Showing papers on "Phrase published in 1976"

Modifiers in Metaphors: Effects of Constituent Phrase Similarity on the Interpretation of Figurative Sentences.

Abstract: Previous research has shown that the ease of metaphor interpretation and judgments of metaphor goodness are correlated with the degree of similarity between the two nouns linked in a metaphor This study was designed to investigate the effects of adding adjective modifiers to the nouns constituting metaphorical sentences Four types of associative relationships, between adjectives and nouns were defined It was found that different patterns of adjective modification influenced constituent phrase similarity (eg, the ADJECTIVE-NOUNA is an ADJECTIVE-NOUNB), and such differences were consistent with changes in metaphor goodness and interpretability However, the intercorrelations among these variables were a function of the level of similarity between unmodified constituent nouns With initially similar constituent nouns, the three variables were about equally intercorrelated With initially dissimilar constituent nouns, constituent phrase similarity and metaphor goodness were highly correlated, but interpretability was not predictable from a linear model Results are discussed in terms of a cognitive-feature model of association and metaphor processing

Higher education and social change

Abstract: Higher Education for Development is a phrase that hides important problems, a slogan that requires careful analysis, and a ssource of hope for a majority of the world's people strugling for a respectable future.

Interactive High-Level Language Direct-Execution Microprocessor System

Abstract: It is our habit in writing an English composition that, as we write each word, each phrase, each sentence, and each paragraph, we consciously or unconsciously check the syntax and the semantics of the composition just written. Writing a computer program in a high-level language could be made similar to writing a composition in English. In this case, a highly interactive highlevel language system checks the syntax and the semantics of the highlevel language program as each symbol, each expression, and each statement are being entered at the terminal. When the source program is completely entered, the program could have been debugged and could have run once.

Automatic, semantics-based indexing of natural language texts for information retrieval systems

Abstract: The fundamental idea of the work reported here is to extract index phrases from texts with the help of a single word concept dictionary and a thesaurus containing relations among concepts. The work is based on the fact, that, within every phrase, the single words the phrase is composed of are related in a certain well denned manner, the type of relations holding between concepts depending only on the concepts themselves. Therefore relations can be stored in a semantic network. The algorithm described extracts single word concepts from texts and combines them to phrases using the semantic relations between these concepts, which are stored in the network. The results obtained show that phrase extraction from texts by this semantic method is possible and offers many advantages over other (purely syntactic or statistic) methods concerning preciseness and completeness of the meaning representation of the text. But the results show, too, that some syntactic and morphologic “filtering” should be included for effectivity reasons.

Demythologizing the Impersonal "Se" in Spanish

Abstract: In such a case subject seems to be defined on purely semantic grounds. Chomsky (Aspects of the Theory of Syntax, Cambridge: MIT Press, 1965) showed that grammatical functions, such as subject, can be best expressed indirectly by the rewriting rules of the base phrase marker which provide the deep structure of sentences, so that subject is a syntactic function defined as [NP,S] (NP under S). If we adhere to Chomsky's definition of subject, then it is easy to show that se is not a subject, because it does not behave syntactically like one. Some evidence to this effect is provided by Negative Particle Placement which in Spanish places the negative particle directly in front of the verb and its clitics (if any are present). One such example is: 2. Juan no habla mucho. John doesn't talk a lot. 3. *Se no habla mucho. 4. No se habla mucho. One doesn't talk a lot.

Syntax and semantics in a distributed speech understanding system

Abstract: The Hearsay II speech understanding system being developed at Carnegie-Mellon University has an independent knowledge source module for each type of speech knowledge. Modules communicate by reading, writing, and modifying hypotheses about various constituents of the spoken utterance in a global data structure. The syntax and semantics module uses rules (productions) of four types: (1) recognition rules for generating a phrase hypothesis when its needed constituents have already been hypothesized; (2) prediction rules for inferring the likely presence of a word or phrase from previously recognized portions of the utterance; (3) respelling rules for hypothesizing the constituents of a predicted phrase; and (4) postdiction rules for supporting an existing hypothesis on the basis of additional confirming evidence. The rules are automatically generated from a declarative (Le., non-procedural) description of the grammar and semantics, and are embedded in a parallel recognition network for efficient retrieval of applicable rules. The current grammar uses a 450-word vocabulary and accepts simple English queries for an information retrieval system.

Comments on ’’Temporal interactions within a phrase and sentence context’’

Abstract: The interpretation given in the subject article to the incidence of negative correlations between the durations of adjacent speech segments, viz., that they show evidence of temporal compensation, is criticized. It is shown that the negative correlations are most likely due to measurement error and to the author’s normalization of the duration of his test utterances.Subject Classification: [43]70.40, [43]70.70, [43]70.20.

