A lexical database tool for quantitative phonological research

A lexical database tool tailored for phonological research is described. Database fields include transcriptions, glosses and hyperlinks to speech files. Database queries are expressed using HTML forms, and these permit regular expression search on any combination of fields. Regular expressions are passed directly to a Perl CGI program, enabling the full flexibility of Perl extended regular expressions. The regular expression notation is extended to better support phonological searches, such as search for minimal pairs. Search results are presented in the form of HTML or LaTeX tables, where each cell is either a number (representing frequency) or a designated subset of the fields. Tables have up to four dimensions, with an elegant system for specifying which fragments of which fields should be used for the row/column labels. The tool offers several advantages over traditional methods of analysis: (i) it supports a quantitative method of doing phonological research; (ii) it gives universal access to the same set of informants; (iii) it enables other researchers to hear the original speech data without having to rely on published transcriptions; (iv) it makes the full power of regular expression search available, and search results are full multimedia documents; and (v) it enables the early refutation of false hypotheses, shortening the analysis-hypothesis-test loop. A life-size application to an African tone language (Dschang) is used for exemplification throughout the paper. The database contains 2200 records, each with approximately 15 fields. Running on a PC laptop with a stand-alone web server, the `Dschang HyperLexicon' has already been used extensively in phonological fieldwork and analysis in Cameroon.Comment: 7 pages, uses ipamacs.st

Transient upsets in microprocessor controllers

The modeling and analysis of transient faults in microprocessor based controllers are discussed. Such controllers typically consist of a microprocessor, read only memory storing and application program, random access memory for data storage, and input/output devices for external communications. The effects of transient faults on the performance of the controller are reviewed. An instruction level perspective of performance is taken which is the basis of a useful high level program state description of the microprocessor controller. A transition matrix is defined which determines the controller's response to transient fault arrivals

Early Form Based Morphological Decomposition in Tagalog: MEG Evidence from Reduplication, Infixation and Circumfixation

Neuro-and psycholinguistic experimentation supports the early decomposition of morphologically complex words within the ventral processing stream, which MEG has localized to the M170 response in the (left) visual word form area ( VWFA). Decomposition into an exhaustive parse of visual morpheme forms extends beyond words like farmer to those imitating complexity (e.g., brother; Lewis et al., 2011), and to “unique” stems occurring in only one word but following the syntax and semantics of their affix (e.g., vulnerable; Gwilliams & Marantz, 2018). Evidence comes primarily from suffixation; other morphological processes have been under-investigated. This study explores circumfixation, infixation, and reduplication in Tagalog. In addition to investigating whether these are parsed like suffixation, we address an outstanding question concerning semantically empty morphemes. Some words in Tagalog resemble English winter as decomposition is not supported (wint-er); these apparently reduplicated pseudoreduplicates lack the syntactic and semantic features of reduplicated forms. However, unlike winter, these words exhibit phonological behavior predicted only if they involve a reduplicating morpheme. If these are decomposed, this provides evidence that words are analyzed as complex, like English vulnerable, when the grammar demands it. In a lexical decision task with MEG, we find that VWFA activity correlates with stem:word transition probability for circumfixed, infixed, and reduplicated words. Furthermore, a Bayesian analysis suggests that pseudoreduplicates with reduplicate-like phonology are also decomposed; other pseudoreduplicates are not. These findings are consistent with an interpretation that decomposition is modulated by phonology in addition to syntax and semantics

(Dis)connections between specific language impairment and dyslexia in Chinese

Poster Session: no. 26P.40Specific language impairment (SLI) and dyslexia describe language-learning impairments that occur in the absence of a sensory, cognitive, or psychosocial impairment. SLI is primarily defined by an impairment in oral language, and dyslexia by a deficit in the reading of written words. SLI and dyslexia co-occur in school-age children learning English, with rates ranging from 17% to 75%. For children learning Chinese, SLI and dyslexia also co-occur. Wong et al. (2010) first reported on the presence of dyslexia in a clinical sample of 6- to 11-year-old school-age children with SLI. The study compared the reading-related cognitive skills of children with SLI and dyslexia (SLI-D) with 2 groups of children …postprin

Uncovering the myth of learning to read Chinese characters: phonetic, semantic, and orthographic strategies used by Chinese as foreign language learners

Oral Session - 6A: Lexical modeling: no. 6A.3Chinese is considered to be one of the most challenging orthographies to be learned by non-native speakers, in particular, the character. Chinese character is the basic reading unit that converges sound, form and meaning. The predominant type of Chinese character is semantic-phonetic compound that is composed of phonetic and semantic radicals, giving the clues of the sound and meaning, respectively. Over the last two decades, psycholinguistic research has made significant progress in specifying the roles of phonetic and semantic radicals in character processing among native Chinese speakers …postprin

