scholarly journals Triviality Results and the Relationship between Logical and Natural Languages

Mind ◽  
2018 ◽  
Vol 128 (510) ◽  
pp. 485-526 ◽  
Author(s):  
Justin Khoo ◽  
Matthew Mandelkern
Keyword(s):  
Natural Languages ◽  
The Relationship ◽  
Triviality Results

Effects of Compression on Language Evolution

2000 ◽  
Vol 6 (2) ◽  
pp. 129-143 ◽  
Author(s):  
Tracy K. Teal ◽  
Charles E. Taylor
Keyword(s):  
Complex Systems ◽  
Language Evolution ◽  
Minimum Description Length ◽  
Evolution Of Language ◽  
Problem Space ◽  
Natural Languages ◽  
Look Up Table ◽  
The Relationship

Abstract For many adaptive complex systems information about the environment is not simply recorded in a look-up table, but is rather encoded in a theory, schema, or model, which compresses information. The grammar of a language can be viewed as such a schema or theory. In a prior study [Teal et al., 1999] we proposed several conjectures about the learning and evolution of language that should follow from these observations: (C1) compression aids in generalization; (C2) compression occurs more easily in a “smooth”, as opposed to a “rugged”, problem space; and (C3) constraints from compression make it likely that natural languages evolve towards smooth string spaces. This previous work found general, if not complete support for these three conjectures. Here we build on that study to clarify the relationship between Minimum Description Length (MDL) and error in our model and examine evolution of certain languages in more detail. Our results suggest a fourth conjecture: that all else being equal, (C4) more complex languages change more rapidly during evolution.

An analysis of focus and its role in the answering systems of polar questions in Chinese and English

2020 ◽  
Vol 7 (1) ◽  
pp. 45-70
Author(s):  
Mei-Ling Teresa Liou ◽  
Chen-Sheng Luther Liu
Keyword(s):  
Negative Particle ◽  
Natural Languages ◽  
Focus Association ◽  
The Relationship ◽  
Chinese And English ◽  
Positive Particle ◽  
Sensitive Marker

Abstract Instead of classifying natural languages in terms of their answering systems for polar questions, this study investigates how languages construct the answering system for the polar questions with a special concentration on the answering system of the Chinese ma particle question and English polar questions. We argue that the primarily mechanism that natural languages adopt to construct an answering system is the focus mechanism which is based on the relationship between a focus sensitive marker and its association of focus. The different answering patterns to polar questions result from different scopes of focus. In a polar question, what is being focused by the focus sensitive marker or focus operator falls into question scope (focus association). The respondent answers the polar question based on the proposition in the question scope. Answering with a positive particle expresses agreement with that question proposition while answering with a negative particle conveys that the question proposition is not true.

La vaguedad y la precisión: Ejercicios de elasticidad lingüística

2021 ◽  
Vol 2 (5) ◽  
pp. 6770-6792
Author(s):  
Santiago U. Sánchez Jiménez
Keyword(s):  
Epistemic Modality ◽  
Linguistic Expression ◽  
Natural Languages ◽  
Inherent Property ◽  
Discursive Strategy ◽  
The Relationship ◽  
The Continuum ◽  
Semantic Processes

La vaguedad es una propiedad inherente de las lenguas naturales y, también, una estrategia discursiva eficaz. En este trabajo se presta atención a los rasgos de la vaguedad lingüística, a los motivos que justifican su existencia, a los tipos de vaguedad y a la relación que se establece con otros procesos semánticos como la polisemia, la homonimia o la modalidad epistémica. La vaguedad intencional (la que persigue un fin comunicativo) ha de enmarcarse dentro del contínuum precisión-imprecisión. En el ámbito de la vaguedad intencional ha de distinguirse una vaguedad pragmática (generada por el contexto) y otra vaguedad lingüística, consistente en el empleo de elementos lingüísticos que estrechan el margen de precisión o amplían el espectro de la vaguedad. La posibilidad de que el emisor pueda intervenir en el grado de precisión o imprecisión de una expresión lingüística pone de manifiesto la elasticidad del idioma. Vagueness is an inherent property of natural languages ​​and also an effective discursive strategy. In this work attention to features of linguistic vagueness, the reasons for their existence, the types of vagueness and the relationship established with other semantic processes such as polysemy, homonyms or epistemic modality is provided. The intentional vagueness (which pursues a communicative purpose) must fit within the continuum of precision-vagueness. In the field of intentional vagueness we have to distinguish a pragmatic vagueness (generated by the context) and other linguistic vagueness, consisting of the use of linguistic elements that narrow the margin of precision or broaden the spectrum of vagueness. The possibility that the speaker may select the degree of accuracy or inaccuracy of a linguistic expression shows the elasticity of language.  

