LINGUIST List 4.109

Wed 17 Feb 1993

Qs: Typology, Grammar Engineering, Null Subj., Word Lists

Editor for this issue: <>

Directory

1. Max Wheeler, Contentive typology
2. Martin Volk, grammar engineering
3. Mike Maxwell 6369, Null subject languages
4. Alan Bailin, ASCII word lists

Can anyone point me to substantial discussions in English or a Romance
language of Contentive Typology? W.P. Lehmann mentions this briefly in
Historical Linguistics (3rd edition), London/New York: Routledge, 1992, with
refs only to Klimov, G.A., Tipologija jazykov aktivnogo stroja, Moscow: Nauka,
1977, and Klimov, G.A., Principy kontensivnoj tipologii, Moscow: Nauka, 1983.

Max Wheeler,
School of Cognitive and Computing Sciences,
University of Sussex,
Falmer, Brighton BN1 9QH,
U.K.

I am a PhD student working on methods for the devlopment of large
computational grammars. This field has come to be known as
"grammar engineering". The field includes tools for grammar
development and testing (such as PATR II, ProGram) but it exceeds the
level of tools in that it suggests methods for approaching grammar
development projects within NLP systems. We try to see grammar development
in analogy to software development and try to apply ideas from
software engineering.

Now comes my question: Does anyone know of literature in this area? Is
anyone else focussing research in this area?

I am interested in exchanging bibliographies, research reports and ideas in
 general.

Please answer to me directly.

Thanks, Martin

**************************************************************************
* Martin Volk
* University of Koblenz-Landau Tel (+49) 261-9119-469
* Institute of Computational Linguistics
* Rheinau 3-4 FAX (+49) 261-37524
* W-5400 Koblenz, Germany Martin.Volkinformatik.uni-koblenz.de
**************************************************************************

In Linguist-List 4-91, Richard Cameron
(rileycattell.psych.upenn.edu) asks:
> Does anyone know which of the following languages are considered
> null subject languages?:
> [list of several languages]
Can I broaden the query? What languages of the world are NOT null
subject languages? I have the impression it's a distinct minority,
perhaps even a small fraction of the world's languages. Aside from a
handful of European languages, I have heard that some west African
languages are non-null Subject languages (I'm not sure which ones
precisely, or whether it is a particular language family), and that's
about it. Can anyone enlighten me?

Mike Maxwell maxwella1.jaars.sil.org

I'm looking for ASCII word lists or lexicons of commonly used English
words. E-mail replies to abailinuwo.ca. All help will be appreciated.

Alan Bailin: Dept. of Effective Writing
 The University of Western Ontario
 University College
 London, Ontario, Canada N6A 3K7
 Tel: 519-679-2111, ext. 5799
 ABailinuwo.ca