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NL-KR Digest Volume 04 No. 64
NL-KR Digest (6/30/88 23:59:59) Volume 4 Number 64
LAST NUMBER IN THIS VOLUME
Today's Topics:
Re: Grammatic number of Quantifiers
A quick tour of Budapest: word-for-word translation
Word-for-word translation from Chinese
looking for an availabel English Translator
Visiting position in NL at Toronto
ACL European Chapter Call for Papers
Submissions: NL-KR@CS.ROCHESTER.EDU Requests, policy:
NL-KR-REQUEST@CS.ROCHESTER.EDU
----------------------------------------------------------------------
Date: Thu, 23 Jun 88 11:37 EDT From: morgan@clio.las.uiuc.edu Subject:
Re: Grammatic number of Quantifiers
Don't expect the facts of agreement to be rational. They aren't. For
example,
More than one student was/*were arrested. Fewer than two students
were/*was arrested.
In the first case, at least two students were arrested, the verb is
singular; vice-versa in the second case.
Another example: decimal fractions <= 1.0 take plural agreement. For
example,
On the average, .34 (pronounced 'point three four') babies were born
each month.
There's a lot more to agreement than meets the eye.
------------------------------
Date: Fri, 24 Jun 88 16:39 EDT From: gordan <gordan@maccs.UUCP>
Subject: Re: Grammatic number of Quantifiers (Re: genderless 3rd
person si...)
>One of the more curious efforts of the prescriptive grammarians has
>been to insist that "everyone" is grammatically singular.
Everyone, whether he is male or female, should realize that "everyone"
is grammatically singular. No reasonable man could possibly disagree.
What we NEED is some grammatical LAW and ORDER
to make the Net SAFE for OCHLOCRACY
--
Gordan Palameta
uunet!mnetor!maccs!gordan
------------------------------
Date: Sat, 25 Jun 88 00:50 EDT From: Rich Wales
<wales@valeria.cs.ucla.edu> Subject: Re: Grammatic number of
Quantifiers
In article <33700003@clio> morgan@clio.las.uiuc.edu writes:
Don't expect the facts of agreement to be rational.
They aren't. . . . There's a lot more to agreement
than meets the eye.
Also, number agreement varies from one language to another.
Hungarian, for instance, uses the *singular* (not plural) for a noun
which is preceded by a quantifier word (including a numeral); and if
such a noun phrase is the subject of a sentence, the verb is likewise
singular (not plural) -- even though the meaning is obviously plural,
and both noun and verb change to plural form if the quantifier word is
removed.
-- Rich Wales // UCLA Computer Science Department // +1 (213) 825-5683
3531 Boelter Hall // Los Angeles, California 90024-1596 // USA
wales@CS.UCLA.EDU ...!(uunet,ucbvax,rutgers)!cs.ucla.edu!wales
"We would all become unpeople, undoing unthings untogether."
------------------------------
Date: Sat, 25 Jun 88 21:12 EDT From: Mark William Hopkins
<markh@csd4.milw.wisc.edu> Subject: A quick tour of Budapest:
word-for-word translation
This is dedicated to those who are attending the Machine Translation
conference being held in Budapest in August ... and to those who
wrongly believe that even the most primitive of MT techniques
(word-for-word) does not yield easily comprehensible results.
Note: I use the pseudo-word "tha" to stand for the/that. Context
should enable one to disambiguate this.
(Hungarian is an agglutinative language, so you'll see a lot of
hyphens.)
--------------------------------------------------------------------------------
A SHORT TOUR OF BUDAPEST
The Budapest-ian airport-off-of bus comes the Belva'ros into.
This off-of tha bus-off-of down-climb-you. The Danube Hotel-into
go-you. This the tall modern building the Pest-ian bank-on stands.
The Danube Budapest-away-from north-off-of south-onto flows. The left
bank-on on-lies Buda, the right bank-on Pest. The downtown-in the
river above eight bridges are. Tha Elizabeth-bridge and the
Chainbridge between is the hotel, the-one-which-into walk-you.
Here-from tha window-out-of beautifuls the Buda-ian hills.
The Gelle'rthill-on stands the tall Freedom-statue. The old
Buda-ian Castle and the Matthew-church the Castlehill-on is. Here
narrow small streets-in tha short old houses next to Science-ish
institutes and museums are. Tha majestic, beautiful buildings between
Budapest-ians and foreign-ians, students and tourists stroll.
