Natural Language Phenomena Research Articles

Some linguistic methods of improving the quality of document retrieval on the internet

One of the problems of e-business is to find relevant documents for making correct decisions. The main problem of the Internet is the huge amount of documents, which makes it difficult to find the relevant ones, hence the importance of the methods allowing for improving the quality of document retrieval. We discuss some linguistic problems of document retrieval on the internet related to the following natural language phenomena: (1) morphological processes: e.g., takes, took, taken are grammar forms of take; (2) polysemy and homonymy: most words have several senses, e.g., bank is a financial institution, shore, bench, etc.; (3) non-linearity of syntactic relations: in the case of a query that contains word combinations, the words forming a word combination can be separated by other words in the documents. Some linguistic-based methods and strategies related to the discussed problems are proposed that improve the quality of document retrieval or show the necessity of application of linguistic methods.

Zur Rolle der Logik in der Linguistik: Formale Modellbildung und funktionale Sprachtheorie

AbstractThis paper discusses the relationship of logic and linguistics and pleads for logic-based formal model building in linguistic theory. At first, I describe the assignments and the purpose of logic in arts in general and the interrelation between logic and linguistics. Taking into account philosophical conditions and the subject of both, language, I argue for a functional-linguistic point of view. A detailed investigation is devoted to the concept of predicates. Based on logical theory, namely the non-traditional theory of predication and the term-theory developed by A. A. Sinowjew and H. Wessel, a formal approach to modelling linguistic comprehensions of predicates is devised. On this base I carry out a logical reconstruction of some concepts of linguistic theory, like the quantitative and qualitative features of arguments and their thematic roles, and explain their relations to logical predicate-argument-structures. In a further step predicate forming operations are used to describe and to reconstruct diatheses, argument deletion and the influence of mass terms on predication. By this, I want to introduce formal tools for the explanation of such natural-language phenomena and line out how the formal results allow to solve several puzzles.

Ideen zur Veranschaulichung von Aussagen mit Modalverben Sprachwissenschaftliche Annahmen - für den Unterricht aufbereitet

The topic of the present paper is the relation between linguistics and language education. Put as a question one could ask: 'what benefit can linguistics have for language teaching?'. It will be claimed that as a precondition, language teachers should have more than just marginal insight into theories of natural language. I will try to support this postulate using sentences with modal verbs: based on a certain linguistic theory, illustrations of sentences with modal verbs will be given. These illustrations are thought to be a first step for a didactic preparation (transformation) of explanations given by a linguistic theory for natural language phenomena. As a consequence of the considerations it will be postulated that it is obligatory for the education of teachers to include linguistic modules, since, in line with the hypothesis of this paper, insight into linguistic theories can help: 1) to understand phenomena of natural language and 2) to find a didactical preparation for the phenomena in question.

양화사유동과 관련된 한국어의 분석과 전산처리

Quantifier floating is one of the much studied phenomena in natural languages where quantifying expressions may appear in places other than their original prenominal one. Its presence is especially prominent in languages such as Korean that allow more or less free word order. We find that, in addition to what is described in the literature, there are other remarkable regularities in the way the language allows quantifiers to “float” with respect to various constructions including coordination, relative clauses, and embedded clauses. These regularities are captured syntactically in a combinatory categorial grammar (CCG) framework for Korean. We also show how to derive semantic representations for Korean quantifier floating in the same CCG framework. (Korea Advanced Institute of Science and Technology)

Parameterizing and Eliciting Text Elements across Languages for Use in Natural Language Processing Systems

This paper analyzes the structure and meaning of text elements cross-linguistically and discusses how that information can be elicited from people in a way that is directly useful for NLP applications. We describe a recently developed computer-based linguistic knowledge elicitation system that initiates a new paradigm of knowledge acquisition methodologies for NLP. In particular, we describe the natural language phenomena the system seeks to cover, the approach to knowledge elicitation and its rationale, the elicitation modules themselves, and broader implications of this work.

Lewis, the lottery and the preface

Context-dependence is commonly believed to be a widespread phenomenon in natural language. In a context where the standards of precision are very demanding (say, a rocket launch), an utterance of ‘It’s 3 pm’ said at 3.01 will be reckoned false. Reduce the standards of precision and an utterance of the same sentence at the same time will be reckoned true. Semanticists habitually accommodate phenomena of this type by allowing that utterances of the same sentence type express different propositions on different occasions of use, owing to variations along contextual parameters that are not explicitly marked in the surface structure of the sentence itself. Contextualists in epistemology hold that the verb ‘know’ provides yet another case of context-dependence, expressing diverse relations on different occasions of use owing to shifting standards for its application. In Lewis’s particular version of contextualism, the key contextual parameter is the divide between the possible worlds that are being properly ignored by the ascriber and those that are not. He offers the following definition:

