nl-kr-request@CS.ROCHESTER.EDU (NL-KR Moderator Brad Miller) (07/12/88)
NL-KR Digest (7/11/88 19:13:18) Volume 5 Number 1
Today's Topics:
looking for translator systems
artificial languages
Wanted: a grammar for English
Re: Irregular forms [Was Re: Shallow Parsing]
Re: Sapir-Whorf Hypothesis
Submissions: NL-KR@CS.ROCHESTER.EDU
Requests, policy: NL-KR-REQUEST@CS.ROCHESTER.EDU
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Date: Fri, 1 Jul 88 19:38 EDT
From: UZR515%DBNRHRZ1.BITNET@CUNYVM.CUNY.EDU
Subject: looking for translator systems
H E L P !
=========
Dear subscriber,
I am designing a Language Translator which should translate
English Computer Text Books into persian. Indeed, everybody knows
that there are a lot of works on automatic translation of "English-"
texts into many different languages such as german, chineese, arabic,
etc. It means that the "Analysing"-part of such a translator system
is more than n times (naturally in different manners) designed and
implemented.
Now I will be very pleased to become information from any person
interested in automatic translation of English texts
(into any other language). Specially I wish to be informed where and
how can I locate the followings:
1. Available translation systems from LISTSERV@FINHUTC
or any other possibility to access such a system ?
2. A multi-lingua translator system such as EUROTRA ?
3. Fonts for persian or at least arabic characters ?
Your prompt attention would be most appreciated.
Yours sincerely,
Hooshang Mehrjerdian
<UZR515@DBNRHRZ1.BITNET>
Bergmeisterstueck 1
5300 Bonn 3
West Germany
Tel: (0228)-733358
------------------------------
Date: Wed, 6 Jul 88 01:02 EDT
From: HEARNE@wwu.edu
Subject: artificial languages
I am doing a study of the design of artificial languages that might
be accessible to computer support and would be grateful for any bibliographic
hints anyone might have.
I am particularly interested in whether anyone has ever written on
the language LINCOS published by Freudenthal in the early sixties.
If anyone is interested in the results of this inquiry, let me know
and I will e-mail the assembled bibliography and/or suggestions.
Jim Hearne,
Computer Science Department,
Western Washington University,
Bellingham WA
hearne@wwu.edu
------------------------------
Date: Mon, 11 Jul 88 09:37 EDT
From: T. William Wells <bill@proxftl.UUCP>
Subject: Wanted: a grammar for English
I am looking for grammars for English. I'd prefer ones written
as a context free rules with restrictions.
I am currently looking through the references I picked up at the
recent ACL conference and am investigating a number of other
items I have picked up. However, I'd appreciate any references
thrown my way.
Please respond by E-mail, and if there is enough interest I will
summarize to the net.
------------------------------
Date: Thu, 30 Jun 88 11:49 EDT
From: Rick Wojcik <rwojcik@bcsaic.UUCP>
Subject: Re: Irregular forms [Was Re: Shallow Parsing]
In article <775@garth.UUCP> smryan@garth.UUCP (Steven Ryan) writes:
>... It is hypothesised that languages change when someone
>makes a mistake. If the mistake makes the language easier it spreads from
>a one-time accident to a broad change.
It is easier to believe this kind of thing when you are talking about the
growth of vocabulary. But there seems to be a popular misconception that
phonological change is initiated by imitation. Someone makes a 'mistake'
and others join in. The first one to make such a mistake must be a pretty
popular individual :-). The real driving mechanism of phonological change
is to be found in language acquisition. Change spreads not only from a
geographical center to a periphery, but from younger generations to older.
An optional process in relaxed speech--e.g. the reduction of 'police' to
[plis]--appears to children as the phonemic string /plis/. It is
reasonable to suppose that /plis/ might some day become the 'standard'
representation for the word. Since this type of phonological reduction
happens to phonetic targets, rather than individual words, phonological
change has global effects on the vocabulary. If change were driven by the
imitation of mistakes, then we would see it as something that happened
idiosyncratically, word-by-word, rather than across the board.