Circles Disturbed

2012 ◽  
Keyword(s):  
Narrative Structure ◽  
Natural Languages ◽  
Mathematics History ◽  
The Relationship ◽  
Concrete World ◽  
The Way

This book brings together important thinkers in mathematics, history, and philosophy to explore the relationship between mathematics and narrative. “Circles disturbed” reflect the last words of Archimedes before he was slain by a Roman soldier—“Don't disturb my circles”—words that seem to refer to two radically different concerns: that of the practical person living in the concrete world of reality, and that of the theoretician lost in a world of abstraction. Stories and theorems are, in a sense, the natural languages of these two worlds—stories representing the way we act and interact, and theorems giving us pure thought, distilled from the hustle and bustle of reality. Yet, though the voices of stories and theorems seem totally different, they share profound connections and similarities. This book delves into topics such as the way in which historical and biographical narratives shape our understanding of mathematics and mathematicians, the development of “myths of origins” in mathematics, the structure and importance of mathematical dreams, the role of storytelling in the formation of mathematical intuitions, the ways mathematics helps us organize the way we think about narrative structure, and much more.

Vision and Audition in Language Learning

1964 ◽  
Vol 19 (1) ◽  
pp. 255-300 ◽  
Author(s):  
James J. Asher
Keyword(s):  
Language Learning ◽  
Sensory Modality ◽  
Written Language ◽  
Positive Transfer ◽  
Sensory Receptor ◽  
Associate Learning ◽  
Natural Languages ◽  
Mediation Hypothesis ◽  
The Relationship ◽  
The Brain

The primary purpose was to present data for the transfer of learning from one sensory modality to another, specifically the relationship between vision and audition. The parameter was a range of natural languages including Spanish, Japanese, Russian, Turkish, and Persian. The secondary purpose was to suggest some theoretical constructs which may account for the data, and the third purpose was to explore certain side issues such as pronunciation shock and the validity of predictors for paired-associate learning. There was positive transfer of large magnitude from vision to audition for Spanish, Japanese, Turkish, or Persian, but a small, negative transfer for Russian. There was positive transfer from audition to vision for Spanish, Japanese, and Russian, but transfer was neutral for Turkish and negative for Persian. The magnitude of the positive transfer was usually higher from vision to audition than audition to vision. Much of the transfer data seemed to be accounted for with a phonetic fit hypothesis and a central mediation hypothesis of sensory process. The first concept, that of phonetic fit, postulates that positive transfer will be a function of the congruent match between the spoken and written language. The greater the congruency, the higher the probability of positive transfer between sensory channels. The second concept, the central mediation hypothesis, suggests that the direction and amount of transfer is a function of data processing not at the sensory receptor level, but at some centralized location in the brain.

scholarly journals Linguistica generale e lingue segnate Qualche ponte per una riflessione comune

2021 ◽  
Author(s):  
Davide Astori
Keyword(s):  
Point Of View ◽  
Natural Languages ◽  
Sign Languages ◽  
Contemporary Research ◽  
Key Concepts ◽  
The Status ◽  
The Relationship

Despite persistent uninformed and unscientific beliefs, the status of sign languages as proper languages has been deeply recognised by contemporary research. However, from the point of view of modern Linguistics, the peculiar properties of sign languages pose a challenge to some traditional notions which have been employed so far to describe linguistic phenomena. The present paper explores some key-concepts in Linguistics which should be redefined, such as phonetics, channel, and the relationship between signifier and signified, and suggests ways in which these notions could be reconceptualized in order to be ‘descriptively inclusive’ of all natural languages.

scholarly journals Utterance and Objective: Issues in Natural Language Communication

