Linguistics Commons^™

Automating The Scoring Of Elicited Imitation Tests, Deryle W. Lonsdale, Carl Chritensen

Faculty Publications

This paper explores the role of machine learning in automating the scoring for one kind of spoken language test: elicited imitation (EI). After sketching the background and rationale for EI testing, we give a brief overview of EI test results that we have collected. To date, the administration and scoring of these tests have been done sequentially and the scoring latency has not been critically important; our goal now is to automate the test. We show how this implies the need for an adaptive capability at run time, and motivate the need for machine learning in the creation of this …

Word Frequency And Processing: Why The Brain Stores Some Words Whole And Others In Parts, Jeffrey R. Parker

Faculty Publications

Discussion about the structure of the lexicon has primarily focused on morphologically complex words. Theories about the lexicon assume that certain items are stored, such as morphologically simple words, e.g. hero and govern, and derivational suffixes, e.g. -ism and - ment. Given these assumptions, the majority of arguments discuss the status of morphologically complex words, e.g. heroism and government. Theories posit different levels of parsing and storage. The extent to which theories accept parsing as a active process during lexical access ranges from classical approaches which assume all morphologically complex words are parsed, to theories which suggest all …

Engaging In Another Person’S Telling As A Recipient In L2 Japanese: Development Of Interactional Competence During One-Year Study Abroad, Midori Ishida

Faculty Publications

This study investigates the development of interactional competence through the analysis of conversational data collected in a longitudinal design. It examines, using conversation analysis (CA), how a learner of Japanese as a second language (L2) engages in conversation as a story recipient, and identifies changes that suggest the learner’s development.

Paradigmatic Peer-Pressure: Word-Medial, Syllable-Initial /S/ Lenition In Dominican Spanish, Earl K. Brown

Faculty Publications

Usage-based phonology (Bybee 2001, 2006, 2010), which is based on exemplar theory (Pierrehumbert 2001, 2003), proposes a memory capacity so expansive that, in theory, all tokens experienced in life could be mapped onto their respective exemplar clouds. However, if a token is similar enough to an existing one, it is simply mapped directly onto that existing token, reinforcing it in memory. This model proposes a very limited need for generative rules to produce the surface form, as the surface forms themselves are stored whole in memory and therefore can be directly accessed during production. It follows that derived words need …

Principled Pragmatism: A Guide To The Adaptation Of Ideas From Philosophical Disciplines To Conceptual Modeling, Deryle W. Lonsdale, David W. Embley, Stephen W. Liddle

Faculty Publications

The synergism among the traditional disciplines of ontology, epistemology, logic, and linguistics and their potential for enhancing conceptual-modeling applications is not fully understood. Better understanding how to adapt ideas from these disciplines should lead to improved serviceability of conceptual modeling. We argue in this position paper, however, that application objectives, rather than philosophical tenets, should guide the adaptation of ideas from these disciplines. Thus, an appropriate balance of discipline-based theory and pragmatism should temper adaptations. We evaluate the principled pragmatism we advocate by presenting several case-study examples. Each illustrates that an appropriate adaptation of ideas from the disciplines of ontology, …

Découvrir Le Pouvoir De Ses Mains : La Gestuelle Des Futurs Enseignants De Langue., Marion Tellier, Gale Stam

Faculty Publications

No abstract provided.

Principled Construction Of Elicited Imitation Tests, Deryle W. Lonsdale, Carl Chritensen, Ross Hendrickson

Faculty Publications

In this paper we discuss the methodology behind the construction of elicited imitation (EI) test items. First we examine varying uses for EI tests in research and in testing overall oral proficiency. We also mention criticisms of previous test items. Then we identify the factors that contribute to the difficulty of an EI item as shown in previous studies. Based on this discussion, we describe a way of automating the creation of test items in order to better evaluate language learners’ oral proficiency while improving item naturalness. We present a new item construction tool and the process that it implements …

Speech And Gesture In Language Acquisition Studies, Gale Stam

Faculty Publications

No abstract provided.