>Possibly in early (?)Anglish, Saxon, or Protogermanic, somebody tripped
>over their tongue when trying to say "hafed" and ended up with "had". The
>irregular past of "have" (like most other irregulars) is essentially
>unchanged from Old English (600 - 1100).
The loss of fricatives between vowels and in the neighborhood of other
consonants is a very reasonable phonological change. Consider the
dialectal pronunciation of 'business' /bIznEs/ as [bInEs]. To understand
the origin of 'had' you need to look at the pronunciation of other words
with similar phonemic patterns in the centuries that the change took
place.
--
Rick Wojcik csnet: rwojcik@boeing.com
uucp: uw-beaver!ssc-vax!bcsaic!rwojcik
address: P.O. Box 24346, MS 7L-64, Seattle, WA 98124-0346
phone: 206-865-3844
------------------------------
Date: Thu, 30 Jun 88 16:04 EDT
From: Rick Wojcik <rwojcik@bcsaic.UUCP>
Subject: Re: Irregular forms [Was Re: Shallow Parsing]
In article <786@garth.UUCP> smryan@garth.UUCP (Steven Ryan) writes:
>If irregular forms are suppressed and then resumed, they should reappear at
>about the same time. If they are lost and then relearned, they should reappear
>staggerred by their frequency.
>Is there any evidence one way or the other?
Let me try to restate what I said in different terms. Irregular forms
don't exist in the earliest stages because there are no rules that they
can be irregular with. So words like 'went' and 'looked' are
morphologically simplex. When the morpho-syntactic rule for past tense is
learned, it is only then that 'went' can be regarded (and must be learned)
as an irregular form. One way to analyze the process is to say that the
learner sets up an obligatory suppletive replacement between the regular
form 'goed' /god/ and the suppletive form 'went' /wEnt/. So I am not
saying that irregular forms are 'suppressed and then resumed'. In
reality, there may be a period when the GOED->WENT suppletion process is
optional. It is often the case in heavily inflected languages that
learners go through periods of confusion (variable output) before they
settle down to correct usage.
--
Rick Wojcik csnet: rwojcik@boeing.com
uucp: uw-beaver!ssc-vax!bcsaic!rwojcik
address: P.O. Box 24346, MS 7L-64, Seattle, WA 98124-0346
phone: 206-865-3844
------------------------------
Date: Fri, 1 Jul 88 12:56 EDT
From: Rick Wojcik <rwojcik@bcsaic.UUCP>
Subject: Re: Irregular forms [Was Re: Shallow Parsing]
In article <1991@uhccux.uhcc.hawaii.edu> stampe@uhccux.uhcc.hawaii.edu (David Stampe) writes:
[On idiosyncratic phonological changes in exceptional morphology, where
th->h in 'I hink...']
There is also a variant of this where people voice the 'th'. It has the
same distribution, viz. only in somewhat parenthetical uses of 'think'.
I've just about bought David's claims about the etymology of 'had' (<hafed).
It isn't clear to me why 'behaved' didn't undergo the same change. Here's
a question: Why is the last vowel in 'behaved' long? And why are the
vowels in 'have, has, had' short? Also, David's claims link 'had' to
changes that occurred idiosyncratically in 'lord' and 'lady'. Maybe I'm
just suffering from 'Verner's Complex', but I don't get a warm feeling
about these examples. An interesting hought, anyway. It's discussions
like this that justify taking the time to monitor sci.lang.
--
Rick Wojcik csnet: rwojcik@boeing.com
uucp: uw-beaver!ssc-vax!bcsaic!rwojcik
address: P.O. Box 24346, MS 7L-64, Seattle, WA 98124-0346
phone: 206-865-3844
------------------------------
Date: Sat, 2 Jul 88 09:36 EDT
From: David Stampe <stampe@uhccux.uhcc.hawaii.edu>
Subject: Re: Sapir-Whorf
Jim Meritt complains that in response to his request for evidence for or
against the Sapir-Whorf hypothesis, he got nothing but a "one language is
as good as any other" type reply. "Prejudice rears it ugly head - opinions
without facts," he says.
