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NL-KR Digest Volume 05 No. 06
NL-KR Digest (8/02/88 21:49:01) Volume 5 Number 6
Today's Topics:
Wanted: large corpora of English text
Chinese counterfactuals experiment
a grammar for English
Sapir-Whorf Hypothesis
ACL 1989 Annual Meeting Call for Papers; Vancouver, 26-29 June
NL-KR 5.5 - Call for Papers
Submissions: NL-KR@CS.ROCHESTER.EDU
Requests, policy: NL-KR-REQUEST@CS.ROCHESTER.EDU
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Date: Thu, 28 Jul 88 15:30 EDT
From: Bagley.PA@Xerox.COM
Subject: Wanted: large corpora of English text
I am looking for public domain or commercially available corpora of
either written English or transcriptions of spoken English, preferably
significantly longer than a million characters. If it is tagged with
part-of-speech that would be great, but it isn't necessary. Thanks for
all assistance.
Steve Bagley
System Sciences Laboratory
Xerox PARC
3333 Coyote Hill Road
Palo Alto CA 94301
Bagley.pa@xerox.com
415-494-4331
------------------------------
Date: Thu, 28 Jul 88 16:44 EDT
From: Philip Resnik <presnik@LABS-N.BBN.COM>
Subject: Chinese counterfactuals experiment
> This is a contribution to the recent debate about the Sapir/Whorf
> hypothesis.
>
> ...The hypothesis certainly has scientific purchase because it has been
> subjected to clever and rigorous investigation...
>
> An interesting case study in the S/W hypothesis is Bloom's _The
> Linguistic Shaping of Thought_ (I believe that was the title). He
> there describes a number of experiments aimed at show that the absence
> of grammatical and morphological support for counterfactual conditionals
> and abstraction impede native Chinese speakers in _certain_ problem-
> solving tasks.
I'm not sure to what extent the Chinese counterfactuals experiment
can be used as evidence of "clever and rigorous investigation".
In a linguistics course I took some time back, the Bloom paper
was indeed presented as evidence in favor of the Whorf hypothesis.
However, we then read a paper describing a follow-up experiment
(I don't recall the researchers) in which the situation was exactly
reversed -- Chinese counterfactual stories translated into English by
translators at a similar level of competence, followed by the same
comprehension questions. The results demonstrated that the American
subjects had the same "problem" with counterfactuals as the Chinese
subjects -- the results in the reversed experiment were clearly
the same as those of the original. In short, the follow-up
provided convincing evidence that in both experiments the
translations were bad enough to cause subjects difficulty on
comprehension questions.
Philip Resnik
presnik@bbn.com
------------------------------
Date: Thu, 28 Jul 88 18:01 EDT
From: H.Ludwig Hausen +49-2241142426 <HAUSEN%DBNGMD21.BITNET@MITVMA.MIT.EDU>
Subject: a grammar for English
We are also interested to obtain
grammars for English. Any computer-readable form is welcomed.
Thanks for any help.
H A N S - L U D W I G H A U S E N
GMD Schloss Birlinghoven Telefax +49-2241-14-2618
D-5205 Sankt Augustin 1 Teletex 2627-224135=GMD VV
West GERMANY Telex 8 89 469 gmd d
E-mail hausen@dbngmd21.BITNET
Telephone +49-2241-14-2440 or 2426
P.S.:GMD (Gesellschaft fuer Mathematik und Datenverarbeitung)
German National Research Institute of Computer Science
German Federal Ministry of Research and Technology (BMFT)
------------------------------
Date: Sat, 30 Jul 88 18:06 EDT
From: G Fitch <gf@dasys1.UUCP>
Subject: Sapir-Whorf Hypothesis
Was there any conclusion to this discussion, or did it
just sort of peter out? I was awaiting some definitive
word. If there wasn't any, of course I'll provide one,
but I was hoping someone who knew what they were talking
about would spare me the trouble.
--
G Fitch ...!uunet\
The Big Electric Cat { harvard,philabs }!cmcl2!cucard!dasys1!gf
New York City, NY, USA (212) 879-9031 ...!sun!hoptoad/
------------------------------
Date: Sun, 31 Jul 88 04:43 EDT
From: Celso Alvarez <sp299-ad@violet.berkeley.edu>
Subject: Re: Sapir-Whorf Hypothesis
In article <5817@dasys1.UUCP> gf@dasys1.UUCP (G Fitch) writes:
Please do provide a definitive word on the issue! You will be doing
a great service not only to the net readers but to the entire
academic community! (:-)).
Some people have already put forward their views on S/W. Continuing
this discussion would be more productive if we could focus on:
(1) what Big Issue(s) of the S/W hypothesis we want to shed
light on; for example,
Re: Language and Mind,
(a) one's language shapes one's perception of reality
(b) some languages are 'better' than others for specific
(cognitive? logical?) tasks (already discussed ad_nauseam)
(c) the way we speak is the way we think; if we only can
speak about one 'kind of snow' (classic, trite example),
we only 'think of' or 'see' one kind of snow (related to
point (a))
Re: Language and The World,
(d) all languages organize their grammatical and lexical
representations of reality differently
(e) languages codify aspects of social relationships
according to cultural patterns; etc.
(2) WHY we want to discuss the above questions; that is, what
our elucidation of these questions may contribute to our
understanding of human behavior.
Actually, question (2) is higher in priority than (1) is.
Personally, I think we should work with data of behavior.