Up To D[Eb]Ate On Raising And Control, Part 2: The Empirical Range Of The Constructions And Research On Their Acquistion, Susannah Kirby, William D. Davies, Stanley William Dubinsky

Faculty Publications

This is the second part of a two-part article that reviews a number of the current debates regarding raising and control constructions. The issues addressed in this part include the spectrum of related raising (e.g. possessor raising, further raising) and control (partial, split, generic, super-equi) phenomena; cross-linguistic typology, including backward and copy constructions; and their acquisition in child language.

A Probabilistic Morphological Analyzer For Syriac, Deryle W. Lonsdale, Peter J. Mcclanahan, George Busby, Robbie A. Haertel, Kristian Heal, Kevin Seppi, Eric Ringger

Faculty Publications

We define a probabilistic morphological analyzer using a data-driven approach for Syriac in order to facilitate the creation of an annotated corpus. Syriac is an under-resourced Semitic language for which there are no available language tools such as morphological analyzers. We introduce novel probabilistic models for segmentation, dictionary linkage, and morphological tagging and connect them in a pipeline to create a probabilistic morphological analyzer requiring only labeled data. We explore the performance of models with varying amounts of training data and find that with about 34,500 labeled tokens, we can outperform a reasonable baseline trained on over 99,000 tokens and …

Up To D[Eb]Ate On Raising And Control, Part 1: Properties And Analyses Of The Constructions, Susannah Kirby, William D. Davies, Stanley William Dubinsky

Faculty Publications

This is the first part of a two-part article that reviews a number of the current debates regarding raising and control constructions. The issues addressed in this part include the syntactic attributes governing their distribution; the characterization of the relevant silent elements; the empirical properties which may distinguish/unify two classes of constructions (on either syntactic or semantic grounds).

Argument Constructions And Language Processing: Evidence From A Priming Experiment And Pedagogical Implications, David Eddington, Francisco Ruiz De Mendoza

Faculty Publications

The notion of argument construction is widely accepted in Cognitive Linguistics circles as a highly explanatory theoretical construct. It has recently been incorporated into the Lexical-Constructional Model (LCM; Ruiz de Mendoza and Mairal 2007, 2008), a theoretical approach to meaning construction that integrates argument constructions into a broader model that incorporates meaning dimensions traditionally dealt with in the domain of pragmatics and discourse analysis. The LCM has an argument level of description, in the form of constructional templates, which are in general equivalent to the argument constructions postulated in Goldberg’s (1995, 2006) Construction Grammar, although there are crucial differences in …

Contextualizing Corrective Feedback In L2 Writing Pedagogy, Norman W. Evans, K. James Hartshorn, Robb M. Mccollum, Mark Wolfersberger

Faculty Publications

Although effective writing skills are vital to the success of university-level students, second language (L2) writers face unique challenges in developing these skills. This is particularly relevant to their ability to produce writing that is linguistically accurate. While many writing teachers feel a great commitment to these students, much of the research has either led to conflicting results or provided teachers with limited practical guidelines that can be utilized effectively in the classroom. This is especially true regarding written corrective feedback (WCF). Therefore, this article provides L2 writing teachers with a paradigm for understanding the WCF debate and interpreting the …

Japanese Elicited Imitation: Asr-Based Oral Proficiency Test And Optimal Item Creation, Hitokazu Matsushita, Deryle Londsdale, Dan Dewey

Faculty Publications

In this study we discuss the development of an optimal ASR-based grading system for an L2 oral proficiency test with a method called elicited imitation (EI). We also discuss EI test item creation from a linguistic point of view. Based on two issues found in a previous study (Matsushita & LeGare, 2010) we also investigate creation of improved language models for EI grading with speech corpus data. Finally, we examine the effectiveness of new EI items in our empirical study and suggest a method to retrieve authentic EI test items from corpus data.