Well, some languages are better for rhyming than alliterating. Some are
better for talking about fishing than farming. But Whorf was claiming
something more: that grammatical categories of languages affect the
perception and cognition of their speakers. The problem is, he didn't
really show this at all. How could he have? There have always been many
thousands of people who speak languages with totally different structures
and grammatical categories. If they had observed time warps while
switching tense systems, you can bet we'd have heard plenty about it. And
among the completely divergent views of time held by various pre-Socratic
philosophers, not one resembles the Greek tense system. The testimony of
one amateur linguist based on a brief acquaintance with Hopi language,
thought, and reality is not compelling, but if you're bent on the idea that
some languages are more equal than others, that's the book to start from:
the collection of Whorf's papers called _Language, Thought, and Reality_.
The association of Sapir's name with Whorf's hypothesis always seemed to me
to misrepresent Sapir's views. Sapir was a linguist with the sensibilities
of a poet and musician, and therefore quite interested in the form of
expression, and in classifying the variety of language structures and
linguistic tendencies. Nonetheless, he often said (e.g. in his 1921 book
_Language_) that each language is essentially complete and perfect.
David (stampe@uhccux.uhcc.hawaii.edu)
------------------------------
Date: Sat, 2 Jul 88 15:52 EDT
From: Sarge Gerbode <sarge@metapsy.UUCP>
Subject: Re: Sapir-Whorf Hypothesis
In article <1031@aplcomm.UUCP> @aplvax.jhuapl.edu:jwm@stdc.jhuapl.edu
(Jim Meritt) writes:
>
>I asked a month or so ago for any evidence for or against the S/W hypothesis.
>(after a rather flamey "one language is as good as any other" here)
>
>I got a couple of emails asking for information that I received.
The point is brought up in the book "Rationality and Relativism", Steven Lukes
and Martin Hollis, Eds. (MIT Press, Cambridge, 1982) p. 267. He gives three
references for studies that appeared to cast doubt on the hypothesis:
Cole, M. and Scribner, S "Culture and Thought", Chapter Three (Wiley, New
York, 1974)
Heider, E.R. "Linguistic Relativity", in Silverstein, A. Ed. "Human
Communication: Theoretical persp[ectives" (Laurence Eribaum Asociates,
HIllside, N.J., 1974).
Berlin, B., and Hay, R. "Basic Color Terms" (University of California Press,
Berkeley, 1969).
Lukes summaraizes the research by saying that it was found that "basic color
terminology appears to be universal, and that the color space is 'naturally
organized' into focal colors and that perceptually salient focal colors appear
to form natural prototypes for the development of color terms." He adds that
similar evidence has been found with respect to geometric forms and facial
expressions of emotion: "both of these domains appear to be structured into
'natural categories' invariant across languages and cultures."
References he gives for these last points are:
R. Heider "Linguistic Relativity" and
Clynes, M. "Sentics: the touch of Emotions" (Doubleday, New York, 1977), pp.
44-51.
Why don't you check these out and post a summary, if the subject interests
you.
--
Sarge Gerbode -- UUCP: pyramid!thirdi!metapsy!sarge
Institute for Research in Metapsychology
950 Guinda St. Palo Alto, CA 94301
------------------------------
Date: Sat, 2 Jul 88 19:19 EDT
From: morgan@clio.las.uiuc.edu
Subject: Re: Sapir-Whorf
I'm not sure what it means to ask whether Sapir/Whorf is correct. Nor how
to go about looking for an answer with scientific merit.
The same goes for the "one language is better than another" question.
There is no evidence for the superiority of any one of the world's
languages over any of the others. There can't be any such evidence,
first of all because the question hasn't been stated clearly enough to
be scientifically interesting, and even if it were there are no credible
tools for measuring languages in relevant ways. History is full of
pronouncements about the superiority or inferiority of particular
languages. For example, I once heard a serious academic assert that
Arabic is unfit for mathematics (a real howler). Such pronouncements
are usually made by people who are looking for a justification for
bigotry. That's why people with any sense at all avoid speculation that
might be misused in ways they hadn't considered.
