47,185 research outputs found
Syntactic Topic Models
The syntactic topic model (STM) is a Bayesian nonparametric model of language
that discovers latent distributions of words (topics) that are both
semantically and syntactically coherent. The STM models dependency parsed
corpora where sentences are grouped into documents. It assumes that each word
is drawn from a latent topic chosen by combining document-level features and
the local syntactic context. Each document has a distribution over latent
topics, as in topic models, which provides the semantic consistency. Each
element in the dependency parse tree also has a distribution over the topics of
its children, as in latent-state syntax models, which provides the syntactic
consistency. These distributions are convolved so that the topic of each word
is likely under both its document and syntactic context. We derive a fast
posterior inference algorithm based on variational methods. We report
qualitative and quantitative studies on both synthetic data and hand-parsed
documents. We show that the STM is a more predictive model of language than
current models based only on syntax or only on topics
Theoretical issues in the interpretation of Cappadocian, a not-so-dead Greek contact language
Cappadocian is a mixed Greek-Turkish dialect continuum spoken in the Turkish Central Anatolia Region until the population exchange between Greece and Turkey in the 1920s.
Only a few Cappadocian dialects are still spoken in present-day Greece. Since the publication of Thomason and Kaufman’s Language Contact, Creolization, and Genetic Linguistics in 1988, Cappadocian has attracted the attention of historical and contact linguists, because of its unique mixed character. In this paper, I will discuss a number of theoretical issues in the interpretation of the linguistic structure of Cappadocian, focusing on the following topics: (1) the status of loan phonemes and loan morphemes in contact languages, (2) the distinction between code switching and code mixing in relation to Poplack’s Free Morpheme Constraint, (3) the schizoid typology of contact languages
Understanding Space: the nascent synthesis of cognition and the syntax of spatial morphologies
24-28 September, 200
JUXTAPOSING L 1 CULTURE AND L 2 CULTURE IN ELT MATERIALS
It is generally agreed that learning language means learning culture since language is a part
of culture. In English Language Teaching (ELT) context, the process of teaching and learning
will basically involve two cultures: L1 culture referring to the learner’s culture (local culture)
and L2 culture to the target culture. From this perspective, ELT materials can roughly be
divided into two kinds: the ones orientated to local culture and the ones to Anglo or American
culture. In order to make ELT materials more balanced, an English teacher may juxtapose or
combine the L1 and L2 cultures in his/ her materials. One of the benefits is the learners will
get broader cultural perspectives so that they will be more prepared to be a global citizen. This
paper aims to propose practical teaching ideas in which an English teacher may include L1 and
L2 cultures in his/her teaching materials
Proceedings of the 3rd Workshop on Domain-Specific Language Design and Implementation (DSLDI 2015)
The goal of the DSLDI workshop is to bring together researchers and
practitioners interested in sharing ideas on how DSLs should be designed,
implemented, supported by tools, and applied in realistic application contexts.
We are both interested in discovering how already known domains such as graph
processing or machine learning can be best supported by DSLs, but also in
exploring new domains that could be targeted by DSLs. More generally, we are
interested in building a community that can drive forward the development of
modern DSLs. These informal post-proceedings contain the submitted talk
abstracts to the 3rd DSLDI workshop (DSLDI'15), and a summary of the panel
discussion on Language Composition
On topics today
This article surveys the state of so-called topic theory today. It charts its development through two generations of topic theorists. The first is constructed around three influential texts: Leonard Ratners seminal book that established the discipline in its own right, Classic music: expression, form and style (1980); Wye Allanbrooks. Rhythmic gesture in Mozart: Le nozze di Figaro and Don Giovanni (1983); and Kofi Agawus. Playing with signs: a semiotic interpretation of classical music (1991). The second comprises significant advances in topic theory essayed through two further pairs of texts: Robert Hattens Musical meaning in Beethoven: markedness, correlation, and interpretation (1994) and Interpreting musical gestures, topics, and tropes: Mozart, Beethoven, Schubert (2004); and Raymond Monelles Linguistics and semiotics in music (1992) and The sense of music: semiotic essays (2000). Topic Theory's role as the soft hermeneutic sub-field of music semiotics (relative to the harder, formalist practices of Nattiezs neutral level analysis) is portrayed here as navigating a number of treacherous polemical paths. These wend their way between referential style (expression) and structural syntax (form); historical reconstruction and hermeneutic construction; and heightened sensitivity to social meanings and imposed acts of creative interpretation. This existence of topic theory in a continuous dialogue between structural formalism and the semantics of expressive discourse is held responsible for its marginal position both to the dominant strains of contemporary postmodern musicology and to the dying embers of formalist analysis. The failure of topic theory to strike a fashionable text-context balance thus highlights why musicology continues to view semiotics with scepticism. Ratner presents his thesaurus of style labelssomewhat dubiouslyas the historically authentic ready-to-hand materials (types and styles) of eighteenth-century expressive musical rhetoric. But it is Agawus combination of this universe of topics with a Schenker-influenced beginning-middle-end paradigm that establishes the hallmark of first generation topic theory on which the first half of this paper focuses. Agawus delicate equation between extroversive and introversive semiosis is essayed as a pivotal turning point in topic theorys ability to transcend the mere passive ascription of rhetorical labels. Out of this equation, expressive meanings can ariseas much from the non-congruence, as the congruence, of signs and structure. Hatten's critique of Agawu for neglecting the full interpretative consequences of his signifieds is the springboard for his more hermeneutically replete brand of topic theory and the emergence of the second generation topic theorists. Hattens use of troping (a kind of musical metaphor), is one of many interpretative tools that are responsible for broadening the arena of topic theorysome of his others being: expressive genres, emergent meanings and markedness theory. These are deployed across a variety of musical parameters as Hattens attention increasingly turns to the prototypicality of topics in their euphoric and dysphoric states. Hattens interpretative work is shown to transcend historical reconstruction to comprise creative interpretation built on a much broader definition of expressive gestures, of which topics are only a constituent part. The article concludes with Monelles expos of the dubious historical underpinnings of Ratners topic theory foundations. This does not render this vibrant branch of semiotics redundant but, on the contrary, charts its future direction as one calling out for far deeper historical investigation and cultural criticism. Monelles enlightening forays into the more replete expressive meanings of such topics as the horse and pianto make this point abundantly clear. The future of topics today, if not musicology in general, is one of cultural criticism
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