You the hotel-out-of taxi-in go up the Castle-in. The driver and
you converse.
"Where-onto go we?"
"This-onto, the Chainbridge upwards. There turn-you tha street
the bridge-on, the-place-which tha the beautiful tall building stands.
Tha the Hungarian Science-ish Academy."
--------------------------------------------------------------------------------
There's more, but I think I made my point. Those who speak Hungarian
should almost be able to hear the Hungarian in these passages ... so
faithful is the word-for-word (actually, morpheme-for-morpheme)
translation.
If you would like to know more about Budapest ... er, then go there!
:-)
------------------------------
Date: Mon, 27 Jun 88 23:35 EDT From: Scott Horne <shorne@citron>
Subject: Word-for-word translation from Chinese
This comes from _The Lady in the Painting_, Fred Fang-yu Wang, Yale,
etc.
PAINT OBJECT UP 'S BEAUTIFUL PERSON
From front have one piece person, surname sheet-of-paper, name
big bright. He not have elder brother elder brother, not have younger
brother younger brother. Father relative mother relative also all
past go completely. Family inside only to-be he one piece person.
Also not have money. He stop pass-through three ten more age
completely, also not have grand grand, equal correct also not have
child son. He every day early up go-out go do work, late up return
home.
He 's home to-be-at/in/on city outside head. Separate do work
's earth method not far, he every day early up, to-be-at/in/on road up
look look mountain, look look water, also have time season sing sing
song object.
He have not few friend friend, friend friend
more-than-one-person all very happy joyous he. He
more-than-one-person day day to-be-in/at/on one lump object do work,
also to-be-in/at/on one lump object play object. He more-than-
one-person really to-be "do work 's time season do work, play object
's time season play object." For use he more-than-one-person all very
high excitement. Able to-be arrive completely late up, other person
all return home completely, sheet-of-paper big bright also return home
completely. Other person home inside have grand grand, have child
son. Grand grand make cooked-rice 's time season, he
more-than-one-person able use with child son play object. Able to-be
sheet-of-paper big bright return arrive home inside, assorted manner
person all not have, cooked-rice get self personal do, home inside 's
task affection also get self personal do. Think with person talk
speech, able to-be not have person listen. For use have time season
he self personal with self personal talk speech.
----- I think those few paragraphs will suffice. In some places, I
may have gone too far (e.g., in translating the name Zhang Daming as
"sheet-of-paper big bright"); in others, I did a little parsing (e.g.,
the word jia1 means `home' and `family,' depending on the context; I
chose the correct one in each occurrence). Now try to prove your
point that you can make sense of any word- for-word translation! (No
fair finding an English version of the story.)
--Scott Horne
BITNET: PHORNE@CLEMSON (not working; please use another
address)
uucp: ....!gatech!hubcap!scarle!{hazel,citron,amber}!shorne
(If that doesn't work, send to
cchang@hubcap.clemson.edu) SnailMail: Scott Horne
812 Eleanor Dr.
Florence, SC 29501 VoiceNet: 803 667-9848
------------------------------
Date: Tue, 28 Jun 88 20:36 EDT From: K Watkins
<kww@amethyst.ma.arizona.edu> Subject: Re: Word-for-word translation
from Chinese
Let me take a stab at understanding this:
In article <2042@hubcap.UUCP> shorne@citron writes: >This comes from
_The Lady in the Painting_, Fred Fang-yu Wang, Yale, etc. >
> PAINT OBJECT UP 'S BEAUTIFUL PERSON > > From front
have one piece person, surname sheet-of-paper, name big >bright. He
not have elder brother elder brother, not have younger brother
>younger brother. Father relative mother relative also all past go
completely. >Family inside only to-be he one piece person. Also not
have money. He stop >pass-through three ten more age completely, also
not have grand grand, >equal correct also not have child son. He
every day early up go-out go do >work, late up return home. > To
begin the tale, we talk of one person, named Sun Page. He has no
siblings, no parents, no relatives - he alone is all his family. And
he is poor. He is well past thirty, but has no children. He rises
early every day to go work and comes home late.
> > He 's home to-be-at/in/on city outside head. Separate do work
's earth >method not far, he every day early up, to-be-at/in/on road
up look look >mountain, look look water, also have time season sing
sing song object. > His home is by the city gate(?). He works at
digging not far from his home, rising early every day; and as he walks
along he rejoices in the view of the mountain and the water, and has
the time to sing songs about the changes that come with the seasons.