------------------------------
Date: Sun, 3 Jul 88 18:56 EDT
From: Celso Alvarez <sp299-ad@violet.berkeley.edu>
Subject: Re: Sapir-Whorf Hypothesis
In article <469@metapsy.UUCP> sarge@metapsy.UUCP (Sarge Gerbode) writes:
>references for studies that appeared to cast doubt on the hypothesis:
>Berlin, B., and Hay, R. "Basic Color Terms" (University of
^^^^^^^
California Press, Berkeley, 1969).
The second author you are referring to must be Paul Kay, not
"R. Hay". Paul Kay is currently a professor at the Linguistics
Department, U.C. Berkeley.
C. A. (sp299-ad@violet.berkeley.edu.UUCP)
------------------------------
Date: Mon, 4 Jul 88 06:47 EDT
From: Celso Alvarez <sp299-ad@violet.berkeley.edu>
Subject: Re: Sapir-Whorf
Thorough arguments against the Whorfian hypothesis are developed
in Fishman (1960), "A systematization of the Whorfian
hypothesis," _Behavioral_Science_ 5.4, 323-329.
Fishman articulates his review of the effects of language on
social behavior around the interaction of a double parameter:
a) the data of language (lexical-semantic and grammatical),
and b) the data of behavior (cognitive and social). On the
basis of this framework, Fishman establishes four possible types of
social reflexes of language: (1) reflexes of lexical-semantic
structures in verbal behavior (thus addressing the question of
*codifiability* of culture-specific notions); (2) reflexes of
lexical-semantic structures in non-verbal social behavior; (3)
concomitants between grammatical structures and cultural notions;
and (4) concomitants between grammatical structures and social
behavior. After a review of a number of experimental studies,
Fishman concludes that there is not enough evidence to support
in its entirety the Whorfian hypothesis beyond what constitutes
a self-evident truth: that each language has its "character",
its specific "personality" based on the ways in which it codifies
lexically and it structures grammatically the community cultural
notions. For Fishman, what in part determines cognitive processes
is not the particular structure of a given language, but the very human
capacity of language:
"one might suspect that the impact of language _per_se_
in cognition and expression ought somehow to be greater
and more fundamental than the impact of one or another
language feature" (:336).
A classic argument against the S/W hypothesis refers to the
social and cognitive behavior of bilinguals. Are bilinguals
socially and psychologically schizoid because they master two
different languages? Conversely, if S/W were correct,
"monolingual individuals speaking widely different
languages should, therefore, differ with respect
to their symbolically mediated behaviors" (:323).
It is not clear that this is always the case. Haugen
(1978, "Bilingualism, language contact and immigrant
languages in the U.S. A research report, 1956-1970,"
in Fishman, ed. _Advances_in_the_Study_of_Societal
_Multilingualism_, The Hague: Mouton) offers as a counterexample
to S/W: (a) the coexistence of structurally diverging languages
in the same speech community, where this linguistic duality
does not necessarily entail a duality in bilinguals' social
behavior; (b) the equivalence of a bilingual's cognitive
processes in one or the other language:
"The automaticity and comparative semantic emptiness
of grammatical structures make it possible for
bilinguals to master more than one language and
guarantee that as a vehicle of thinking one language
will perform as well as another" (:65);
and (c) the existence of linguistic universals in a greater
quantity than initially imagined.
Some of the above points are, of course, debatable. But they
stress that, at the core of the issue, is the question of
*perception* and *conceptualization* of reality, and the
*verbalization* of cognitive structures. Since
experimentation on cognition is mediated by verbalization,
I personally doubt that irrefutable evidence can be found,
at the present stage of research, that linguistic structures
*in all cases* condition cognitive processes or vice versa:
"The time might (...) now be ripe for putting aside
attempts at grossly 'proving' or 'disproving' the
Whorfian hypothesis and, instead, focusing on attempts
to delimit more sharply THE TYPES OF LINGUISTIC
STRUCTURES AND THE TYPES OF NON-LINGUISTIC BEHAVIORS
that do or do not show the Whorfian effect as well as
the degree and the modifiability of this involvement
when it does obtain" (Fishman 1960: 337; my emphasis).