But 'cognitive behavior' is probably analyzable only in terms of
its translation into verbal and social behavior. By looking at
the social and verbal behavior of speakers of different languages,
we can learn something about how their respective languages codify
reality.
Now, beyond that, what? We might find that behavior A means for
speaker of language A what behavior B means for speaker of
language B, or that behavior A means *A* for speaker of language
A, *but* *B* for speaker of language B. That is, at best, we could
prove something about points (d) and (e) above -- for example,
whether different linguistically mediated behaviors are functionally
equivalent. At worst, we would be able to prove NOTHING about
points (a), (b) and (c).
Celso Alvarez (sp299-ad@violet.berkeley.edu.UUCP)
------------------------------
Date: Mon, 1 Aug 88 10:30 EDT
From: Donald E Walker <walker@flash.bellcore.com>
Subject: ACL 1989 Annual Meeting Call for Papers; Vancouver, 26-29 June
CALL FOR PAPERS
27th Annual Meeting of the Association for Computational Linguistics
26-29 June 1989
University of British Columbia
Vancouver, British Columbia, Canada
TOPICS OF INTEREST: Papers are invited on substantial, original,
and unpublished research on all aspects of computational linguistics,
including, but not limited to, pragmatics, discourse, semantics,
syntax, and the lexicon; phonetics, phonology, and morphology;
interpreting and generating spoken and written language; linguistic,
mathematical, and psychological models of language; machine translation
and translation aids; natural language interfaces; message
understanding systems; and theoretical and applications papers of every
kind.
REQUIREMENTS: Papers should describe unique work that has not been
submitted elsewhere; they should emphasize completed work rather than
intended work; and they should indicate clearly the state of completion
of the reported results.
FORMAT FOR SUBMISSION: Authors should submit twelve copies of an
extended abstract not to exceed eight double-spaced pages (exclusive of
references) in a font no smaller than 10 point (elite). The title page
should include the title, the name(s) of the author(s), complete
addresses, a short (5 line) summary, and a specification of the topic
area. Submissions that do not conform to this format will not be
reviewed. Send to:
Julia Hirschberg
ACL89 Program Chair
AT&T Bell Laboratories, 2D-450
600 Mountain Avenue
Murray Hill, NJ 07974, USA
(201)582-7496; julia@btl.att.com
SCHEDULE: Papers are due by 6 January 1989. Authors will be notified
of acceptance by February 20. Camera-ready copies of final papers
prepared in a double-column format, either on model paper or in a
reduced font size using laserprinter output, must be received by 20
April along with a signed copyright release statement.
OTHER ACTIVITIES: The meeting will include a program of tutorials
organized by Martha Pollack, AI Center, SRI International, 333
Ravenswood Avenue, Menlo Park, CA 94025, USA; (415)859-2037;
pollack@ai.sri.com. Anyone wishing to arrange an exhibit or present a
demonstration should send a brief description together with a
specification of physical requirements (space, power, telephone
connections, tables, etc.) to Richard Rosenberg at the address below.
CONFERENCE INFORMATION: Local arrangements are being handled by
Richard Rosenberg, Department of Computer Science, University of
British Columbia, Vancouver, BC, CANADA V6T 1W5; (604)228-4142;
rosen%cs.ubc.ca@relay.cs.net. For other information on the conference
and on the ACL more generally, contact Don Walker (ACL), Bellcore, MRE
2A379, 445 South Street, Box 1910, Morristown, NJ 07960-1910, USA;
(201)829-4312; walker@flash.bellcore.com or bellcore!walker.
PROGRAM COMMITTEE: Joyce Friedman, Barbara Grosz, Julia Hirschberg,
Bob Kasper, Richard Kittredge, Beth Levin, Steve Lytinen, Len Schubert,
Martha Palmer, Fernando Pereira, Carl Pollard, Mark Steedman.
------------------------------
Date: Mon, 1 Aug 88 11:41 EDT
From: Stephan Busemann <BUSEMANN%DB0TUI11.BITNET@CUNYVM.CUNY.EDU>
Subject: NL-KR 5.5 - Call for Papers
Vol.5 No.5 is the first issue of NL-KR Digest where I saw a call
for papers concerning AI and battlefield environment. I understand
that NL-KR might not exclude announcements for military conferences
though an increasing number of colleagues refuses to make this field
socially acceptable. I feel that it is necessary for us as scientists
to adopt a position as to whether we tacitly subsume apparent military
applications under AI (and thus make AI still more problematic from a
ethical point of view than it is anyway) or whether we clearly state
that battlefield problems are not ours.
I am aware that many researchers (espescially in the U.S.) feel
forced to tie up this questions with those of research funding, since
the money comes from military agencies. Though I think that these
should in principle be two separate things in our mind, I understand
that many people fear a situation where they have to choose between
either both a job and a bad conscience or -- nothing. (Afterwards,
some of them have a job and hate discussions about military
applications etc. :-)
In writing this I do not intend to raise another discussion about
AI and military applications. The arguments are known and have been
exchanged many, many times before. Rather I want to comment on a
conflict, which many scientists may find themselves in and which can
perhaps be avoided by adopting a clear position in advance.
Stephan Busemann
[Since NL-KR is implicitly underwritten by DARPA, because of it's primary
distribution medium, I do not feel it appropriate to limit postings on
military applications. Whether or not such postings are relevant to NL-KR is
the only criteria, the social mores of the individuals must provide any
needed self-censorship. -BWM]
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End of NL-KR Digest
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