The influence of prescriptive and subjective phrase markers on retrieval latencies

Abstract: To investigate the effect of subjective (pause defined) and prescriptive (grammatically defined) phrase markers on subjective grouping, subjects were presented simple declarative sentences in which the subjective and prescriptive phrase markers were either the same or different. In the same condition a 2-sec pause was placed at the major syntactic boundary, while in the different condition the pause was inserted within a constituent. Retrieval latencies for words following probes in the sentence were influenced by grammatical structure and, to a lesser extent, by the pause. The results suggest that, while sentential organization may be influenced by inserting pauses, this influence is highly constrained by the sentence’s grammatical structure.

The deuteronomic meaning of the phrase 'kol yiśrā'ēl'

Abstract: 1 Martin Noth, Das System der zwölf Stämme Israels (Stuttgart, 1930; reprinted, Darmstadt: Wissenschaftliche Buchgesellschaft, 1966). 2 A summary and critique of recent studies are provided by Manfred Weippert, The Settlement of the Israelite Tribes in Palestine, Studies in Biblical Theology, 2d Series, 21 (London: SCM Press, 1971). See George E. Mendenhall, ’The Hebrew Conquest of Palestine,’ Biblical Archaeologist 15 (1962), 66-87; reprinted in E. F. Campbell, Jr., and D. N. Freedman (eds.), Biblical Archaeologist Reader 3 (Garden City: Doubleday Anchor, 1970), 100-20; see also the works cited in n. 25 below. 3 Frank M. Cross, Canaanite Myth and Hebrew Epic (Cambridge: Harvard University Press, 1973), 287. The determination of secondary (’deuteronomistic’) material which follows is Cross’s (285-87). During the past twenty years biblical historians have modified their in-

The Role of Categorial Syntax in Grammatical Theory

Abstract: In his article ‘Some Linguistic Obstacles to Machine Translation’ (1960) Yehoshua Bar-Hillel dealt with the merits of categorial grammar for the analysis of certain kinds of simple sentences, the so-called kernel sentences, and with the shortcomings of categorial grammar in regard to more complex sentences. He followed Chomsky in that he proposed that categorial grammar “has to be supplemented by additional procedures, the so-called transformations” (Bar-Hillel 1960, p. 83). More than 10 years later the same stand was taken by David Lewis in his article ‘General Semantics’ (1972): “The time therefore seems ripe to explore categorially based transformational grammars, obtained by taking an Ajdukiewicz categorial grammar as base and adding a transformational component. So far as I know, this proposal has been made only once before (Lyons, 1966), but it seems an obvious one”. The motivation for the call for a transformational component is the same as in Bar-Hillel (1960). Lewis says very little about this component, only that he assumes that, if a problem arises in categorial grammar, transformations will handle it. Lewis puts one restriction on the transformational component: “In fact the only restriction I place on syntax is that transformational grammars should be categorially based”; what that means is obscured by the next sentence “In other words: a transformational component should operate on a set of categorial phrase markers representing a set of meanings generated by some lexicon” Lewis, (1972, p. 190).

Linguistic background and test material considerations in assessing sentence identification ability in English- and Spanish-English-speaking adolescents.

Abstract: This study investigated the influence of linguistic background differences on sentence identification by groups of English- and Spanish-English-speaking adolescents. Subjects were required to identify recorded meaningful and nonmeaningful (synthetic) sentences presented in a white noise background using a closed message set-response format. The results indicate that linguistic background variables significantly influence sentence identification ability and that these variables are not adequately controlled for by a closed message set. A significant difference in the ability to identify meaningful and nonmeaningful sentences was revealed. Contrary to previous indications, synthetic sentence identification appeared to be contingent upon key work or phrase recognition.

A technique for the automatic location and description of pitch contours

Abstract: A technique is presented for automatically locating and describing the shape of fundamental frequency (F 0 ) patterns throughout a sentence. The function y(t) = atbectis used to model the rise-fall shapes which define F 0 phrases. The function parameters are derived from a stepwise regression with the F 0 data, where new values are added to the region of analysis until the variance of the fit gets too large or the next F 0 point falls outside a prediction interval. The modeling procedure was applied to sentences taken from simulated man-machine interactions; the locations and shapes of the resulting F 0 phrases were evaluated against phonological phrase structures determined by perceptual experiments. 80% of the phrase boundaries perceived by listeners were located by the F 0 model. However, 21% of the boundaries found by the F 0 model were not found perceptually and are classed as False Alarms. In a comparison of perceived phrase types and contour shapes defined by the model, sentence-final phrases marked as complete clause boundaries by listeners were generally found as falling or level patterns, while those sentence-final phrases called incomplete were all found as rising contours by the model.