Celso Alvarez (sp299-ad@garnet.berkeley.edu.UUCP)
------------------------------
Date: Wed, 6 Jul 88 10:38 EDT
From: Walter Rolandi <rolandi@gollum.UUCP>
Subject: Re: Sapir-Whorf
Regarding the Sapir-Whorf debate:
What IS the big deal about the Sapir-Whorf position? If it can be said that
an implication of the hypothesis is that a person's thoughts are defined by
the language that the person speaks, so what? What could be more obvious?
In fact, this is a circular declaration. A person talks about the things
that mediate reinforcement in a person's culture. The things that mediate
reinforcement in a person's culture determine what a person talks about.
Walter Rolandi
rolandi@gollum.UUCP
rolandi@ncrcae.Columbia.NCR.COM
NCR Advanced Systems Development, Columbia, SC
------------------------------
Date: Wed, 6 Jul 88 16:12 EDT
From: SIEMON <mls@whutt.UUCP>
Subject: Re: Sapir-Whorf
In article <1036@aplcomm.UUCP>, jwm@stdc.jhuapl.edu (Jim Meritt) writes:
> I would like people who jump up and yell "they all are just as good" and
> "you can translate any of them to any other without loss" to either
You suffer from a desire for absolute definitions. What the hell do
you mean (or does anyone mean) by "as good"? No one claims that it
is always possible to translate "without loss" -- it remains unclear
what there is to lose in any given translation.
> a. present information to back up their flame
There were references in most of the repsonses to your note; even
my own diatribe suggested some. The _Basic Color Terms_ book is
especially good as the authors set out with the assumption that
they could pin down here, if nowhere else, an influence of language
on perception. They failed. (But the failure was interesting.)
> b. shut up.
>
> after I provided an item that I thought was interesting which appeared
> to back up the hypothesis.
I seem to have missed your original. In any case the problem is
not the data -- the problem is making any sensible, predicitive
hypothesis out of Whorf's notions.
> As to "how would you know?": How about
> 1. Formulate a problem in 1st language.
> 2. solve it
> 3. translate formulation into 2nd language
> 4. solve it in 2nd
> 5. translate one solution into other language and compare
What do you mean by "problem" "solution" and "compare"? Really.
If you start from definitions dear to your own culture, and test
by posing the "problems" to another culture, you are likely to get
into a muddle about
a. they didn't understand my problem
b. i don't understand their answer
wherein it is all too easy to dismiss someone else as ignorant or
bizarre when the only problem is in the mechanics of translation.
Suppose the translations turn out the same -- what does that prove?
Suppose they turn out different -- what does THAT prove? Are
you talking about mathematics or what? Even in math there are
different, non-translatable solutions to the "same" problem. In
a wider context it's unclear what a "problem" is, let alone how
many "solutions" it has, if any.
People operate within a culture; that culture includes a language.
By and large the language will support the culture. So? Suppose,
pace Whorf, that some people (Zunis, for example) structure time
differently than Europeans do. Do you have any way to differentiate
language as a source of this structuring from any other aspect of
these people's human interaction? And do you have any possible way
of showing that the differences in structuring imply an underlying
difference in experience? If the Zuni know something about time that
we poor English speakers don't (or vice versa), how would either of
them know there was an unbridgeable gulf?
Bilingual speakers don't seem to have PERCEPTUAL problems, though
sometimes they get into confusions where vocabularies don't match
up very well, or the syntax of the better known language affects
discourse in the second language.
--
Michael L. Siemon
contracted to AT&T Bell Laboratories
ihnp4!mhuxu!mls
standard disclaimer
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End of NL-KR Digest
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