Optimizing L2 Vocabulary Acquisition: Applied Linguistic Research

Any acquisition in Second Language Acquisition (SLA) starts as word recognition; as such vocabulary acquisition is integral to language learning as a whole and is a precursor to fluent communication (Ellis, 1996; Moore, 1996). To maximize SLA, vocabulary acquisition must be optimized. However, vocabulary acquisition is understudied and underutilized, especially compared to other aspects of SLA (Paribakht & Wesche, 1997). Cook states, “…the vast bulk of examinations, syllabuses, and course books around the globe show little overt influence from SLA research” (1998, p.10). Courses, teachers, and students would benefit from directly addressing SLA research, rather than utilize inefficient methods (Cook, 1998; Moore, 1996). Problematic course books influence thousands of teachers and a multitude of students (Cook, 1998); this costs educational institutions billions of dollars globally. Prioritizing sound pedagogy when designing courses would alleviate the problems of inefficient acquisition in SLA and the financial cost. An outline is presented for creating and supplementing programs in instructed SLA, these guidelines utilize linguistic research on vocabulary acquisition: 1) The course is built using frequency data, from spoken corpus in the target language. Zipf’s law dictates that word frequency occurs on a predictable curve where the most frequent word is twice as common as the next most frequent word; word rank is inversely proportional to frequency (Milton, 2009). The 100 most frequent words can be up to 50% of a text (Moore, 1996). The 2,000 most frequent words of English make up about 80% of the language. The next 2,000 words are 8% of the occurrences (Milton, 2009). Vocabulary sorting based on frequency, will provide the most useful words and [Document title] will front-load functional words, allowing L2 acquirers to create grammatical constructions (Milton, 2009; Moore, 1996). 2) This frequency determined L2 vocabulary, uses small, alliterated word lists instead of semantic sets. Alliterated word lists and phonological similarity improve L2 vocabulary retention (Hulstijn, 2003; Laufer, 2009). Semantic sets have been shown to create confusion (Hulstijn, 2003; Schmidt & Watanabe, 2001). 3) Pseudo immersion is avoided because it is not effective for L2 acquirers (Schmidt & Watanabe, 2001). Cody (2009) states, ‘immersion’ and incidental learning are often attempted. Although immersion is effective for (multiple) L1 acquisition, post critical-period acquisition is radically different; ‘mere exposure’ will not work (Hyltenstam & Abrahamsson, 2003). Explicit instruction in the student’s native language is encouraged (Atkinson, 1987). Lexical meaning must be taught explicitly and utilizing explicit instruction can double retention rates (Laufer, 2009; Laufer & Hulstijn, 2001). 4) Mnemonic devices, visual and otherwise are utilized. Flipping an image upside creates a unique association with the word, rather than have the learner ‘mediate’ with the L1 representation, which they would otherwise default to (Hulstijn, 2003). Learner generated mnemonics were found useful in Cohen’s 1987 study (Laufer, 2009). Multiple studies have determined that mnemonic devices comparing an L2 with a semantically related L1 word are effective (Hulstijn, 2003)

Design and development of a frameworkbased on OGC web services for thevisualization of three dimensional large-scale geospatial data

The aim of this project is to design a streaming framework for the visualization of three dimensional large-scale geospatial data. A simple idea is implemented: just the bare necessities have to be loaded and rendered. The 3D scene is so incrementally built and dynamically updated run-time, taking into account the movements of the camera and its field of view. To effectively and efficiently achieve this behavior, proper mechanisms of tiling and caching have been implemented. The framework implementation focuses on textured terrain streaming. Despite the scope limitation, the defined streaming paradigm has general validity and can be applied to more complex 3D environments. The addition of other features on top of the terrain is straightforward and does not imply substantial modifications to the framework. In order to make the framework standard compliant and platform independent, it has been designed to work with OGC web services and the widely adopted web-based approach has been chosen. As a result, any WebGL compliant browser can run web applications built on top of this framework without the use of plug-ins or additional softwar

Predictive biometrics: A review and analysis of predicting personal characteristics from biometric data

Interest in the exploitation of soft biometrics information has continued to develop over the last decade or so. In comparison with traditional biometrics, which focuses principally on person identification, the idea of soft biometrics processing is to study the utilisation of more general information regarding a system user, which is not necessarily unique. There are increasing indications that this type of data will have great value in providing complementary information for user authentication. However, the authors have also seen a growing interest in broadening the predictive capabilities of biometric data, encompassing both easily definable characteristics such as subject age and, most recently, `higher level' characteristics such as emotional or mental states. This study will present a selective review of the predictive capabilities, in the widest sense, of biometric data processing, providing an analysis of the key issues still adequately to be addressed if this concept of predictive biometrics is to be fully exploited in the future