Linguistics Commons^™

The Distribution Of Subjects And Predicates In Bulgarian: An (Eep) V-Feature Account, Mila Tasseva-Kurktchieva, Stanley William Dubinsky

Faculty Publications

No abstract provided.

Domain-Independent Data Extraction: Person Names, Deryle W. Lonsdale, Carl Christensen

Faculty Publications

Extraction software and techniques yield good results with domain specific data extraction

Person names and information rarely domain specific

Identification and extraction difficult because of noisy data, lack of formatting

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

The Relative Importance Of Lexical Frequency In Syllable- And Word-Final /S/ Reduction In Cali, Colombia, Earl K. Brown

Faculty Publications

The literature on phonological variation and change abounds with studies about syllable- and word-final /s/ reduction in Spanish. In fact, “the aspiration and deletion of /s/ in dialects of Spanish may be the most extensively treated of all sound changes being investigated from an empirical, variationist perspective” (Ferguson, 1990, p. 64). Many factors have been shown to significantly affect this linguistic phenomenon. Terrell (1979) finds word length to be a significant factor in his Cuban data, with more deletion in polysyllabic words than in monosyllabic ones. Additionally, Terrell shows that redundant plural markers in noun phrases (that is, all but …

T-Glottalization In American English, David Eddington, Michael Taylor

Faculty Publications

In word-final prevocalic position (e.g., right ankle), there are various possible phonetic realizations of /t/ in American English: [t], [r], [?]. The present study focuses on the linguistic and social factors associated with the use of the glottal stop. Datat were gathered by having participants repeat sentences they were presented auditorily (e.g, She twisted her right ankle). The particular pronunciation of /t/ in the presented sentences was masked with a tone. Logistic regression analysis identified three significant factors: (1) glottal stops were favored by following front vowels; (2) younger female speakers were most likely to use glottal stops, which …

Development Of Interactional Competence: Changes In The Use Of Ne In L2 Japanese During Study Abroad, Midori Ishida

Faculty Publications

This chapter investigates the development of the use of the Japanese particle ne by a second language (L2) learner of Japanese during a 9-month study abroad.

Methods Of Scoring Elicited Imitation Items: An Empirical Study, Deryle W. Lonsdale, Dan P. Dewey, Jeremiah Lane Mcghee, Aaron Johnson, Ross Hendrickson

Faculty Publications

NNS oral proficiency test for English

NNS listen to, repeat back isolated English sentences (60/test)

Responses are recorded and scored later by human evaluators

Rationale: subjects can’t process linguistic vocabulary, structures they don’t know yet

Incremental Processing And Resource Usage, Deryle W. Lonsdale, Jeremiah Lane Mcghee, Ross Hendrickson, Carl Christensen

Faculty Publications

Within the community engaged in Soar-based cognitive modeling (Newell, 1990), some work has focused on parsing natural language input text. An early version of the system (Lewis, 1993) performed syntactic analysis based largely on the Government & Binding (aka Principles & Parameters) framework, including X-bar theory for constituency.

Metaphorical Singular Reference: The Role Of Enriched Composition In Reference Resolution, Anne L. Bezuidenhout

Faculty Publications

It is widely accepted that, in the course of interpreting a metaphorical utterance, both literal and metaphorical interpretations of the utterance are available to the interpreter, although there may be disagreement about the order in which these interpretations are accessed. I call this the dual availability assumption. I argue that it does not apply in cases of metaphorical singular reference. These are cases in which proper names, complex demonstratives or definite descriptions are used metaphorically; e.g., ‘That festering sore must go’, referring to a derelict house. We are forced to give up dual availability in these cases because a process …

Elicited Imitation As An Oral Proficiency Measure With Asr Scoring, Deryle W. Lonsdale, C. Ray Graham, Casey Kennington, Aaron W. Johnson, Jeremiah Lane Mcghee

Faculty Publications

This paper discusses development and evaluation of a practical, valid and reliable instrument for evaluating the spoken language abilities of second-language (L2) learners of English. First we sketch the theory and history behind elicited imitation (EI) tests and the renewed interest in them. Then we present how we developed a new test based on various language resources, and administered it to a few hundred students of varying levels. The students were also scored using standard evaluation techniques, and the EI results were compared to more traditionally derived scores. We also sketch how we developed a new integrated tool that allows …

Japanese Vocabulary Acquisition By Learners In Three Contexts, Dan Dewey

Faculty Publications

This study is an investigation of the development of vocabulary knowledge during study abroad (SA), intensive domestic immersion (IM) and academic year formal classroom (AY) learning. Freed (1999) has emphasized the importance of knowing how stateside IM and AY experiences compare with SA and of determining the specific shared and unique linguistic benefits of each of these contexts. While few in number, comparisons between these contexts have been made (e.g., DeKeyser, 1986; Dewey, 2004; Freed, 1995b; Freed, Segalowitz & Dewey, 2004; Lafford, 1995; Milton & Meara, 1995). Only one study was found (Freed et al., 2004) comparing all three contexts …

