Automatic Detection of Non-deverbal Event Nouns for Quick Lexicon Production

In this work we present the results of experimental work on the development of lexical class-based lexica by automatic means. Our purpose is to assess the use of linguistic lexical-class based information as a feature selection methodology for the use of classifiers in quick lexical development. The results show that the approach can help reduce the human effort required in the development of language resources significantly.

Lexicon psiquiàtric: arcaic i curiós

Aquest diccionari recull terminologia psiquiàtrica a partir de diverses fonts. La primera, diccionaris antics desde l'època romana fins els segles XVII i XVIII, en qualsevol llengua. A continuació, diccionaris més moderns en català i en castellà i ja per últim, s'ha recollit terminologia actual poc emprada i curiosa.No és, per tant, una obra plenament acabada doncs permet la seva ampliació.

A reappraisal of 'International Stratigraphic Lexicon' and the need for the creation named units critical catalogues

Analysis of stratigraphic terminology and classification, shows that time-related stratigraphic units, which by definition have a global extent, are the concern of international cornrnissions and committees of the intemational Union of Geological Sciences (IUGS) . In contrast, lithostratigraphic, and other closely related units, are regional in extent and are catalogued in the International Stratigraphic Lexicon (ISL), the last volume of which, was published in 1987. Tlie intemational Commission on Stratigraphy (ICS) is currently attempting to revitalize the publication of ISL, given that the information contained in published volumes has never been updated, and that there has been a significant increase in stratigraphic research in recent decades. The proliferation of named units in the South Pyrenean and Ebro Basin Paleogene is evaluated to illustrate the extent of the problem. Moreover, new approaches to stratigraphic analysis have led to the naming of genetic units according to similar guidelines followed in the naming of descnptive or lithostratigraphic units. This has led to considerable confusion. The proposal to revitalize the ISL is accepted as part of the solution, that should also include the publication of critica1 catalogues, and the creation of norms for genetic unit terminology.

First- and second-language phonological representations in the mental lexicon

Performance-based studies on the psychological nature of linguistic competence can conceal significant differences in the brain processes that underlie native versus nonnative knowledge of language. Here we report results from the brain activity of very proficient early bilinguals making a lexical decision task that illustrates this point. Two groups of SpanishCatalan early bilinguals (Spanish-dominant and Catalan-dominant) were asked to decide whether a given form was a Catalan word or not. The nonwords were based on real words, with one vowel changed. In the experimental stimuli, the vowel change involved a Catalan-specific contrast that previous research had shown to be difficult for Spanish natives to perceive. In the control stimuli, the vowel switch involved contrasts common to Spanish and Catalan. The results indicated that the groups of bilinguals did not differ in their behavioral and event-related brain potential measurements for the control stimuli; both groups made very few errors and showed a larger N400 component for control nonwords than for control words. However, significant differences were observed for the experimental stimuli across groups: Specifically, Spanish-dominant bilinguals showed great difficulty in rejecting experimental nonwords. Indeed, these participants not only showed very high error rates for these stimuli, but also did not show an error-related negativity effect in their erroneous nonword decisions. However, both groups of bilinguals showed a larger correctrelated negativity when making correct decisions about the experimental nonwords. The results suggest that although some aspects of a second language system may show a remarkable lack of plasticity (like the acquisition of some foreign contrasts), first-language representations seem to be more dynamic in their capacity of adapting and incorporating new information. &

El parlar d'Ainet de Besan (Vallferrera)

Treball de recerca realitzat per una alumna d'ensenyament secundari i guardonat amb un Premi CIRIT per fomentar l'esperit científic del Jovent l'any 2009. Aquest treball de recerca pretén situar el parlar català de la localitat d’Ainet de Besan, situada a la comarca del Pallars Sobirà, dins el marc geolingüístic que li pertoca, tot analitzant-ne el trets principals que el caracteritzen. ‘El parlar d’Ainet de Besan (Vallfarrera)’ suposa, primerament, la realització d’una anàlisi lingüística del material obtingut a partir d’entrevistes realitzades a informants de la localitat, que permeten el recull de tots aquells aspectes relacionats amb els tres grans blocs bàsics de la llengua: la fonètica, la morfologia i el lèxic. Tota la informació recopil•lada es contrasta amb la bibliografia consultada. En segon lloc, s’extreuen totes aquelles conclusions que permeten assolir l’objectiu principal de la recerca, és a dir, situar el parlar en un dialecte i un subdialecte catalans. A més a més, amb la realització d’aquest estudi s’ha pogut constatar el fenomen actual de la desaparició progressiva de molts trets de la varietat dialectal a la qual pertany el parlar analitzat, que és el pallarès.

