this is a test

I know that there are languages, like French, that include contractions,
but I was wondering if there were any around that had OPTIONAL
contractions, as does English.  "I’m" is just as grammatical as "I am,"
while "je aime" isn’t acceptable.

Please e-mail.

Just wonderin’,
Janis C.

        Workshop on Spoken Language Understanding      

The technical report entitled “Workshop on Spoken Language
Understanding” was authored by participants of a workshop
sponsored by the NSF in February, 1992.  The workshop brought
together scientists from a number of disciplines to identify
research directions needed to produce spoken language systems, and
the infrastructure needed to support the research.  

“A spoken language system combines speech recognition, natural
language processing and human interface technology. It functions by
recognizing the person’s words, interpreting the sequence of words to
obtain a meaning in terms of the application, and providing an
appropriate response back to the user.  Potential applications of
spoken language systems range from simple tasks, such as retrieving
information from an existing database (traffic reports, airline
schedules), to interactive problem solving tasks involving complex
planning and reasoning (travel planning, traffic routing), to support
for multi-lingual interactions.”

The report examines seven key areas in which basic research is needed
to produce spoken language systems: (1) Robust Speech Recognition;
(2) Automatic Training and Adaptation; (3) Spontaneous Speech;
(4) Dialogue Models; (5) Natural Language Response Generation;
(6) Speech Synthesis and Generation; (7) Multi-lingual Systems; and
(8) Interactive Multimodal Systems.  In each area, the report identifies
the key research challenges, and the potential benefits of the
research.  Additional sections of the report identify the
infrastructure needed to support research and the expected benefits of
the research.  Finally, a set of recommendations are made to the NSF.

A postscript file of the report can be obtained by anonymous ftp from:

        %ftp cse.ogi.edu  or  [129.95.40.2]
        Name:  anonymous
        Password:  [your name]
        ftp> cd pub
        ftp> cd tech-reports
        ftp> cd 1992
        ftp> binary
        ftp> get 92-014.ps.Z
        ftp> quit

Finally, the "92-014.ps.Z" file is in compressed format.  Use the
Unix command "uncompress 92-014.ps.Z" to uncompress the file, which
automatically removes the ".Z" suffix.  Its is
now ready to print.

A hard copy may be obtained by surface mail by sending your
address to vin…@cse.ogi.edu.

I promised in a couple of messages that I would define some terms that hereto-
fore I had used as semantic primitives.  I intended to do this in a response to
several messages from Mark Hubey, but that is growing into a long project, and
the definitions need to be done anyway.

regular:  Predictable by historical or comparative expectation.

similar:  Showing like patterns of form and function when compared.

paradigm:  An ordered arrangement of forms (most frequently words, but not of
        necessity) intended to show in compact form the differences and
        similarities (see "similar" above) thereof.  Canonical examples:  The
        forms of the present active indicative of Latin verbs, or the forms of
        the noun in all 15 cases in Finnish.

        It has nothing to do with any misuse of the term by philosophers of
        science.

relatedness:  In linguistics, a *defined* term, with a meaning only with
        respect to the history of languages.  To speak of languages as related
        *entails*–not *implies* but *entails*–a claim about their history.

        There is no need to bring in pseudo-sciences such as astrology or
        economics.  There is no "utility function" to decide whether a group of
        languages are related or not.  This is strictly an historical issue.

        Now, there *is* a methodology for testing a hypothesized relationship:
        The comparative method.  This has not been shown to be insufficient for
        the task, although it has been *claimed* to be insufficient by some
        whose hypotheses have not been borne out by it.

        Some objection has been made to the use of "genetic" terms in the
        description of relationships among languages, since "mammals have two
        parents."  I would point out that there are other models in biology
        besides the mammals, even if that were the source of the original
        analogy.  For instance, amoebae are asexual producers of offspring,
        disappearing in the process; they mutate from time to time; and they
        exchange material from time to time.

        The model, however, originates with scholars in the Renaissance, who
        worked to reconstruct original texts of documents transmitted from the
        Classical period via monks who did not know (well) the languages of the
        texts.  These philologists built family trees of manuscripts on the
        model of the lines of succession of European royal houses, where only
        rarely was more than one parent important in terms of inheritance.

comparison:  A methodology for determining whether a group of languages are
        related or not.  It involves the painstaking collection of large
        amounts of vocabulary from the languages in question, including as many
        paradigms (see above) as possible.  These paradigms are then compared
        to each other in order to find similarities (see "similar" above) first
        of morphological or syntactic pattern.  If similarities are found, the
        morphemes in question are re-examined to determine whether regular (see
        above) correspondences in their phonological makeup can be found.

