Discovery of Linguistic Relations Using Lexical Attraction

This work has been motivated by two long term goals: to understand how humans learn language and to build programs that can understand language. Using a representation that makes the relevant features explicit is a prerequisite for successful learning and understanding. Therefore, I chose to represent relations between individual words explicitly in my model. Lexical attraction is defined as the likelihood of such relations. I introduce a new class of probabilistic language models named lexical attraction models which can represent long distance relations between words and I formalize this new class of models using information theory. Within the framework of lexical attraction, I developed an unsupervised language acquisition program that learns to identify linguistic relations in a given sentence. The only explicitly represented linguistic knowledge in the program is lexical attraction. There is no initial grammar or lexicon built in and the only input is raw text. Learning and processing are interdigitated. The processor uses the regularities detected by the learner to impose structure on the input. This structure enables the learner to detect higher level regularities. Using this bootstrapping procedure, the program was trained on 100 million words of Associated Press material and was able to achieve 60% precision and 50% recall in finding relations between content-words. Using knowledge of lexical attraction, the program can identify the correct relations in syntactically ambiguous sentences such as ``I saw the Statue of Liberty flying over New York.''Comment: dissertation, 56 page

Text Summarization Using Semantic Technique

This work proposes semantic technique as a new approach for text summarization of online news/ journal articles. This text summarization project contains two part: parsing and semantic analysis. At first, for the parsing, we set up criteria to evaluate importance of sentences within text such as position, length. According to this, only sentences with high score of importance will be selected. The number of sentence selected depends on how much compact that users expect summary output would be. System combines those sentences into summary draft. Second part is semantic analysis; the technique we use here is lexical semantic approach. During this part, system will use Word Net lexical database to analyze words within summary draft. This database had words linked through semantic relations such as synonym, antonym, hyponymy, and more. Our project would end up by evaluation process. We evaluate accuracy of summary output, also compare and find differences between human summary work and system result.

Memory-Based Lexical Acquisition and Processing

Current approaches to computational lexicology in language technology are knowledge-based (competence-oriented) and try to abstract away from specific formalisms, domains, and applications. This results in severe complexity, acquisition and reusability bottlenecks. As an alternative, we propose a particular performance-oriented approach to Natural Language Processing based on automatic memory-based learning of linguistic (lexical) tasks. The consequences of the approach for computational lexicology are discussed, and the application of the approach on a number of lexical acquisition and disambiguation tasks in phonology, morphology and syntax is described.Comment: 18 page

If only it were true: the problem with the four conditionals

The traditional division of conditionals into four main types (zero, first, second, and third) has long been called into question. Unfortunately, the awareness that this description does not reflect conditional patterns in actual usage has not generally been reflected in EFL coursebooks. This article re-examines the arguments for a description of conditional patterns which reflects actual usage and uses corpus data to demonstrate the kind of patterns in frequent use. It then suggests two teaching approaches that may help teachers to tackle a variety of conditional patterns in the classroom

On Generating Combilex Pronunciations via Morphological Analysis

Combilex is a high-quality lexicon that has been developed specifically for speech technology purposes and recently released by CSTR. Combilex benefits from many advanced features. This paper explores one of these: the ability to generate fully-specified transcriptions for morphologically derived words automatically. This functionality was originally implemented to encode the pronunciations of derived words in terms of their constituent morphemes, thus accelerating lexicon development and ensuring a high level of consistency. In this paper, we propose this method of modelling pronunciations can be exploited further by combining it with a morphological parser, thus yielding a method to generate full transcriptions for unknown derived words. Not only could this accelerate adding new derived words to Combilex, but it could also serve as an alternative to conventional letter-to-sound rules. This paper presents preliminary work indicating this is a promising direction

Use of language games in advertising texts as a creative approach in advertising management