GREC CLÀSSIC : curs d'autoaprenentatge introductori

GREC CLÀSSIC. Curs d’autoaprenentatge introductori. Dos anys. El curs consta de tretze lliçons i d’una gramàtica estructurada en quatre blocs: 1. Alfabet i diacrítics, fenòmens fonètics. 2. Morfologia nominal. 3. Morfologia verbal. 4. Infinitius i participis. Sintaxi de les oracions. L’estructura de les lliçons, excepte la primera que inclou l’alfabet, combina qüestions de morfologia nominal i verbal o de morfologia i sintaxi, tal com acostumen a fer els mètodes d’aprenentatge de les llengües modernes. Cada lliçó formula els seus objectius específics, desenvolupa la seva part de continguts i conclou amb uns exercicis pràctics d’autocorrecció. La Gramàtica, per la seva banda, està organitzada com un manual elemental de llengua grega on la persona que segueixi el curs pot ampliar la seva formació i consultar els dubtes. Parts complementàries: presentació on es formulen els objectius, la metodologia i les instruccions concretes per a seguir el curs; terminologia on s’ordenen alfabèticament els conceptes gramaticals emprats en el curs; avaluació final per tal que, més enllà dels exercicis de cada lliçó, hom pugui comprovar si ha assolit els coneixements previstos o si, en cas de no arribar-hi, ha de reforçar algunes lliçons o parts de les mateixes abans de tornar a fer l’avaluació; lèxic, ordenat alfabèticament per tal que hom pugui conèixer el significat dels mots emprats en el curs sense necessitat de consultar un diccionari. A la part d’avaluació hi ha també una enquesta per tal que les persones que segueixin el curs en facin una valoració i ens permetin corregir els seus dèficits o mancances. El projecte 2007MQD00178 ha continuat ampliant els dossiers electrònics, els exercicis autoavaluatius del seu web www.ub.edu/filologiagrega/electra i ha dedicat una part important de la seva tasca a elaborar els continguts i els programes de les assignatures dels dos primers cursos del nou grau de Filologia Clàssica.

Estudio contrastivo de transposición semántica entre el lenguaje metafórico en lengua inglesa y española

El projecte de tesi doctoral que estem portant a terme requereix una mitjana de quatre anys de durada. A hores d‟ara, nou mesos després de la concessió de l‟ajut, estem treballant per a la defensa del projecte, que farem en el primer trimestre de l‟any 2012. El nostre treball pertany al camp de la lingüística i està directament relacionat amb la lexicografia i la semàntica. L‟objectiu final és el disseny de materials per a la traducció i l‟ensenyament de llengües. L‟ús de lèxic és el tema escollit. D‟una banda, volem esbrinar com autors consagrats de literatura utilitzen el llenguatge. Per això, mirem de diferenciar el que es consideran usos “normals” del llenguatge del que serien “explotacions”, especialmente aquelles relacionades amb l‟extensió de significat i, més específicament, amb la metáfora. D‟altra banda, perseguim fer una proposta de material destinat tant a l‟ensenyament de llengües estrangeres com a la traducció (els idiomas amb els quals treballem són anglès i espanyol). Les teories que utilitzem en la nostra recerca són la teoria del lèxic generatiu (de J. Pustejovsky) i la teoria de normes i explotacions (de P. Hanks). Encara no hem decidit quins autors estudiarem, tot i estar consultant obres d‟escriptors com V. S. Naipaul i J. Marías. El treball de recerca desenvolupat fins avui ha consistit en la redacció de la memòria final de màster (Màster Oficial en Formació de Professors d‟Espanyol com a Llengua Estrangera) en què s‟estudiava el tractament de la metáfora en diferents diccionaris d‟ELE i d‟EFL i en la cerca, lectura i selección de documents que podran ajudar-nos en la nostra empresa.

Towards the automatic merging of language resources

Language Resources are a critical component for Natural Language Processing applications. Throughout the years many resources were manually created for the same task, but with different granularity and coverage information. To create richer resources for a broad range of potential reuses, nformation from all resources has to be joined into one. The hight cost of comparing and merging different resources by hand has been a bottleneck for merging existing resources. With the objective of reducing human intervention, we present a new method for automating merging resources. We have addressed the merging of two verbs subcategorization frame (SCF) lexica for Spanish. The results achieved, a new lexicon with enriched information and conflicting information signalled, reinforce our idea that this approach can be applied for other task of NLP.

