Opposition theory and computational semiotics

Author(s): Dan Assaf,Yochai Cohen,Marcel Danesi,Yair Neuman / Language(s): English Issue: 2-3/2015

Opposition theory suggests that binary oppositions (e.g., high vs. low) underlie basic cognitive and linguistic processes. However, opposition theory has never been implemented in a computational cognitive-semiotics model. In this paper, we present a simple model of metaphor identification that relies on opposition theory. An algorithm instantiating the model has been tested on a data set of 100 phrases comprising adjective noun pairs in which approximately a half represent metaphorical language-use (e.g., dark thoughts) and the rest literal language-use (e.g., dark hair). Th e algorithm achieved 89% accuracy in metaphor identification and illustrates the relevance of opposition theory for modelling metaphor processing.

Korpus vlastními silami

Author(s): Pavel Vondřička / Language(s): Czech Issue: 2/2017

This article is a review of Petr Pořízka: Tvorba korpusů a vytěžování jazykových dat – metody, modely, nástroje. Olomouc:Vydavatelství Filozofické fakulty Univerzity Palackého v Olomouci, 2014. 288 s.

Lexikální sít DeriNet. Elektronický zdroj pro výzkum derivace v ceštine

Author(s): Magda Ševčíková,Zdeněk Žabokrtský,Jonáš Vidra,Milan Straka / Language(s): Czech Issue: 1/2016

The paper introduces the DeriNet lexical database, which includes more than 969,000 Czech words interconnected by 718,000 links corresponding to derivational relations (relations between a base word and a word derived from it). Derivational relations were identified by semi-automatic procedures and manual annotation. As the DeriNet network is fully compatible with a large inflectional dictionary of Czech (MorfFlex CZ), it can be used as a resource for an integrating approach to derivational and inflectional morphology of Czech both in linguistic research and in natural language processing.

Primární a sekundární diskurzní konektory

Author(s): Magdaléna Rysová,Kateřina Rysová / Language(s): Czech Issue: 3/2021

In the paper, we study discourse connectives and other discourse phenomena in Czech based on corpus data. We focus on the delimitation of connectives primarily from the functional point of view and we present their further classification into primary and secondary connectives based especially on their degree of grammaticalization. Special attention is paid to the variability of secondary connectives occurring in several lexical realizations and grammatical variants. We also present the frequency of the individual connectives in written texts and we analyze their syntactic behavior. We then discuss the relation of connectives to reference (a special group consists of the anaphoric and cataphoric connectives), connectives occurring next to each other in the text, and the possibilities of modification of connectives. Our analysis is based especially on the language data of the Prague Discourse Treebank 2.0. The aim of the paper is to present a detailed study of discourse connectives in written Czech and to present connectives as an open class covering both grammaticalized expressions and looser lexical phrases.

Recenze: Václav Cvrček – Zuzana Laubeová – David Lukeš – Petra Poukarová – Anna Řehořková – Adrian Jan Zasina: Registry v češtině

Author(s): Miroslav Zumrík / Language(s): Slovak Issue: 3/2021

Václav Cvrček, Zuzana Laubeová, David Lukeš, Petra Poukarová, Anna Řehořková & Adrian Jan Zasina: Registry v češtině. Praha: NLN, 2020. 234 pp. Studie z korpusové lingvistiky, 27.

МАКЕДОНСКИОТ ЈАЗИК, АЗБУКА И УЧЕБНИЦИ ВО УЧИЛИШТАТА (ВО ДЕТСКИТЕ ДОМОВИ) ЗА ДЕЦАТА ЕВАКУИРАНИ ОД ГРЦИЈА ВО ИСТОЧНОЕВРОПСКИТЕ ЗЕМЈИ

Author(s): Katerina Mirčevska / Language(s): Macedonian Issue: 58/2011

Children evacuated from Greece during the Civil War (1946-1949), have been settled in special children's homes, opened for this purpose in the east European countries. Within the organization of life in these institutions, particular attention was given to the educational process, and specially to schooling the native language, greek for Greek and macedonian for the Macedonian children. Realization of the schooling in macedonian language was conducted under the direct influence of the political position of the People’s Republic of Macedonia, or Yugoslavia, which, in the years after World War II and after revealing the Cominform Resolution, was found in the middle of the new political split of the European countries into two ideological blocs. This international position of Yugoslavia and of the PR Macedonia, would have direct reflection in the use of "new" version of macedonian language - macedonian grammar, vocabulary and textbooks in the teaching process in macedonian schools performed in children's homes in eastern Europe. By 1950, teaching the native language was taught in the official literary Macedonian language, grammar and terminology applied in the PR Macedonia, which in the next few years will be replaced with "new" version or the modified alphabet, “new” grammar and new vocabulary, enriched with typical slavic letters and words borrowed from other slavic languages. This situation would be changed starting from 1958/1959 academic year, when after a wave of discontent and reactions of macedonian emigrants society, teaching process would again be performed on the official macedonian literary language, applied in PR Macedonia.

