LINGUIST List 4.422

Tue 01 Jun 1993

Qs: Japanese tagsets, Farang, RTMs, Linguists in CS

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Directory

1. Eleanor Olds Batchelder, Tagsets for Japanese?
2. Gwyn Williams, How widespread is "farang" ?
3. James Tauber, Deriving RTNs from sample sentences
4. "Patsy L. Holmes", LINGUISTS AND COMPUTER SCIENCE

As part of a project to develop a stochastic lexical analyzer for
Japanese, we are trying to decide on an appropriate set of part-of-speech
labels for Japanese text.
If you are currently processing Japanese text for any purpose,
could you tell us:
 a) What is the goal of your project?
 b) What tags are you currently using?
 c) Are they successful for your purposes? If not, why not?
Thanks, Eleanor Olds Batchelder, CUNY

Dear folks,

The last few weeks have seen an interesting discussion on soc.culture.thai
USENET newsgroup about the origin of the word "farang" (Caucasian,
Westerner) in Thai.

 The popular belief in Thailand is that "farang" is derived from the
French "franc,ais". I have argued that this is unlikely. Thus far in our
discussion it has been established that similar words exist in other
languages spoken in the region, ie., Hindi in India, ie, "farangi" (from
Rom Hiranpruk). Also, similar words exist in the Arabic of Egypt and North
African countries, eg., "Afrangui" (from Ahmed F. Hosny).

 Another source is Serge Thion. 1993. "On Some Cambodian Words."
Australian National University Thai-Yunnan Project Newsletter. Canberra:
Research School of Pacific Studies. Number 20, March 1993, 18-23.
 In this paper Thion traces the word back to the Germanic 'Franks'. The
word spread through Muslim trade routes after the Crusades into Africa,
India, and Southeast Asia. Africa and India have the word 'farandji' from
Arab 'faranji', it has spread to Ethiopia, on the way to India ''Ferendj,
faranj, farangi'. In Cambodia, Westerners are usually called 'barang'
(also meaning 'French'. Vietnamese has the word 'pha-rang' or
'pha-lang-xa'.

 Another source is Jimmy Harris. 1986. "The Persian connection: Four
loanwords in Siamese." Pasaa Vol.XVI, No.1 (June 1986). Bangkok:
Chulalongkorn University Language Institute, 9-12.
 This paper traces the probable immediate source of the word in Thai
to Persian traders who were established in Siam by the 16th century. The
Persian word was 'farangg'.

 Some of us would like to know how far widespread the word is in
Southeast Asia (eg., Malaysia, Indonesia, etc; whether it occurs in other
Austroasiatic and Sino-Tibetan languages) and other regions (eg., Arab
nations, Africa, the Pacific?). Also, is the origin of these other words
in these languages 'Frank' or 'franc,ais'? In these languages is there any
relation between the word for Caucasian and the word for French/France?

 Many thanks. Please direct any correspondence to:

Gwyn Williams <gwynipied.tu.ac.th>
Thammasat University
Bangkok
June 1, 1993

Can anybody suggest an algorithm for deriving RTNs (recursive transition
networks) from a large sample of grammatical part-of-speech-marked sentences?

Failing this, how could it be done with the simpler FSTNs (finite state
transition networks)? (It must be possible, the sample is finite!)

For example,

Given A B C D, A E C D, A F D

The algorithm would produce:
 B
 A /------\ C D
 o--------o o-------o------o
 !\______/ /
 ! E /
 \__________/
 F

Any ideas? References?

James Tauber
jtaubertartarus.uwa.edu.au

To support my colleagues' efforts at having me reappointed at the rank
of Asst Prof, I am trying to compile a list of linguists who hold
academic appointments in computer science departments. If you are
one of these interesting animals, please send your name, along with
information on degrees, rank, department, and school, to:

 holmes1univscvm.csd.scarolina.edu

Thanks for your help!