Japanese Vocabulary Acquisition By Learners In Three Contexts, Dan P. Dewey

Faculty Publications

This study is an investigation of the development of vocabulary knowledge during study abroad (SA), intensive domestic immersion (IM) and academic-year formal classroom (AY) learning. Its focus was the growth of vocabulary knowledge in Japanese--a language where little SA research has been conducted to date. Unlike most studies addressing vocabulary development, it was centered strictly on vocabulary acquisition. Following the example of one of the most insightful comparative studies of vocabulary learning abroad and at home to date (Laufer & Paribakht, 1998), it included multiple measures of vocabulary knowledge to assess possible subtle differences in vocabulary acquisition between the SA, …

Assessing The Costs Of Machine-Assisted Corpus Annotation Through A User Study, Deryle W. Lonsdale, Eric K. Ringger, Marc A. Carmen, Robbie A. Haertel, Kevin Seppi, Peter J. Mcclanahan, James Carroll, Noel Ellison

Faculty Publications

Fixed, limited budgets often constrain the amount of expert annotation that can go into the construction of annotated corpora. Estimating the cost of annotation is the first step toward using annotation resources wisely. We present here a study of the cost of annotation. This study includes the participation of annotators at various skill levels and with varying backgrounds. Conducted over the web, the study consists of tests that simulate machine-assisted pre-annotation, requiring correction by the annotator rather than annotation from scratch. The study also includes tests representative of an annotation scenario involving Active Learning as it progresses from a naïve …

The Phonetic Context Of American English Flapping: Quantitative Evidence, Dirk Elzinga, David Eddington

Faculty Publications

The phonetic context in which word-medial flaps occur (in contrast to [th]) in American English is explored. The analysis focuses on stress placement, following phone, and syllabification. In Experiment 1, subjects provided their preference for [th] or [ɾ] in bisyllabic nonce words. Consistent with previous studies, flaps were preferred before stressless syllables and [th] before stressed syllables, but the following phone also exerted a small degree of influence. Experiments 2 and 3 tested whether [th] or [ɾ] are associated with a particular syllable position in bisyllabic words. They demonstrate that [th] is favored in onsets, while [ɾ] is not consistently …

Assessing Clinical Trial Eligibility With Logic Expression Queries, Deryle W. Lonsdale, C. Tutison, Craig G. Parker, David W. Embley

Faculty Publications

This paper introduces a system that processes clinical trials using a combination of natural language processing and database techniques. We process web-based clinical trial recruitment pages to extract semantic information reflecting eligibility criteria for potential participants. From this information we then formulate a query that can match criteria against medical data in patient records. The resulting system reflects a tight coupling of web-based information extraction, natural language processing, medical informatic approaches to clinical knowledge representation, and large-scale database technologies. We present an evaluation of the system and future directions for further system development.

Deictic Selves And Others In Pastaza Quichua Evidential Usage, Janis B. Nuckolls

Faculty Publications

This article clarifies the perspectival, deictic nature of evidentiality in Pastaza Quichua, a dialect of Quechua spoken in Amazonian Ecuador. I examine the discourse patterning of what have been called the direct and in direct experience morphemes and argue that a source-based characterization of these morphemes cannot be supported by the data. Using insights from liana Mushin's notion of epistemological stance, I outline the Quechua evidential system, identifying perspectives that may be divided into three main categories: the speaking self of a speech event, the speaking self of a narrated event, and a variety of stances that may categorized by …

A Constitutional Conundrum Of Second Amendment Commas, William W. Van Alstyne

Faculty Publications

Prompted by the court’s decision in Parker v. District of Columbia, this series of correspondence discusses the effect possible forms of punctuation may have on the Second Amendment. The article makes comments on the important grammars during the founding and also two possible writings of the Second Amendment that contain different sets of punctuation.

From Alps To Alpnet (And Beyond), Deryle W. Lonsdale

Faculty Publications

Nestled in the Wasatch range of the Rocky Mountains in northern Utah lies scenic Utah Valley. Home to Brigham Young University (BYU) and a host of foreign-speaking residents, the setting also served as a hotbed throughout the 1980's for the machine translation (MT) industry. To fully appreciate this narrative the chronologically prior story of BYU's Translation Sciences Institute (TSI)—which has not yet been written— would need to be consulted. When the Church1 withdrew funding for the project, the TSI team disbanded. Some former participants remained at BYU, others left the university to work for industrial corporations, and the majority remained …

Second Language Acquisition From A Mcneillian Perspective, Gale Stam

Faculty Publications

Most second language acquisition research has concentrated on learners’ speech. This paper argues that it is necessary to look at both learners’ speech and gesture in order to better understand second language acquisition. It provides a summary of the second language acquisition process and the types of studies that have been conducted in the field. It discusses how gesture can be used to investigate learners’ thinking for speaking.

Structural Ambiguity Collecting As A Tool For Teaching Grammar, Dallin D. Oaks

Faculty Publications

Structural ambiguities can be a valuable resource for grammar students. Because structural ambiguities present more than one possible grammatical interpretation, authentic examples of such ambiguities lend themselves well to meaningful grammatical discussions. One particularly useful way for involving students in the recognition and analysis of structural ambiguities is to assign them to find designated ambiguity types. This paper will consider some benefits of structural ambiguity study and will provide some ideas and suggestions related to a specific type of assignment that involves students in collecting structural ambiguities.