AI Magazine ◽  
2017 ◽  
Vol 1 (1) ◽  
pp. 11 ◽  
Author(s):  
Barbara J. Grosz
Keyword(s):  
Natural Language Processing ◽  
Natural Language ◽  
Language Processing ◽  
Computer Systems ◽  
Natural Languages ◽  
What Is Said ◽  
Language Communication ◽  
Natural Language Communication ◽  
The Relationship ◽  
Meaningful Sense

Two premises, reflected in the title, underlie the perspective from which I will consider research in natural language processing in this article. First, progress on building computer systems that process natural languages in any meaningful sense (i.e., systems that interact reasonably with people in natural language) requires considering language as part of a larger communicative situation. Second, as the phrase “utterance and objective” suggests, regarding language as communication requires consideration of what is said literally, what is intended, and the relationship between the two.

scholarly journals Individual Differences in Statistical Learning: Conceptual and Measurement Issues

Collabra ◽  
2016 ◽  
Vol 2 (1) ◽  
Author(s):  
Lucy C. Erickson ◽  
Michael P. Kaschak ◽  
Erik D. Thiessen ◽  
Cassie A. S. Berry
Keyword(s):  
Individual Differences ◽  
Statistical Learning ◽  
Task Demands ◽  
Language Outcomes ◽  
Statistical Structure ◽  
Natural Languages ◽  
Null Results ◽  
Measurement Issues ◽  
Statistical Segmentation ◽  
The Relationship

The ability to adapt to statistical structure (often referred to as “statistical learning”) has been proposed to play a major role in the acquisition and use of natural languages. Several recent studies have explored the relationship between individual differences in statistical learning and language outcomes. These studies have produced mixed results, with some studies finding a significant relationship between statistical learning and language outcomes, and others finding weak or null results. Furthermore, the few studies that have used multiple measures of statistical learning have reported that they are not correlated (e.g., [1]). The current study assesses the reliability of various measures of auditory statistical segmentation, and their consistency over time. That is, do the generally low correlations observed between measures of statistical learning stem from task demands, the psychometric properties of the measures, or the fact that statistical learning may be a highly fragmented construct? Our results confirm previous reports that individual measures of statistical learning tend not to correlate with each other, and suggest that the somewhat weak reliability of the measures may be an important factor in the low correlations. Our data also suggest that aggregating performance across tasks may be an avenue for improving the reliability of the measures.

Morphology and word order in Slavic languages: Insights from annotated corpora

2021 ◽  
pp. 131
Author(s):  
Jianwei Yan
Keyword(s):  
Word Order ◽  
Natural Languages ◽  
Slavic Languages ◽  
Quantitative Metrics ◽  
Syntactic Information ◽  
Efficient Communication ◽  
Corpus Size ◽  
The Relationship ◽  
Shed Light ◽  
Annotated Corpora

Slavic languages are generally assumed to possess rich morphological features with free syntactic word order. Exploring this complexity trade-off can help us better understand the relationship between morphology and syntax within natural languages. However, few quantitative investigations have been carried out into this relationship within Slavic languages. Based on 34 annotated corpora from Universal Dependencies, this paper paid special attention to the correlations between morphology and syntax within Slavic languages by applying two metrics of morphological richness and two of word order freedom, respectively. Our findings are as follows. First, the quantitative metrics adopted can well capture the distributions of morphological richness and word order freedom of languages. Second, the metrics can corroborate the correlation between morphological richness and word order freedom. Within Slavic languages, this correlation is moderate and statistically significant. Precisely, the richer the morphology, the less strict the word order. Third, Slavic languages can be clustered into three subgroups based on classification models. Most importantly, ancient Slavic languages are characterized by richer morphology and more flexible word order than modern ones. Fourth, as two possible disturbing factors, corpus size does not greatly affect the results of the metrics, whereas corpus genre does play an important part in the measurements of word order freedom. Specifically, the word order of formal written genres tends to be more rigid than that of informal written and spoken ones. Overall, based on annotated corpora, the results verify the negative correlation between morphological richness and word order rigidity within Slavic languages, which might shed light on the dynamic relations between morphology and syntax of natural languages and provide quantitative instantiations of how languages encode lexical and syntactic information for the purpose of efficient communication.

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