СТАТУСОТ НА МАКЕДОНСКИОТ ЈАЗИК ВО РЕПУБЛИКА МАКЕДОНИЈА

Author(s): Simona Gruevska Madžoska / Language(s): Macedonian Issue: 58/2011

The question about the status of the Macedonian language manifests itself for the first time in the 19th century, but its resolution starts with the codification of the Macedonian language after World War II. The Macedonian language is then declared as an official language in the Macedonian republic and equal amongst the other languages in SFR Yugoslavia. However, the official language in SFR Yugoslavia (the language of international communication, military dealings, one of the core subjects in all elementary schools etc.) was the Serbo-Croatian language. With the formation of an independent Republic of Macedonia, the Macedonian language became the only official language until the peace deal Ohrid Framework Agreement was signed, when the language of the largest ethnic minority- the Albanian language- gains the status of an official language. The issue of interest of this article is whether the Macedonian language has changed its status and to what extent, what are the terms of legislation for it and the real situation in which it is found in the Republic of Macedonia.

Automatska ekstrakcija ključnih riječi iz teksta standardnim računalnim postupcima

Author(s): Slobodan Beliga / Language(s): Croatian Issue: 1/2020

Automatic keyword extraction takes a great interest as a research issue in the field of natural language processing and information retrieval. Although numerous methods for keyword extraction task have been developed, their effectiveness depends on many factors such as the approach used in method development, the domain to which they are adapted, the type of language or tasks for which they are constructed, etc., and still, there is a room for progress and improvements. In this paper, two existing methods are explained and reconstructed - RAKE and MAUI, which are the standard representatives of the unsupervised and supervised group of keyword extraction methods. It was experimentally tested whether the methods could successfully extract keywords from texts written in Italian, which had not been tested so far. For the experimental purposes, Italian texts were collected and annotated with keywords. The effectiveness of the MAUI method proved to be more promising than the RAKE method, which was confirmed earlier in the keyword extraction experiment from texts written in English.

Od patvaru k SuperStar: frekvenční a kolokační analýza názvu Česko v korpusové publicistice z let 1990−2018

Author(s): Michal Místecký,Veronika Drkošová / Language(s): Czech Issue: 1/2022

The paper focuses on the frequency and collocation analyses of Česko (“Czechia”), the short, geographical name of our country, in the opinion journalism section of the eight-version SYN corpus, which comprises texts from the period of 1990−2018. Within the scope of the research, the period was divided into several sections, which are delineated by the breakthrough political and cultural events (the Czech Republic entering NATO, the Czech Republic entering the EU, climax of the first season of the Pop Idol-based contest Czechia Is Looking for a SuperStar, etc.). The frequency analysis is based on the relativization via i.p.m.; the collocability force is counted on the grounds of the logDice index, which is easy to be interpreted linguistically, and independent of the corpus size. The goal of the study is to capture basic motivations which led to the popularisation of the name and its expansion in the given discourse (e.g. the influences of other one-word names of states, sport commentaries, popular contests, and generation change). It is possible to sum up that the Česko name is employed in a variety of contexts, and its usage can be seen as unmarked.

Ukraine Alive—A Teaching Website that Continues to Teach Its Creators

Author(s): Natalie Kononenko / Language(s): English Issue: 1/2017

Ukraine Alive is a digital resource built to support elementary education and available at http://ukrainealive.ualberta.ca. The site features contemporary cultural material from Ukraine and is rich in interactive units where students can explore content, play games, and perform tasks online. Google Analytics shows that Ukraine Alive (and its related Alive sites) are popular with teachers and used throughout Alberta and beyond. The creators of Ukraine Alive are working on more sophisticated games to test if gaming can teach culture effectively. Ukraine Alive is also used to teach students at the university level. By generating content for the Alive series of sites, university students learn how to write for publication online, producing formal text and combining it with visuals and audio. Teaching university students the humanistic aspect of formal composition for presentation online is an area of instruction that is only now being recognized.

Rola formy i organizacji tekstu pisanego w akcie kreacji świata gry komputerowej. Na przykładzie Heroes of Might and Magic V: Tribes of the East

Author(s): Mikołaj Bajew / Language(s): Polish Issue: 1/2020

This article is about functions of written text in video game space. It aims to show the true potential of the written text in creating a vision of game in player’s mind and in keeping him immersed. I analyzed text material from the Heroes of Might and Magic V: Tribes of the East, a turn-based strategy video game which action takes place in the fictional, colorful, fantasy world of Ashan. The written texts in mentioned video game determines the player’s perception of the other elements in the game and affects his playing experience. The following analysis of fonts, space organization of written texts and their meaning proves that point.