Supporting Technology Instruction Through Peer Tutoring, Discussion Boards And Electronic Journals, Dan Dewey, Anne E. Cannon

Faculty Publications

Given the diverse backgrounds and technical expertise that language teachers can possess, it is challenging for technology instructors to meet the needs of individuals during workshops or classes. In this study, we explored the effectiveness of three interventions implemented to help a technology instructor better meet the needs of individuals in his class: peer tutoring, asynchronous discussion board and electronic journal entries. Through the three interventions, the instructor's role changed from being the provider of solutions to every problem (firefighter) to being an available coach, able to focus his attention on matters that required it most. The instructor became well …

Active Learning For Part-Of-Speech Tagging: Accelerating Corpus Annotation, Deryle W. Lonsdale, Eric K. Ringger, Peter J. Mcclanahan, Robbie A. Haertel, George Busby, Marc A. Carmen, James Carroll, Kevin Seppi

Faculty Publications

In the construction of a part-of-speech annotated corpus, we are constrained by a fixed budget. A fully annotated corpus is required, but we can afford to label only a subset. We train a Maximum Entropy Markov Model tagger from a labeled subset and automatically tag the remainder. This paper addresses the question of where to focus our manual tagging efforts in order to deliver an annotation of highest quality. In this context, we find that active learning is always helpful. We focus on Query by Uncertainty (QBU) and Query by Committee (QBC) and report on experiments with several baselines and …

A Cognitive Robotics Approach To Comprehending Human Language And Behaviors, Deryle W. Lonsdale, D. Paul Benjamin, Damian Lyons

Faculty Publications

The ADAPT project is a collaboration of researchers in linguistics, robotics and artificial intelligence at three universities. We are building a complete robotic cognitive architecture for a mobile robot designed to interact with humans in a range of environments, and which uses natural language and models human behavior. This paper concentrates on the HRI aspects of ADAPT, and especially on how ADAPT models and interacts with humans.

Onset-To-Onset Probability And Gradient Acceptability In Korean, Hahn Koo

Faculty Publications

No abstract provided.

Generating Ontologies Via Language Components And Ontology Reuse, Deryle W. Lonsdale, Yihong Ding, David W. Embley, Martin Hepp, Li Xu

Faculty Publications

Realizing the Semantic Web involves creating ontologies, a tedious and costly challenge. Reuse can reduce the cost of ontology engineering. Semantic Web ontologies can provide useful input for ontology reuse. However, the automated reuse of such ontologies remains underexplored. This paper presents a generic architecture for automated ontology reuse. With our implementation of this architecture, we show the practicality of automating ontology generation through ontology reuse. We experimented with a large generic ontology as a basis for automatically generating domain ontologies that fit the scope of sample natural-language web pages. The results were encouraging, resulting in five lessons pertinent to …

Analogical Modeling: An Update, Deryle W. Lonsdale, David Eddington

Faculty Publications

Analogical modeling is a supervised exemplar-based approach that has been widely applied to predict linguistic behavior. The paradigm has been well documented in the linguistics and cognition literature, but is less well known to the machine learning community. This paper sets out some of the basics of the approach, including a simplified example of the fundamental algorithm’s operation. It then surveys some of the recent analogical modeling language applications, and sketches how the computational system has been enhanced lately to offer users increased flexibility and processing power. Some comparisons and contrasts are drawn between analogical modeling and other language modeling …

Turning Away, Jacob D. Rawlins

Faculty Publications

From the time of Joseph Smith’s first vision, the concepts of general apostasy and divine restoration have been central to the Latter-day Saint movement. In the Prophet’s account of his vision, he records that after he asked which church he should join, “I was answered that I must join none of them, for they were all wrong; and the Personage who addressed me said that all their creeds were an abomination in his sight; that those professors were all corrupt; that: ‘they draw near to me with their lips, but their hearts are far from me, they teach for doctrines …

The Place, Range, And Taxonomy Of Control And Raising, Willaim D. Davies, Stanley William Dubinsky

Faculty Publications

No abstract provided.

Learning In Minimalism-Based Language Modeling, Deryle W. Lonsdale

Faculty Publications

The natural language version of the Soar cognitive modeling system (Newell, 1990) has enabled a number of language modeling applications from on-line parsing behavior (Lewis, 1993) to simultaneous interpretation (Lonsdale, 1997, 1998) to robotic control (Benjamin, Lonsdale, & Lyons, 2004). The system supports an integrated approach to incremental comprehension and generation. Learning mechanisms account for processes in language performance from deliberate, explicit reasoning to automatic, recognitional expertise.

Syntactic processing in prior versions of the system followed the Principles and Parameters approach to syntax.

Update On Soar-Based Language Processing, Deryle W. Lonsdale

Faculty Publications

Discourse/robotic dialogue

Running on Soar 8.5.2

Having trouble getting to 8.6.1 Fresh start with 8.6.2...