        For example if some languages show only velar stops while others show
        velar stops before back vowels and palatal fricatives before front
        vowels, the comparison is allowed to to conclude that some change has
        occured.

        If there is partial regularity, such as a usual correspondence between
        voiceless stops in some languages and voiceless fricatives in others,
        but in certain cases between the same voiceless stops and *voiced*
        fricatives in the same other languages, the comparison is allowed to
        conclude that some *conditional* change has occurred, for which the
        conditioning may not be immediately apparent.

linguistics:  A group of studies focusing on the description of various aspects
        of language, with an eye towards understanding them.  These studies are
        of several types, and are joined under a single rubric by their focus,
        much as the various branches of physics are all considered to be
        "physics."

        There are a number of ways to divvy up the field of linguistics.  One
        major division is that between synchronic and diachronic studies
        (Saussure 1916).  This is a distinction between the study of speech in
        a single time-frame versus the study of speech across time-frames.

        Across this dichotomy is a breakdown by special area of interest:
        Phonetics (acoustic study of spoken language; study of perception of
        spoken language; study of production of speech); phonology (study of
        synchronic pattern of occurrence of speech sounds; diachronic study of
        change between one synchronic pattern of speech sounds and another);
        morphology (study of synchronic occurrence of patterns of groups of
        phonemes and their conjoining; diachronic study of change between one
        synchronic pattern of such phoneme sequences and another); syntax
        (study of patterns of use of morphemes to make up utterances;
        diachronic study of change from one such pattern to another); semantics
        (study of "meaning"–the definition of which is one research topic in
        this subfield); pragmatics (study of situation external to an actual
        utterance which contributes to the "meaning" thereof–the least
        susceptible to diachronic study, in my opinion).

        The synchronic side is generally referred to as "theoretical" linguis-
        tics, although there are theories on the diachronic side as well.  This
        group of studies is susceptible of investigation by experimentation,
        either instrumented (as, for example, acoustic phonetics) or introspec-
        tive (as, for example, acceptability judgments in syntax).

        The diachronic side–the study of languages in a temporal dimension–
        uses the results garnered by "theoretical" linguistics, but in addition
        uses methodologies similar to those of other *historical* studies,
        methodologies which simply do not admit of mathematical manipulation.

I hereby release this message in its entirety for use in the list of Frequently
Asked Questions, should the keepers of that worthy document wish to do so.
—
Rich Alderson   ‘I wish life was not so short,’ he thought.  ’Languages take
                such a time, and so do all the things one wants to know about.’
                                                        –J. R. R. Tolkien,
alder…@leland.stanford.edu                              _The Lost Road_

Where can I find references for the names of part-of-speech
subclasses.  For example,

for Nouns,
   (subject,object)     ???
   (common,proper)      ???
   (singular,plural)    case(?)

   Verbs,
   (past,present,future)        tense(?)
   (singular,plural)            case(?)

   …etc.

Thanks a lot.
Ben Bongalon

        Speak HAPPY NEW YEAR in 100 languages? Yes. Some one started this
thread in SOC.PENPALS, and along which I have collected 33 languages up
to now. But it is still far from 100. I assume the languages people
in this group know are more diverse, and there are more linguists and
polyglots here who can contribute toward this goal.

        Please *FOLLOWUP* this post to add your language(s) to this list.
I will compile them in alphabatical order and post them here at the end,
and I also would like to send a copy to anyone upon his/her request.
This is a form of cultural exchange, and it is interesting both
culturally and linguistically. It is not too late to say HAPPY NEW YEAR.
(Taiping Zhang)