A Transfer of Sequence Function Via Equivalence in A Connectionist Network

Connectionist networks may provide useful models of stimulus equivalence and transfer of function phenomena. Such models have been applied to a range of behavioral tasks and have demonstrated transfers of function via equivalence relations fallowing appropriate training, with networks accurately simulating the behavior of human subjects. In the current study, a connectionist network was pretrained on a series of equivalence and sequence tasks to simulate the preexperimental experience of an adult subject. It was then exposed to the equivalent of six conditional discriminations, and was tested for the formation of three 3-member equivalence classes (corresponding to A1-A2-A3, B1→B2→B3, C1-C2-C3). It was subsequently trained to produce a pair of four part sequences (corresponding to B1→B2→Ct1→B3 and B3 B2→Ct2→B1, where Ct1 and Ct2 represented contextual cues) before being tested for transfer, through equivalence, of the sequence responses to the C stimuli. Following appropriate pretraining, the network showed the formation of three equivalence classes and a transfer of sequence function to the nontrained C stimuli (producing the novel sequences C1→C2→Ct1→C3 and C3→C2→Ct2→C1). A control network, which was not exposed to conditional discrimination training, failed to demonstrate equivalence and the transfer of sequence function, as predicted by findings from experimental demonstrations with human participants. Network performance was analyzed as a function of amount of pretraining and a number of psychologically plausible training methods are presented. The data suggest that connectionist networks may provide accurate and plausible models of stimulus equivalence and transfer of function phenomena in natural language.

Specificity distinction

This paper is concerned with semantic noun phrase typology, focusing on the question of how to draw fine-grained distinctions necessary for an accurate account of natural language phenomena. In the extensive literature on this topic, the most commonly encountered parameters of classification concern the semantic type of the denotation of the noun phrase, the familiarity or novelty of its referent, the quantificational/nonquantificational distinction (connected to the weak/strong dichotomy), as well as, more recently, the question of whether the noun phrase is choice-functional or not (see Reinhart 1997, Winter 1997, Kratzer 1998, Matthewson 1999). In the discussion that follows I will attempt to make the following general points: (i) phenomena involving the behavior of noun phrases both within and across languages point to the need of establishing further distinctions that are too fine-grained to be caught in the net of these typologies; (ii) some of the relevant distinctions can be captured in terms of conditions on assignment functions; (iii) distribution and scopal peculiarities of noun phrases may result from constraints they impose on the way variables they introduce are to be assigned values.
 
 Section 2 reviews the typology of definite noun phrases introduced in Farkas 2000 and the way it provides support for the general points above. Section 3 examines some of the problems raised by recognizing the rich variety of 'indefinite' noun phrases found in natural language and by attempting to capture their distribution and interpretation. Common to the typologies discussed in the two sections is the issue of marking different types of variation in the interpretation of a noun phrase. In the light of this discussion, specificity turns out to be an epiphenomenon connected to a family of distinctions that are marked differently in different languages.

Morpheme-based, cross-lingual indexing for medical document retrieval

The increasing availability of machine-readable medical documents is not really matched with the sophistication of currently used retrieval facilities to deal with a variety of critical natural language phenomena. Still most popular are string-matching methods which encounter problems for the medical sublanguage, in particular, concerning the wide-spread use of complex word forms such as noun compounds. We introduce a methodology for the segmentation of complex compounds into medically motivated morphemes. Given the sublanguage patterns in our data these morphemes derive from German, Greek and Latin roots. For indexing and retrieval purposes, such a morpheme dictionary may be further structured by defining the semantic relations among morpheme sets in order to build up a multilingual morpheme thesaurus. We present a tool for thesaurus compilation and management, and outline a methodology for the proper construction and maintenance of a multilingual morpheme thesaurus.

Two decades of statistical language modeling: where do we go from here?

Statistical language models estimate the distribution of various natural language phenomena for the purpose of speech recognition and other language technologies. Since the first significant model was proposed in 1980, many attempts have been made to improve the state of the art. We review them, point to a few promising directions, and argue for a Bayesian approach to integration of linguistic theories with data.

ICTRL: Intensional conformal text representation language

A new compact and homogeneous symbolism is introduced to achieve a more general and exact representation of natural language texts. Traditional first-order and intensional logic cannot cope with numerous natural language phenomena such as the large variety of modalities, satisfactory interpretation of iterative application of modal operators or certain modelling problems like one-to-one sentence–formula mapping. The CTRL/iCTRL formalism can model them successfully and they are able to control many other different shades of meaning by applying only a minimal number of syntactic tools. The most profitable and beneficial AI application of the presented natural language syntax consistent knowledge representation technique is automated knowledge acquisition: computer-aided textual data base generation and logical inference based information retrieval. CTRL/iCTRL applicability is demonstrated by various illustrative examples including a transparent graphical interpretation analogous to Frege's graph language that help clarify new concepts and exemplify partial inappropriateness of traditional logical language. The CTRL/iCTRL paradigm is based on a novel and interesting synthesis of the two traditional logic schools, the Stoic and the Peripatetic school, refuting a century long scientific prejudice against the latter stated to be completely outworn. An interesting issue of this analysis points out that expressing subordination unconsciously and simply by co-ordination causes a typical restriction of meaning in classical logic.