Exploring Diverse Settings For Language Acquisition And Use: Comparing Study Abroad, Service Learning Abroad, And Foreign Language Housing, Rob A. Martinsen, Wendy Baker, Dan Dewey, Jennifer Brown, Cary Johnson

Faculty Publications

This study compared the amount of the second language (L2) use and linguistic gains made by students in three short-term language immersion programs: (1) traditional study abroad, (2) service-oriented study abroad, and (3) foreign language (FL) housing. These were chosen because they represent three distinct program types, providing students with different ways of interacting in the target language and different types and amounts of contact with native speakers. This allowed us to evaluate relationships between study setting, language use, and language gains. Learners completed language logs detailing their use of the L2 as well as pre- and post-immersion oral tests …

Ontologies For Multilingual Extraction, Deryle W. Lonsdale, David W. Embley, Stephen W. Liddle

Faculty Publications

In our global society, multilingual barriers sometimes prohibit and often discourage people from accessing a wider variety of goods and services. We propose multilingual extraction ontologies as an approach to resolving these issues. As envisioned, our ontologies provide a conceptual framework for a narrow domain of interest. Grounding narrow-domain ontologies linguistically enables them to map relevant utterances and text to meaningful concepts in the ontology. Our prior work includes leveraging large-scale lexicons and terminology resources for grounding and augmenting ontological content [12]. Linguistically grounding ontologies in multiple languages enables cross-language communication within the scope of the various ontologies’ domains. Technically, …

A Comparison Of Two Tools For Analyzing Linguistic Data: Logistic Regression And Decision Trees, David Eddington

Faculty Publications

The present paper compares logistic regression (referred to herein as its implementation in Varbrul) with another method for analyzing linguistic data-decision trees. Comparison of the two methods demonstrates that decision trees are able to find the same sorts of generalizations as Varbrul. However, decision trees provide more coarsely-grained output compared with Varbrul’s more informative factor weights. In addition, decision trees often mistakenly overgeneralize. Nevertheless, decision trees can be used in tandem with Varbrul. Because decision trees automatically calculate interactions, they suggest interaction terms that may be considered in subsequent Varbrul analyses. Decision trees also allow continuous variables in contrast to …

Kbb: A Knowledge-Bundle Builder For Research Studies, Deryle W. Lonsdale, David W. Embley, Stephen W. Liddle, Aaron Stewart, Cui Tao

Faculty Publications

Researchers struggle to manage vast amounts of data coming from hundreds of sources in online repositories. To successfully conduct research studies, researchers need to find, retrieve, filter, extract, integrate, organize, and share information in a timely and high-precision manner. Active conceptual modeling for learning can give researchers the tools they need to perform their tasks in a more efficient, user-friendly, and computer-supported way. The idea is to create “knowledge bundles” (KBs), which are conceptual-model representations of organized information superimposed over a collection of source documents. A “knowledgebundle builder” (KBB) helps researchers develop KBs in a synergistic and incremental manner and …

A Review Of Fieldworks Language Explorer, Chris Rogers Ph.D.

Faculty Publications

One of the most important goals in language documentation is to produce reference materials as well as to create long-lasting (i.e., archivable) materials for the languages. Fieldworks Language Explorer (FLEx) 3.0 is software for organizing and analyzing linguistic data and is produced for free download by SIL International (SIL)1 . This review has three goals: to show how the current version of FLEx addresses problems in earlier versions of the program, to highlight some of the more useful features of FLEx 3.0, and to indicate how it compares to other database programs.

A Probabilistic Morphological Analyzer For Syriac, Deryle W. Lonsdale, Peter J. Mcclanahan, George Busby, Robbie A. Haertel, Kristian Heal, Kevin Seppi, Eric K. Ringger

Faculty Publications

We define a probabilistic morphological analyzer using a data-driven approach for Syriac in order to facilitate the creation of an annotated corpus. Syriac is an under-resourced Semitic language for which there are no available language tools such as morphological analyzers. We introduce novel probabilistic models for segmentation, dictionary linkage, and morphological tagging and connect them in a pipeline to create a probabilistic morphological analyzer requiring only labeled data. We explore the performance of models with varying amounts of training data and find that with about 34,500 labeled tokens, we can outperform a reasonable baseline trained on over 99,000 tokens and …

Recovering And Updating Legacy Dictionary Data, Deryle W. Lonsdale, Dawn Bates

Faculty Publications

Ongoing efforts to annotate and web-enable Lushootseed language resources involve displaying complex dictionary information in ways suitable for diverse users. In this paper we discuss how we have converted dictionary data from its legacy format into a best-practice, state-of-the-art XML format. We also describe how we have been able to further leverage this XML data by making it compatible with Kirrkirr, a new dictionary browser designed to display dictionary information for Australian aboriginal languages. We sketch the process in adapting the dictionary browser to make it a very workable visualization tool for Lushootseed data as well. We also explain and …