——————-Now we have 33 languages——————-

Afrikaans:   Voorspoedige nuwe jaar !         (Happy new Year)
Arabic:      Sanah mubarakah!                 (Happy New Year)
Balfang:     Halfapilfy Nelfew Yelfear !      (Happy New Year)
Bengali :    Subho Nabobarsha !               (Happy new Year)
Chinese:     Xinnian Kuaile !                 (Happy new Year)
Czech:       S~t~astny’ novy’ rok!            (Happy New Year)
Dutch:       Gelukkig Nieuwjaar               (Happy new Year)
English:     Happy New Year !                 (Happy new Year)
Esperanto:   Felican Novan Jaron !            (Happy new Year)
Filipino:    Manigong Bagong Taon!            (Happy New Year)
Finnish:     Hauskaa Uutta Vuotta !           (Happy New Year)
French:      Bonne Heureuse Annee !           (Happy New Year)
German       Froehliches Neues Jahr !         (Happy New Year)
Gujrati:     Naveen saal aasheervaad !        (Happy new Year)
Hindi:       Naya saal mubarak !              (Happy new Year)
Japanese:    Shiawa-seh na Shin’nen !         (Happy New Year)
Korean:      Sae-Hae Bok-Ma-ni But-Eu-Se-Yo ! (Happy new Year)
Malayalam:   Subhavatsaraasamsakal !          (Happy new Year)
Navajo:      Hozhoogo Neeninaadoohah!         (Happy New Year)
Norwegian:   Godt nyttaar !                   (Happy New Year)
Punjabi:     Naye Sal di Mubarakan !          (Happy New Year)
Persian:     Saleh no mo-raab-ak !            (Happy new Year)
Pig Latin:   Appy-hay Ew-nay Ear-yay!!        (Happy new Year)
Portuguese:  Feliz Ano Novo!                  (Happy New Year)
Slovak:      S~t~astlivy’ novy’ rok!          (Happy New Year)
Slovenian:   Srecno Novo Leto !!              (Happy new Year)
Swahili:     Mwaka Njema !                    (Happy new Year)
Swedish:     Gott Nytt Aar !                  (Happy new Year)
Tamil:       Puthandu nal valthukal           (Happy new Year)
Turkish:     Yeni yil mutlu olsun or Iyi yillar ! (Happy new Year)
Urdu  :      Naya Sal Mubarak !               (Happy new Year)
wolof:       Niou at djame !                  (Happy New Year) [Senegal]
??????:      Aes gliikhaftigs Niiws Jaahr!    (Happy New Year)

Is there any significant difference in the *written* language between
Portugal and Brazil?

Konrad Hinsen (hac…@zam001.zam.kfa-juelich.de)

Before U jump in the following cesspool, check out whether Ur cesspooling
tendencies match with mine …  <<6 newsgroups>>

I believe in the following :-

That the ancient egyptian and chinese scripts are epitomization of pictographism in scripts.
Russian, English and tamil, etc… are next, keeping alive that tradition.
Many other languages follow… especially other european languages as they have
                bigger alphabets than english.
Then german,… (as far I know/heard about of it)…
…
Comes Hindi and other Indian languages
Then telugu (personally, feel) as it crosses that `invisible dividing line’ separating
                pictographic scripts from phonetic alphabets.  Marathi also comes here
                perhaps.  Most languages in India, lack the completeness of alphabet
                like these two, which include letter like `LL’ (looks like infinity with
                vertical line in devanagari), and other such letters…
The other end belongs solely to samskritam.  (SANSKRIT is written so, thru’out this post).

If U do not agree with the above, press `f’ or `F’ to flame me, else continue…

++++++++++++++++++++++++ BEgin ++++++++++++++++++++++++++++++

I placed samskritam at the lowest rung, to emphasise (and hint on) what I
want to say (below)…

I am slowly coming to the conclusion that phonetic scripts (alpahbets) are
useless.  Their only utility so far is to communicate the CORRECT pronunciation
to another person, IN WRITING.  But who wants to use phonetics in todays age when a
phone call would suffice, or tommorrow, when, multimedia and voice-annotated
documents will be reality..

The telugu software developed by a pair of genius programmers (kishore & ramarao gaaru)
triggered this sequence of thoughts in my subconcious, and it has now come to the
fore in clear and precise language. (oh! well, atleast clear language!)

I always admired my aunt (pinni:telugu — mausi:hindi) for her ability to read telugu
at an incredible pace.  Everyone acknowledged that, but what caught my attention
was her `DD news reader style’ of reading : she would pop up her head many times,
and would be capable of infusing emotion and feeling into what she reads at those speeds.
Soon, I located innumerable such people around me.  (Obviously my aunt is not a mutant!)

Being a computer engr, and one who has dealt with course projects in automated vision
and speech, I can see things not easily observable even to the most intelligent
linguists.  SO can other comp.sci students.  This is simply because of the tools
we use and the experience we have of (in an attempt at) recreating god’s creation.