Prolegomenon to the relation between social theory and method*

Building on the work of Noam Chomsky (1963), this paper presents a hierarchy of grammars and associated computational automata in order to inform social theory construction and method. A detailed exposition of linguistic forms within the grammar hierarchy reveals clear analogues with common social scientific paradigms. Two of these paradigms (which are termed structural and process approaches) are already being widely exploited by formal methodological techniques. A third paradigm, which is rooted in a tradition of interpretive sociology, has been more resistant to formalization. Using arguments from theoretical computer science, the paper suggests that existing quantitative methodologies can be extended to accommodate qualitative arguments which subsume empirical domains as diverse as natural language and structurational phenomena.

Verification of conceptual models based on linguistic knowledge

As conceptual models reflect people's perception of real-world phenomena, they are closely tied to the way people describe and talk about these phenomena in natural language. The models, used for developing database and information systems and for presenting or explaining databases, usually include linguistic notions to help interpret their contents. In this paper, we show how linguistic knowledge from a semantically based lexicon can be used to check the quality of conceptual models. The check is a natural extension of traditional verification checks, and its purpose is to ensure that words and phrases included in the models are used in a linguistically meaningful way. Linguistic expressions must be of the correct type, and the relationships between expressions in the model must be acceptable with respect to the semantic constraints indicated in the lexicon.

Combining Montague semantics and discourse representation

This paper embeds the core part of Discourse Representation Theory in the classical theory of types plus a few simple axioms that allow the theory to express key facts about variables and assignments on the object level of the logic. It is shown how the embedding can be used to combine core analyses of natural language phenomena in Discourse Representation Theory with analyses that can be obtained in Montague Semantics.

Syntactic Analysis With Automata And Transducers

Computer systems that process natural languages require the creation of a database-describing lexicon with extensive information about words, and a formal representational model allowing access and data manipulation. Most research attempts to find model representation taking into account both information and its processing procedures. Among these formalisms are automata, concepts used to analyze formal languages such as designing and programming languages. Automata seem to be well-adapted tools for the representation of the observed phenomena of natural languages.

The EDR electronic dictionary

Natural language processing will grow into a vital industrial technology in the next five to 10 years. But this growth depends on the development of large linguistic databases that capture natural language phenomena [1, 2]. Another important theme for future work is development of large knowledge bases that are shared widely by different groups. One promising approach to such knowledge bases draws on natural language processing and linguistic knowledge. This article describes the EDR Electronic Dictionary [3], which seeks to provide a foundation for linguistic databases, and explains the relation of electronic dictionaries to very large knowledge bases.

String variable grammar: A logic grammar formalism for the biological language of DNA

Building upon Definite Clause Grammar (DCG), a number of logic grammar systems have been developed that are well-suited to phenomena in natural language. We have proposed an extension called String Variable Grammar (SVG), specifically tailored to the biological language of DNA. We here rigorously define and characterize this formalism, showing that it specifies a class of languages that properly contains the context-free languages, but is properly contained in the indexed languages. We give a number of mathematical and biological examples, and use an SVG variant to propose a new abstraction of the process of gene expression. A practical implementation called GenLang is described, and some recent results in parsing genes and other high-level features of DNA sequences are summarized.

Automatic typological analysis of semitic morphology

Abstract It is shown that the quantitative approach to morphological typology presented by Greenberg (1960) has considerable potential as a sensitive and powerful device for capturing morphological phenomena in natural languages, provided the up‐to‐date statistical techniques and effective computer support are involved. In the present paper, the method of quantitative typology is extended by introducing automatic typological analysis of a large text corpus in a language under investigation. This analysis allows for investigation of distribution functions of quantitative exponents (indices) standing for the relevant morphological features. A computer program is developed which performs automatic typological analysis of Semitic languages. Its performance is exemplified by analysis of Literary Arabic and Maltese.

Preset two-head automata and morphological analysis of natural language∗

Modeling the morphological structure of natural languages in terms of a nondeterministic finite-state automaton is shown to be inadequate in its handling of some common natural language phenomena. We show that a two-tape nondeterministic automaton is capable of handling these phenomena. The modeling is improved by the specification of a new type of automaton, the preset two-head automaton, which we argue is equivalent in expressive power to a linear context-free grammar. We discuss the operation of a parser which implements the improved model.

A MARKER-PASSING ALGORITHM FOR REFERENCE RESOLUTION

Reference is a linguistic process by which a speaker/ writer denotes an entity. It is an important phenomenon in natural language, and it has been addressed by many researchers. A local focus constitutes important information used in reference resolution; however, the previous focusing approaches fail to resolve some references due to several problems. This paper presents a marker-passing solution and some experimental results. Reference resolution is carried out based on the premise that “the most active concept acceptable syntactically and semantically as a referent is the referent.” Referability is defined based on constraints and activeness to be used to compute the correct referent. This model has been implemented on a marker-passing simulator, and it shows 92.2% success rate and better performance than previous approaches in a set of arbitrarily chosen 100 news articles.