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Using Corpora in Language Research-also Introduction to the Sketch Engine (WS15) part 1
Adam KilgarriffLexical Computing LtdUniversities of Leeds
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What is language?
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What is language? In our heads
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What is language? In our heads In texts and sound signals
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What is language? In our heads In texts and sound signals Both
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Methodology
Study language in our headsCompetenceChomsky“rationalist” (Descartes, Leibniz)
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Methodology
Study language in our headsCompetenceChomsky“rationalist” (Descartes, Leibniz)Odd method for objective sciencePractical problems: coverage,
arbitrariness
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Methodology
Study text“empiricist” (Locke, Hume)
Physics: forces, matterChemistry: chemicals, bondsLanguage: text, speech signals
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It goes against the grain
What is important about a sentence?its meaning
Corpus methodology:Throw away individual sentence
meaningFind patterns
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Computer power
Corpora bigger and bigger data sets
Language technology toolslemmatizers, POS-taggers, parsersMachine learning, pattern-finding
20 years of rapid ascent
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All the linguisticses Theoretical Socio Psycho Developmental Law and Computational Contrastive Applied ...
linguistics
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Developmental
CHILDES, TalkBank How children learn language
Parents record all interactions Since 1980s Prof. Brian MacWhinney, Carnegie-Mellon Many languages
Largest chunk: English, 23m words
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Language change
Brown familySmall but perfectly formed
• I m words• 500 x 2000-word samples• the same 15 text types
Supports comparison• American and British English• 1931, 1961, 1991, 2006
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Language and gender
When you see a dentist <he/she/they> ... What is now normal? Recent study
they now the norm themself now needed despite what spellcheck says
BNC (most text from 1989) 0.2/million EnTenTen (mostly 2009) 0.4/million
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Language and law
Trade marksHoover and similar
• trademark or generic
Cases • sabatier, botox, kettle chips
Key evidence• Do people tend to capitalize?
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English nouns: % capitalized
0
10
20
30
40
50
60
70
<10 <30 <50 <70 <90
Types
Tokens
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Syntax and semantics
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DANTE
Detailed account of English lexis Corpus-driven
From word sketchesLexicographers assign to senses
High precision Available at http://webdante.com Brochures
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What data shall I use?
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Think hard
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Sometimes ...
Just-in-time corpus from the web Use case:
Translator, French-to-English• Translation task
• volcanoes• In French• I understand it OK, but I'm no vulcanologist, I don't
know the English terminology
BootCaT, Baroni and Bernardini
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Corpora in Sketch Engine
Access-to-all42 languages
• All major world languages
Mostly large, web-crawledVarious other
• CHILDES, Brown, ...
“My corpora”BootCat and other
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LCL sponsorship of LSA
One year free accounts for participantshttp://www.sketchengine.co.uk
• “Register”• “Site licence member”• Your details and
• Organisation: select LSA2011• Site licence key: Boulder
• Password by email• change it (under Settings)
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TodayMotivations, taster
Sunday 9-12practical