КОДУВАННЯ ІНФОРМАЦІЇ: РІЗНОВИДИ ШТУЧНИХ ЗНАКОВИХ СИСТЕМ

Author(s): Nataliya Ivanivna Kobyzhcha,Olena Ivashchenko,Victoriia Podgayetska / Language(s): Ukrainian Issue: 3/2022

The purpose of the article is to systematise and characterise the types of records of artificial sign systems as information products that are the result of a purposeful implementation by a person or a group of persons of certain ways of solving communicative tasks, which is their main difference from natural sign records. The research methodology is based on the application of a cultural, systematic, structural and functional approach, general scientific and special methods of cognition, and the method of ascent from the abstract to the concrete, which enable comprehensive consideration of possible types of records of artificial sign systems. The scientific novelty of the article consists in the generalisation and systematisation of records in artificial sign systems that can be used in information and communication, as well as in information and analytical activities. The features of using records in each of the given artificial sign systems are determined. Conclusions. Records in artificial sign systems, including special record systems, record systems in formalised, informational, and programming languages, as well as international and fictional languages, as a result of information encoding, can serve to establish, simplify and protect documentary communications in certain areas of science and technology. The practical application of artificial sign systems is important, especially in cases where the use of natural languages is complicated or in the case of communication with a machine if there is a need to index documents, prepare information requests, and describe facts for their further search and storage. It is extremely necessary in cases of using records to prepare an algorithm for their processing, since it will affect the speed and perfection of decision-making, contribute to the effectiveness of communication and the provision of high-quality information services taking into account the information requests of the target audience.

The challenge of historical data: from sources and corpora to answering research questions

Author(s): Marijke van der Wal / Language(s): English Issue: 4/2022

At the start of each research enterprise, historical sociolinguists have to deal with the key issue of the required historical data. In the present world of big data optimism, the idea may arise that the time-consuming compilation of specialised corpora is no longer needed. Can taking a shortcut still lead us to convincing results? In this article I discuss the crucial relationship between specific research questions and appropriate historical data. This methodological issue will be illustrated by concentrating on three historical-sociolinguistic research programmes, conducted at Leiden University: "Letters as loot: Towards a non-standard view on the history of Dutch" (2008–2013), "Going Dutch: The construction of Dutch in policy, practice and discourse" (2013–2018) and "Pardon my French? Dutch-French language contact in the Netherlands, 1500–1900" (2018–2023). What do we learn from these large-scale projects which address different research questions and focus on different periods in the history of Dutch? The use of specific sources, handwritten material such as ego-documents,a multi-genre approach and details of corpus compilation will be discussed. The various approaches and results are considered against the background of methodological developments and current debates in historical sociolinguistics. I argue and conclude that the careful compilation of specialised corpora remains essential as a solid foundation for historical sociolinguistic research.

TRANSLATION SOLUTIONS FOR DEALING WITH AMBIGUITY IN ALICE’S ADVENTURES IN WONDERLAND

Author(s): Mădălina Elena Mandici / Language(s): English Issue: 4/2022

Translation solutions for dealing with ambiguity in Alice’s Adventures in Wonderland. This paper shows how different types of ambiguity embedded in the matrix of Lewis Carroll’s Alice’s Adventures in Wonderland (the 1993 edition) are dealt with in two prestigious Romanian translations – Frida Papadache’s Peripeţiile Alisei în Ţara Minunilor (1976) and Antoaneta Ralian’s Alice în Ţara Minunilor (2007) – as a tribute to the international appeal of Alice. My focal aim is to present a comparative analysis of the methods employed in translating Carroll’s equivocal lexical items, which make it increasingly difficult to match grammatical categories with function. This paper also aims at describing disambiguation techniques applied primarily in determining if the two translators managed to reinforce the original textual leeway at their disposal in the pure spirit of Carroll. My analysis relies heavily on Dirk Delabastita’s translation strategies as precautionary measures to cope with Carroll’s specialized type of literary discourse. The findings submitted by this paper are consistent with the idea that translating Carroll’s craft unavoidably entails a partial loss of meaning, brought about by the yawning gap between the intended message and interpretation, which can result in either overtranslation or undertranslation. The extensive use of double-entendre in the source-text cannot be recoded entirely in the target language, despite the translators’ excellent command of English.