Perception of Prosodic Features

Abstract: This chapter focuses on perception of prosodic features. The physical parameters of the speech wave that signal the prosody of an utterance are the durations and intensities of the syllables, and the excursions of the fundamental frequency. Sentence stress is used to indicate the most important word or words in a sentence or phrase. There are two prosodic features that describe the temporal characteristics of a spoken utterance: (1) tempo and (2) rhythm. Tempo is the rate at which the utterance is spoken. The rhythm of an utterance is the pattern of time intervals that elapse between the occurrences of stressed syllables. The physical correlate of the intonation contour is fundamental frequency of the excitation source as a function of time.

A new technique for detecting patterns of term usage in text corpora

Abstract: Term occurrence A is included in term occurrence B if A is a substring of B. By making a single pass through a slightly non-standard KWIC index, every recurring phrase can be detected, and its inclusion relationships with other phrases and/or single words can be computed. Results obtained by processing a corpus of 2675 medical titles indicate that several properties definable in terms of inclusion relationships among terms have significance for vocabulary control. Preliminary results from a corpus of more than 62,000 medical titles have confirmed this finding.

Prosodic Aids to Speech Recognition: 9. Acoustic-Prosodic Patterns in Selected English Phrase Structures

Abstract: : The final two studies have been completed in a four year effort on developing prosodic aids to speech recognition. A procedure for using intonational phrase boundaries to select among alternative word and phrase hypotheses has been developed, refined, and tested by hand analyses of sixteen sentences. This procedure was designed for use with the BBN HWIM speech understanding system, and was totally implemented, but not tested before the end of the BBN contract with ARPA. Comparisons of control and parsing traces with acoustically detected phrase boundaries did show, however, that intonational boundaries could help select correct words and phrase structures and avoid erroneous hypotheses. An experimental study of acoustic prosodic patterns in 255 sentences showed several useful prosodic regularities. Over 91% of the syllables were correctly located, and 92% of the stressed syllables were correctly categorized as stressed, while 76% of the syntactic phrase boundaries were detected. Exactly which phrases are or are not preceded by intonational phrase boundaries was determined. Intonation contours were very firmly shown to involve rising pitch until the first stress, progressively lower pitch in succeeding stresses, and a terminal fall (for declaratives, commands, and WH questions) or rise (for yes/no questions). Parentheticals were clearly marked by disjunctures, large Fo variations, and other prosodic features. Contrastive phrase structures could be detected from prosodic cues.

Phoneme-by-phoneme recognition of speech composed of the words of given vocabulary

Abstract: Initial word reference signals are built from the finite set of the reference elements and written by means of acoustic-phonetic transcription. The transformations of the initial word references permitting to obtain reference signals of words with the different rate of pronunciation are introduced. Reference phrase signals are composed of reference word signals with the help of special rules. The recognition of a given signal consists in location of the reference signal of a maximum likelihood for the given one and in indication of a word or a word sequence which composes it. Learning algorithm, which finds the transcriptions of words and the set of reference elements allows to adapt to some announcer and to change some part of the dictionary or the whole one. Described method of a recognition gives 1% of errors, 3% of refusals for 300 words. The word recognition in connected speech gives 3% of errors and 7% of refusals.

An attempt of automatic recognition of some Russian words

Abstract: A hierarchially organized computing recognition system is described. The primary dynamlc spectrogram is obtained by means of 23 1/3 - octave filters. The algorithms of the lowest recognising levels deal with finding out the phonetic features in the spectrogram. At the highest recognizing levels the nonunanimous string of phoneme codes is converted by the lexical algorithm into the sequence of words of the restricted vocabulary. The grammatical and semantical algorithms select those of them which are in accordance with the rules of the phrase construction. 150 Russian words pronounced isolatedly and in simple phrases have been recognized by the computing system with 90% effectiveness.

Hearing “words” without words: speech prosody and word perception

Abstract: The role of prosody in word perception was studied by asking listeners to locate word boundaries in speech with natural prosody but without phonotactic or semantic cues. To obtain such speech, seven speakers read sentences (e.g., “The noisy dog never stopped barking”) with “ma” substituted for each syllable of the three‐syllable adjective‐noun phrase (e.g., “The mama ma never stopped barking”). These nonsense phrases with all possible stress patterns were excised and played to 38 naive listeners who judged whether they heard each phrase as “ma mama” or “mama ma.” The stress pattern determined how well the phrases were parsed into words. When the stress pattern made the word division unambiguous (01‐1, 1‐12, 1‐10 where 0, 2, 1 denote no stress, midstress, and high stress), listeners used the pattern to parse the phrases easily; striking individual differences were observed. When the stress pattern left the word division ambiguous (11‐1, 1‐11, 12‐1, 1‐21, 10‐1, 1‐01), parsing was harder but still better than chance. So not only global patterns, but also detailed information about prosody, are used in word perception.