У статті аналізується сутність мовної гри, різні підходи до інтерпретації даної категорії, її потенціал для створення ефекту комунікативного впливу на споживача в рекламному тексті. Мовна гра розглядається як свідоме порушення мовних норм, правил мовної поведінки, викривлення мовних кліше з метою надати більшої експресивної сили тексту рекламного повідомлення. Показано, що ігрові стратегії реалізуються в рекламних творах трьох типів – рекламних текстах, слоганах та рекламних іменах (брендах). Зазначається, що в різних видах реклами (друкованій, зовнішній, радіо- та телерекламі, Інтернет-рекламі) існують різні можливості для реалізації мовної гри. Виявлено арсенал ігрових прийомів, що допомагають якомога привабливіше «упакувати» рекламний продукт, їх роль у формуванні установки на подальший перегляд та засвоєння рекламної інформації. Констатується, що практично всі рівні мови мають значний потенціал для реалізації функцій мовної гри в рекламному тексті. Детально описуються та наводяться приклади різноманітних прийомів використання фонетичної і графічної гри, способів лексичної та словотвірної гри, виявляється ігровий потенціал граматичних засобів. Особлива увага приділяється обігруванню прецедентних текстів як одному з найпоширеніших прийомів мовної гри в рекламі. Рекламні повідомлення, у яких наявні інтертекстуальні посилання, виразніші, експресивніші й мають більший вплив на споживача (читача, слухача, глядача). Поєдання різних типів мовної гри стало звичайним явищем для її реалізацїї в рекламі. Зроблено висновок, що мовна гра дозволяє втілити в життя основоположний принцип створення яскравого рекламного повідомлення: на мінімумі тексту – максимум експресії. Використання зазначених засобів відображає одну з основних тенденцій мови сучасної реклами – установку на оригінальність, креативність, неординарність.В статье анализируется сущность языковой игры, различные подходы к интерпретации данной категории, ее потенциал для создания эффекта коммуникативного воздействия на потребителя в рекламном тексте. Языковая игра рассматривается как сознательное нарушение языковых норм, правил речевого поведения, искривление языковых клише с целью придания большей экспрессивной силы тексту рекламного сообщения. Показано, что игровые стратегии реализуются в рекламных произведениях трех типов - рекламных текстах, слоганах и рекламных именах (брендах). Отмечается, что в различных видах рекламы (печатной, наружной, радио- и телерекламе, Интернет-рекламе) существуют возможности для реализации языковой игры. Обнаружен арсенал игровых приемов, помогающих как можно привлекательнее «упаковать» рекламный продукт, их роль в формировании установки на дальнейший просмотр и усвоение рекламной информации. Констатируется, что практически все уровни языка имеют значительный потенциал для реализации функций языковой игры в рекламном тексте. Подробно описываются и приводятся примеры различных приемов использования фонетической и графической игры, способов лексической и словообразовательной игры, показывается игровой потенциал грамматических средств. Особое внимание уделяется обыгрыванию прецедентных текстов как одному из самых распространенных приемов языковой игры в рекламе. Сделан вывод, что языковая игра позволяет воплотить в жизнь основополагающий принцип создания яркого рекламного сообщения: на минимуме текста - максимум экспрессии. Использование указанных средств отражает одну из основных тенденций языка современной рекламы - установку на оригинальность, креативность, неординарность.The article analyzes the essence of language game, different approaches to the interpretation of this category, its potential for creating the effect of communicative influence on the consumer in the advertising text. Language game is seen as conscious violation of language norms, rules of linguistic behavior, distortions of language cliche in order to provide more expressive power to the text of an advertisement. Game strategies are implemented in three types of advertising such as advertising texts, slogans and advertising names. Authors use descriptive method, which includes observation, generalization, interpretation and classification of the test material, component analysis method. A totality of gaming techniques was found to help present an advertising product as attractive as possible. It is stated that virtually all levels of language have a significant potential for implementing the functions of the language game in the advertising text. Examples of various techniques of use of the phonetic and graphic game, methods of lexical and word-building games are revealed. The game potential of grammatical tools is shown. Particular attention is paid to the handling of case-law texts as one of the most widely used methods of speech game advertising. The combination of different types of speech games has become a common phenomenon for its implementation in advertising. It is concluded that the language game allows to realize the fundamental principle of creating a bright advertising message. Use of these tools reflects one of the main trends in modern advertising language which means installation of originality, creativity, and extraordinary

The placement of the head that maximizes predictability. An information theoretic approach

The minimization of the length of syntactic dependencies is a well-established principle of word order and the basis of a mathematical theory of word order. Here we complete that theory from the perspective of information theory, adding a competing word order principle: the maximization of predictability of a target element. These two principles are in conflict: to maximize the predictability of the head, the head should appear last, which maximizes the costs with respect to dependency length minimization. The implications of such a broad theoretical framework to understand the optimality, diversity and evolution of the six possible orderings of subject, object and verb are reviewed.Comment: in press in Glottometric

Text Summarization Techniques: A Brief Survey

In recent years, there has been a explosion in the amount of text data from a variety of sources. This volume of text is an invaluable source of information and knowledge which needs to be effectively summarized to be useful. In this review, the main approaches to automatic text summarization are described. We review the different processes for summarization and describe the effectiveness and shortcomings of the different methods.Comment: Some of references format have update

Announcement-annotation texts: definition, correlation and synthesis

The paper deals with the problems of definition, correlation and synthesis of two text types: announcement and annotation. The main goal of this article is to postulate they have enough similar features to be combined in one text type. The examination of the relationship between different types of text is one of the most current research topics in the European linguistic literature, to which more and more studies draw the attention. However, the empirical research is still rarely carried out. In this paper, announcement and annotation have been examined on common and different features of both speech genres with a view to a correlation of these genres. After the synthesis of two text types, the authors determined their common traits which evidence these genres consistency. After all, the suggestion was made to integrate the definitions of announcement and annotation texts into one definition: announcement annotation texts (or annotexts). Although this postulate needs to be modified and supplemented in view of text types selected for analysis, it is a good starting point for further research