LINGUIST List 3.739

Fri 02 Oct 1992

Qs: Syntax and dysphasia; Indirect Discourse

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1. Mary Tait, Syntactic Theory and Dysphasic Speech
2. Martin Wynne, Computational analysis of indirect discourse

We are currently working on a grant entitled "Syntactic Theory and the
Characterization of Dysphasic Speech" for which we are producing an
annotated corpus of cross-linguistic agrammatic aphasic data, drawn
in the most part from the recent comprehensive three-volume work edited by
Menn and Obler.

The corpus is primarily intended for the attention of theoretical
syntacticians who are interested in patterns of pathology as a means of
informing their own understanding of syntax. It is organized by
syntactic construction and has detailed discussion
of the data in terms of current syntactic theory, in particular the
assumption of a universal syntactic substrate UG.

We would be interested to know of any other groups or individuals studying
either the same or similar crosslinguistic data, particularly in terms
of syntax, or of any other corpora which extend the range of languages
contained in the Menn and Obler corpus (English, Dutch, German, Swedish,
Icelandic, Polish, Serbo-Croatian, French, Italian, Finnish, Hindi,
Chinese, Japanese).

We will post back to LINGUIST a compilation of the replies which we
receive and we will announce when the corpus which we are assembling
is available.

Thanks in anticipation.

Mary Tait and Richard Shillcock
Linguistics Dept./Centre for Cognitive Science,
University of Edinburgh
Edinburgh
EH8 9LW
UK
mtaitling.ed.ac.uk rcscogsci.ed.ac.uk

Has anyone done or does anyone know of computational analysis
done on indirect discourse (e.g. identifying formal features of reported
speech, identifying narrative voices, etc.).

References to any formal work in this area would be useful.

Martin Wynne
Dept. Linguistics & Phonetics
University of Leeds