>-----
I don't have time to work through the remaining paragraph, which is
much longer and more complex; this takes the kind of effort that
reading a newly learned language does, without the hassle of poking
through a dictionary. But am I on track at all?
--------------------------- K Watkins (watkins@rvax.ccit.arizona.edu)
My fingers, their keyboard, my opinions.
------------------------------
Date: Wed, 29 Jun 88 23:07 EDT From: Mark William Hopkins
<markh@csd4.milw.wisc.edu> Subject: Word-for-wrod translation: Chinese
This comes from _The Lady in the Painting_, Fred Fang-yu Wang, Yale,
etc.
For convenience's sake, I use the following abbreviations:
HOME = home/family BE = to-be AT = at/in/on S = more-than-one (i.e.
plural marker) Z = duplication marker (xxxZ = xxx xxx)
Zhang Daming = SheetOfPaper, BigBright (proper name)
I take it that the various "he"'s, "him"'s etc. refer to a female as
per the translated title, but I preserved the pronouns as they
originally were. This depends on the assumption that the original
Chinese pronouns actually do translate in the masculine gender, rather
than as neuter (as they would in the Hong Kong dialect).
Some phrases threw me for a loop ("BE-AT road up lookZ mountain, lookZ
water") and I can't be sure at all about their accuracy, but the rest
is not too difficult once you get used to it. Another one was
"time-season" which I took (from context) to be a word indicating
frequency or something of the like.
--------------------------------------------------------------------------------
** PAINT-OBJECT UP 'S BEAUTIFUL PERSON ** ** From front have one piece
person, surname Sheet-Of-Paper, name Big ** Bright. He not have
(elder brother)Z, not have (younger brother)Z. ** Father relative
mother relative also all past go completely. ** HOME inside only BE
he one piece person. Also not have money. He stop ** pass-through
three ten more age completely, also not have grandZ, ** equal correct
also not have child son. He every day early up go-out go do ** work,
late up return HOME.
THE BEAUTIFUL PERSON IN THE PAINTING
In the foreground you can see part of a person named BigBright
SheetOfPaper. He's over 30 and has no family; no brothers or sisters,
no parents, no children nor any elders. His mother and father have
already died. Every day, he gets up early in the morning, goes to
work and comes home late each night.
** He's HOME BE-AT city outside head. Separate do work 's earth **
method not far, he every day early up, BE-AT road up lookZ **
mountain, lookZ water, also have time-season singZ song-object.
His home is just outside the city. He does some farming outside
the home not too far off. He gets up early each day, and travels on
the road where he can see mountains and water, and will often sing as
he travels.
** He have not few friendZ, friendZ S-person all very happy joyous he.
** He S-person dayZ BE-AT one lump-object do work, also BE-AT one
lump-object ** play-object. He S-person really BE "do work 's
time-season do work, ** play-object 's time-season play-object." For
use he S-person all very high ** excitement. Able BE arrive completely
late up, other person all return HOME ** completely, BigBright
SheetOfPaper also return HOME completely. ** Other person HOME inside
have grandZ, have child son. GrandZ make cooked-rice ** 's
time-season, he S-person able use with child son play-object. Able BE
** SheetOfPaper BigBright return arrive HOME inside, assorted manner
person all ** not have, cooked-rice get self personal do, HOME
inside's task affection ** also get self personal do. Think with
person talk speech, able BE not have ** person listen. For use have
time-season he self personal with self personal ** talk speech.
He has quite a few friends, all of whom are happy when they are
together. They work and play like a family. They ???"work when they
are supposed to and play likewise."???, so they are very excited. They
can come to work late, but he finished when they do. The others have
elders to cook their meals and children to play with at home, but when
BigBright SheetOfPaper comes back home there are none of these various
people around waiting for him. He has to make his own meals and clean
up after himself. But he can say whatever's on his mind without there
being anyone else around to hear him, so he often talks to himself.
------------------------------
Date: Wed, 29 Jun 88 14:07 EDT From:
UZR515%DBNRHRZ1.BITNET@CUNYVM.CUNY.EDU Subject: looking for an
availabel English Translator
Dear subscriber,
Since I subscribed myself to this list just now, I would like to
know if there is anyone interested, like me in automatic translation
of English texts (into any other language).
I will be very pleased to become information from any person
interested in this subject, specially about the available translation
systems from LISTSERV@FINHUTC or any other possibility to access such
a system. Furthermore, I am designing a Language Translator which
should translate English Computer Text Books into Persian.