Anyway, I hypothesize this.  Even when reading samskritam, IF WE ARE REGULAR samskritam
readers, we utilize pattern matching abilities of the human brain, to recognize
WHOLE WORDS and not individual letters.  It is well known in vision technology that
human brain stores information in patterns unrelated to the way we learn the patterns.
Hence words in samskritam also become a jumble of lines and curves, and the brain
correlates each such PICTURE with a sound-sequence (speech) and emotion/feelings etc…

So now, why is then are phonetic alpahebts needed?  Do students in india studying the
indian alphabets learn TO PRONOUNCE when shown new words (made from the indian alpahabets)
more quickly than the english or europeans do for the european words…?

No.  We all have seen our childhood friends struggle with “reading”.

                        ++++++++++++++++++

In fact, when reading, say, Hindi, the young child, must FIRST match each letter,
pronounce it, then match the group of letters and pronounce them together, and
then, RESEARCH the brain’s memory for the related emotion…

Its inefficient.  Conmsider english(likewise in tamil or chinese).  U see
a word : know : —- Its a picture, rather than a sequence of letters (think about it).
Ur brain then generates two corresponding ‘outputs’ : one the pronunciation
as `no’ and the other the emotions/feelings/ideas/notions/etc…

simpler. IN FACT, that how the brain works!! and works best, and its most suited for!!

Now is there a good reason for getting scripts to be more phonetic?
Can U get Urself to accept the fact the second most (and worst sometimes) pictographic
language in the world — ENGLISH — can handle all other languages in this world?

We indians have always prided ourselves for possessing the greatest set of language
scripts ever designed.  Ok.  But what for?  They are inefficient for practical use.
They are as useful as esparanto.  esparanto died, because its wasnt anybody’s
language!  So would samskritam be dead, but for the efforts of a few crazies like
the likes of VVerma & …kt

Seetamraju Udaya Bhaskar Sarma
(email : seetam @ ece7 . eng . wayne . edu)

Two comments:

1. If you consult any professor of education, you will discover that it
has long been known that people read English by recognizing whole words.
In fact, it was at one time usua;lly taught that way: the "look-and-say"
method.  And most teachers do teach a lot of sight words.

2. The point of phonetic spelling is simply this: there is no other way
to dope out a word you have never seen before but may have heard.  And
for consistency’s sake, the more phonetic a spelling system is, the
better, though in fact the Devanagari system for Sanskrit goes over-
board in writing precise sounds — if only it had also deigned to
separate words, it would have been marvelous!

3. A pictographic system such as Chinese has one very large drawback
(well, several).  One is that dictionaries are extremely cumbersome
to use because there’s nothing like our alphabetical order.

4. You’re not the only computer engineer on this board.  Many of the
posters are computer professionals, and I myself, though a professor
of German and linguistics by trade, hold an M.S. in computer science
as well.  So don’t think you have extraordinary insights simply be-
cause you’re a computer engineer.  It just ain’t so, regardless of
how your grandmother used to read.

I know that’s four comments, but two didn’t suffice.

–Leo Connolly

In article <tervi…@katk.Helsinki.FI> ter…@katk.Helsinki.FI (TERVI| MARKO J) writes:
                        .
                        .
                        .
>I’ve heard the same thing on a Finnish TV channel – It was the interview of
>Turkey’s president (Ozal or something like that).  It was he who told about
>his childhood and having to read the book in question, where Finland was a
>model society (it sounded funny,really).  He said that it’s a widespread
>belief in Turkey that the Turks and the Finns are somehow related.  So if

                        .
                        .
                        .
I’m having a hard time understanding this thread, but
perhaps it will be useful to note that linguists
generally agree–though not without ongoing disputes–
that there is a Ural-Altaic language superfamily which
subsumes Fenno-Ugric and Turkic branches, among
others.  My impression is that the genetic connections
between modern Finnish and Turkish are less apparent
than those between Portuguese, say, and Russian.

There is no doubt "that the Turks and the Finns are
somehow related".  I’m not in a position to judge how
best to map the latest scientific scholarship on this
question onto the "widespread belief[s] in Turkey".
—

Cameron Laird
cla…@Neosoft.com (claird%Neosoft….@uunet.uu.net)  +1 713 267 7966
cla…@litwin.com (claird%litwin….@uunet.uu.net)    +1 713 996 8546