Nachwuchstagung „Korpuslinguistik im Deutschen und im Sprachvergleich“ in Prag. Ein Bericht über die vierte Phase des Projekts GerCoLiNet

Author(s): Lukáš Felbr / Language(s): German Issue: 26/2022

О скуке в русском языковом сознании

Author(s): Andrey Evgenyevich Bochkarev / Language(s): Russian Issue: 4/2022

The article explores the ways of displaying skuka ‘boredom’ in the Russian language consciousness. The Russian National Corpus is more appropriate for this purpose, because a conceptual configuration of an analyzed concept is not present in a “finished” form in any single utterance, but may be reconstructed only on the totality of all possible utterances. It can be manifested in many different ways: distribution, ability to accumulate some Russian “key ideas”, predisposition to be associated with some emotional attitudes, concepts, propositional and metaphorical models. According to available data, skuka ‘boredom’ may be common, daily, domestic, rural, provincial, metaphysical or wanton by statement; infinite, interminable, bottomless or cosmic in coverage; big, never-ending or eternal by intensity; apparent or thinly-veiled by external manifestation; monotonous, lazy, anguishing, dreary, chilly, sad, alarming, oppressive, hopeless, terrible, savage, crazy, mortal, infernal or cozy by emotional distress; sweet, pleasant, viscous, sticky, nauseating, overwhelming, piercing, cold, dull, unbearable, intolerable, heavy, painful, deadening or full by physical sensations; humiliating, dirty, arrogant or evil by the criterion of moral evaluation; frank, ostentatious, deliberate, affected by authenticity; grey, green, yellow, blue or black in colour. As an emotional or psychological state experienced when an individual is not interested in his or her surroundings, skuka ‘boredom’ is related, in its most manifestations, to many different concepts like provincial life, idleness, monotony, sloth, solitude, stupidity, sadness, gloom, etc. that refer to some typical boredom-situations in which they occur. Those collocations can be explained by many factors: a need to identify the subject of boredom, a need to characterize the indicated emotional or psychological state in relation to concomitant feelings and emotions, a need to represent skuka ‘boredom’ in terms of other conceptual areas as a moral ailment, illness, beast, swamp, abyss, stream or web.

Sourcing Data from Wikipedia for the Study of Language Contact: the csbwiki

Author(s): Robert Borges / Language(s): English Issue: 18/2022

Contact-induced language change is pervasive in contexts involving historically minoritized languages, where social contexts are not particularly conducive to equitable intergroup relations. Empirically driven studies involving these language contexts allow us to more thoroughly understand the social and cognitive processes that lead to language change. Paradoxically, empirical data on minoritized languages is relatively scarce and expensive to generate. But in the digital age we have the ability to look beyond the traditional data types used in language studies, like spoken data gathered under fieldwork conditions, literature, etc. In this paper, I will explore the potential utility of user-created wiki data in investigating Polish influence on the Kashubian language.

In der Wirtschaft vernetzt kommunizieren – Hypertextstrukturen bei der Mitarbeiteranwerbung im deutsch-polnischen Kontrast

Author(s): Iwona Szwed / Language(s): German Issue: XXXI/2022

By dissolving the linear reception of texts, the recipient becomes a co-author intervening in the textual process (cf., Hess-Lüttich 1997: 134), who creates intertextual links, according to his or her reading strategy. This is how hypertexts and text networks are created, which still represent a linguistically under-researched area. What seems to be interesting here is the question of the differences between the two phenomena. The new trends can be particularly observed in business communication. For this reason, the present paper focuses on business-related texts to better illustrate the new linguistic phenomenon of text networking. The analysis is based on the Internet career pages of selected Polish and German public companies. The author attempts to find an answer to the question of the linguistic status of these websites, whether they should be defined as hypertexts or as components of larger networks of texts (textual genres).

Prolegomena ke kvantitativní onomastice

Author(s): Jaroslav David,Michal Místecký / Language(s): Czech Issue: 2/2023

The aim of this paper is to present the potential of quantitative methods for the re¬search of proper names (mostly personal and place names) as units operating in Czech texts. Three case studies treat particular research topics on the background of the development of Czech onomastics in the 20th century and in the first decades of the 21st century. They are aimed at 1) quantification of relational (semantic) patterns; 2) collocation analysis; 3) morphological categories of proper names. The text also provides an overview of previous attempts to apply quantitative and corpus approaches to proper name research.

Clause complexing in research-article abstracts: Comparing human- and AI-generated texts

Author(s): Alvin Ping Leong / Language(s): English Issue: 2/2023

The ability of chatbots to produce plausible, human-like responses raises questions about the extent of their similarity with original texts. Using a modified version of Halliday’s clause complexing framework, this study compared 50 abstracts of scientific research articles from Nature with generated versions produced by Bard, ChatGPT, and Poe Assistant. None of the chatbots matched the original abstracts in all categories. The only chatbot that came closest was ChatGPT, but differences in the use of finite adverbial clauses and –ing elaborating clauses were detected. Incorporating distinct grammatical features in the algorithms of AI-detection tools is crucially needed to enhance the reliability of their results. A genre-based approach to detecting AI-generated content is recommended.