-------------------
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: Sat, 25 Jun 88 10:03 EDT From: Graeme Hirst
<gh%aipna.edinburgh.ac.uk@NSS.CS.UCL.AC.UK> Subject: Visiting position
in NL at Toronto
VISITING POSITION IN NATURAL LANGUAGE UNDERSTANDING
UNIVERSITY OF TORONTO ARTIFICIAL INTELLIGENCE GROUP (DEPARTMENT OF
COMPUTER SCIENCE)
A one-year visiting position, for a post-doc or more senior person, is
available in the University of Toronto A.I. group, in the area of
natural language understanding and computational linguistics.
The visitor would carry a 50% teaching load (one half-course per
semester), supervise MSc theses, and participate in the research
group's activities. The position is to commence asap.
The Toronto A.I. group includes 6.5 faculty, 2 research scientists,
and approximately 40 graduate students. The natural language subgroup
includes one faculty member (Graeme Hirst) and about ten graduate
students.
For more information, contact Graeme Hirst, preferably by e-mail:
In North America: gh@ai.toronto.edu
In U.K./Europe: gh@uk.ac.ed.aipna
Phone (in U.K. until 18 July): 031 225 7774 x.225
(in Canada from 19 July): 416-978-8747
Write: Graeme Hirst
Dept Computer Science
University of Toronto
Toronto, CANADA M5S 1A4
------------------------------
Date: Thu, 23 Jun 88 17:46 EDT From: walker_donald e
<walker@flash.bellcore.com> Subject: ACL European Chapter Call for
Papers
ACL European Chapter 1989 Status: R
CALL FOR PAPERS
Fourth Conference of the European Chapter
of the Association for Computational Linguistics
10-12 April 1989
Centre for Computational Linguistics
University of Manchester Institute of Science & Technology
Manchester, England
This conference is the fourth in a series of biennial conferences on
computational linguistics sponsored by the European Chapter of the
Association for Computational Linguistics. Previous conferences were
held in Pisa (Sep- tember 1983), Geneva (March 1985) and Copenhagen
(April 1987). Although hosted by a regional chapter, these confer-
ences are global in scope and participation. The European Chapter
represents a major subset of the parent Association for Computational
Linguistics, and is in its seventh year. The conference is open both
to existing members and non- members of the Association.
Papers are invited on all aspects of computational linguis- tics,
including but not limited to:
morphology
lexical semantics
computational models for the
analysis and generation of language
speech analysis and synthesis
computational lexicography and lexicology
syntax and semantics
discourse analysis
machine translation
computational aids to translation
natural language interfaces
knowledge representation and expert systems
computer-assisted language learning
Authors should send six copies of a 5- to 8-page double- spaced
summary to the Programme Committee at the following address:
Harold Somers
Centre for Computational Linguistics
UMIST
PO Box 88
Manchester M60 1 QD
England
It is important that the summary should identify the new ideas in the
paper and indicate to what extent the work is complete and to what
extent it has been implemented. It should contain sufficient
information to allow the programme committee to determine the scope of
the work and its rela- tion to relevant literature. The author's name
and address (including net address if possible) should be clearly
indi- cated, as well as one or two keywords indicating the general
subject matter of the paper.
Schedule: Summaries must be submitted by 1st October 1988. Authors
will be notified of acceptance by 15th December. Camera-ready copy of
final papers prepared in a double- column format on model paper (which
will be provided) must be received by 28th February 1989, along with a
signed copy- right release statement. Papers not received by this
date will not be included in the Conference Proceedings, which will be
published in time for distribution to everyone attending the
conference.
The programme committee will be co-chaired by Harold Somers (UMIST)
and Mary McGee Wood (Manchester University), and will include the
following
Christian Boitet (Grenbole)
Laurence Danlos (Paris)
Gerald Gazdar (Sussex)
Jurgen Kunze (Berlin, DDR)
Michael Moortgat (Leiden)
Oliviero Stock (Trento)
Henry Thompson (Edinburgh)
Dan Tufis (Bucharest)
Local arrangements will also be handled by Somers and Wood. Please
await a further announcement in October for more details.
Exhibits and demonstrations: A programme of exhibits and
demonstrations is planned. Anyone wishing to participate should
contact John McNaught at the above address. Book exhibitors should
contact Paul Bennett also at the above address.
------------------------------
End of NL-KR Digest *******************