A Classification of Adjectives for Polarity Lexicons Enhancement

Subjective language detection is one of the most important challenges in Sentiment Analysis. Because of the weight and frequency in opinionated texts, adjectives are considered a key piece in the opinion extraction process. These subjective units are more and more frequently collected in polarity lexicons in which they appear annotated with their prior polarity. However, at the moment, any polarity lexicon takes into account prior polarity variations across domains. This paper proves that a majority of adjectives change their prior polarity value depending on the domain. We propose a distinction between domain dependent and romain independent adjectives. Moreover, our analysis led us to propose a further classification related to subjectivity degree: constant, mixed and highly subjective adjectives. Following this classification, polarity values will be a better support for Sentiment Analysis.

Automatic Extraction of Polar Adjectives for the Creation of Polarity Lexicons

Automatic creation of polarity lexicons is a crucial issue to be solved in order to reduce time andefforts in the first steps of Sentiment Analysis. In this paper we present a methodology based onlinguistic cues that allows us to automatically discover, extract and label subjective adjectivesthat should be collected in a domain-based polarity lexicon. For this purpose, we designed abootstrapping algorithm that, from a small set of seed polar adjectives, is capable to iterativelyidentify, extract and annotate positive and negative adjectives. Additionally, the methodautomatically creates lists of highly subjective elements that change their prior polarity evenwithin the same domain. The algorithm proposed reached a precision of 97.5% for positiveadjectives and 71.4% for negative ones in the semantic orientation identification task.

The "image" of the cave and the constant temptation to correct Plato: Benjamin Jowettt as an example

Translations of the first chapters of Book VII of Plato's Republic, in which he introduces the well-known image of the cave, eikón, reveals an astonishing and intriguing variety of interpretations of this image: "allegory", "myth", "fable", "parable", "simile" and "comparison", to cite but a few. Taking as an example the work by Benjamin Jowett, the Victorian translator of Plato, remarkable for its textual accuracy and by means of a close analysis of the terms related to the image, this paper insists on the need to neither interpret nor correct the great ideal philosopher, in this case revealing some evident contradictions that arise when this advice is not followed and pointing out the occasional use of terms extraneous to the Platonic lexicon such as "allegory".

Els manlleus en la revista “Time Out Barcelona”

El present treball constitueix un estudi i una anàlisi sobre les dades obtingudes del buidatge dels manlleus recollits en dos números de la revista catalana Time Out Barcelona. L’objectiu és aprofundir en el tema dels préstecs i extreure algunes conclusions sobre els tipus d’unitats manllevades i el seu tractament.

El dialecte saxó:Presència escrita i prestigi social

El treball següent ofereix una visió global d'un dels dialectes de la llengua alemanya que menys ha estat objecte de recerca i investigació, el saxó, centrant-se en la presència escrita de què gaudeix aquesta varietat actualment i el seu prestigi social a Alemanya a través dels anys

Reconciling phonological neighborhood effects in speech production through single trial analysis

A crucial step for understanding how lexical knowledge is represented is to describe the relative similarity of lexical items, and how it influences language processing. Previous studies of the effects of form similarity on word production have reported conflicting results, notably within and across languages. The aim of the present study was to clarify this empirical issue to provide specific constraints for theoretical models of language production. We investigated the role of phonological neighborhood density in a large-scale picture naming experiment using fine-grained statistical models. The results showed that increasing phonological neighborhood density has a detrimental effect on naming latencies, and re-analyses of independently obtained data sets provide supplementary evidence for this effect. Finally, we reviewed a large body of evidence concerning phonological neighborhood density effects in word production, and discussed the occurrence of facilitatory and inhibitory effects in accuracy measures. The overall pattern shows that phonological neighborhood generates two opposite forces, one facilitatory and one inhibitory. In cases where speech production is disrupted (e.g. certain aphasic symptoms), the facilitatory component may emerge, but inhibitory processes dominate in efficient naming by healthy speakers. These findings are difficult to accommodate in terms of monitoring processes, but can be explained within interactive activation accounts combining phonological facilitation and lexical competition.

U.S.English is a salad bowl. The Representation of Regionalisms in Standard American English

American English exhibits a great dialectal diversity, easily perceived in lexicon; so that questions are raised about which regionalisms are part of the mythical SAE and which are not. A small sample of regionalisms is checked against three standard dictionaries in order to determine the role regionalisms play in SAE.