance. This thesis aims to address this set of issues by investigating the spatiotemporal dynamics of brain activity as spoken sentences unfold over time in order to illuminate the neurocomputational properties of the human language processing system and determine how the representation of a spoken sentence develops incrementally as each upcoming word is heard. Using a novel application of multidimensional probabilistic modelling combined with models from computational linguistics, I developed models of a variety of computational processes associated with accessing and processing the syntactic and semantic properties of sentences and tested these models at various points as sentences unfolded over time. Since a wide range of incremental processes occur very rapidly during speech comprehension, it is crucial to keep track of the temporal dynamics of the neural computations involved. To do this, I used combined electroencephalography and magnetoencephalography (EMEG) to record neural activity with millisecond resolution and analyzed the recordings in source space using univariate and/or multivariate approaches. The results confirm the value of this combination of methods in examining the properties of incremental speech processing. My findings corroborate the predictive nature of human speech comprehension and demonstrate that the effects of early semantic constraint are not dependent on explicit syntactic knowledge