Tag Dictionaries Accelerate Manual Annotation, Deryle W. Lonsdale, Marc A. Carmen, Paul Felt, Robbie A. Haertel, Peter J. Mcclanahan, Eric K. Ringger, Kevin Seppi

Faculty Publications

Expert human input can contribute in various ways to facilitate automatic annotation of natural language text. For example, a part-of-speech tagger can be trained on labeled input provided offline by experts. In addition, expert input can be solicited by way of active learning to make the most of annotator expertise. However, hiring individuals to perform manual annotation is costly both in terms of money and time. This paper reports on a user study that was performed to determine the degree of effect that a part-of-speech dictionary has on a group of subjects performing the annotation task. The user study was …

Principled Construction Of Elicited Imitation Tests, Deryle W. Lonsdale, Carl Chritensen, Ross Hendrickson

Faculty Publications

In this paper we discuss the methodology behind the construction of elicited imitation (EI) test items. First we examine varying uses for EI tests in research and in testing overall oral proficiency. We also mention criticisms of previous test items. Then we identify the factors that contribute to the difficulty of an EI item as shown in previous studies. Based on this discussion, we describe a way of automating the creation of test items in order to better evaluate language learners’ oral proficiency while improving item naturalness. We present a new item construction tool and the process that it implements …

On The Existence (And Distribution) Of Sentential Subjects, William D. Davies, Stanley Dubinsky

Faculty Publications

No abstract provided.

The Sound-Symbolic Expression Of Animacy In Amazonian Ecuador, Janis B. Nuckolls

Faculty Publications

Several anthropologists of Amazonian societies in Ecuador have claimed that for Achuar [1] and Quichua speaking Runa [2,3,4] there is no fundamental distinction between humans on the one hand, and plants and animals on the other. A related observation is that Runa and Achuar people share an animistic cosmology whereby animals, plants, and even seemingly inert entities such as rocks and stones are believed to have a life force or essence with a subjectivity that can be expressed. This paper will focus on Quichua speaking Runa to seek linguistic evidence for animacy by examining the sound-symbolic properties of a class …

Podcasting: An Effective Tool For Honing Language Students' Pronunciation?, Lara Ducate, Lara Lomicka

Faculty Publications

This paper reports on an investigation of podcasting as a tool for honing pronunciation skills in intermediate language learning. We examined the effects of using podcasts to improve pronunciation in second language learning and how students' attitudes changed toward pronunciation over the semester. A total of 22 students in intermediate German and French courses made five scripted pronunciation recordings throughout the semester. After the pronunciation recordings, students produced three extemporaneous podcasts. Students also completed a pre- and post-survey based on Elliott's (1995) Pronunciation Attitude Inventory to assess their perspectives regarding pronunciation. Students' pronunciation, extemporaneous recordings, and surveys were analyzed to …

Update On Soar 9 And Sentence Processing, Deryle W. Lonsdale, Jeremiah Lane Mcghee, Ross Hendrickson

Faculty Publications

NLSOAR is in active development

NLSOAR can process several key types of sentences

NLSOAR updated to SOAR 9 as a prototype

Review Of "Methods Of Language Teaching", By Blair Bateman And Baldomero Lago, Lara Ducate

Faculty Publications

No abstract provided.

Variability In L2 Acquisition Across L1 Backgrounds, Malena Weitze, Jeremiah Mcghee, C. Ray Graham, Dan Dewey, Dennis L. Eggett

Faculty Publications

For a number of decades now, a widely accepted belief of language acquisition researchers is the so called natural order hypothesis (Dulay, Burt, & Krashen, 1982; Ellis, 1994; Larsen-Freeman & Long, 1991). According to this hypothesis, certain grammatical morphemes emerge in a universal order in learners of English as a second language. Most of the data collection in this line of research was done in the 1970’s against a backdrop of theory which espoused the notion of L1 transfer to L2 acquisition on the one hand and a universal grammar perspective on the other. Most dealt with oral language production …

Introduction: Humor In Contemporary American Poetry, Denise Duhamel, Salvatore Attardo

Faculty Publications

Introduction piece to a special issue of Humor: International Journal of Humor Research.