LINGUIST List 6.1385

Tue Oct 10 1995

FYI: Hybrid Models List, Tense/Aspect part.II, Soundex, TESL

Editor for this issue: Ljuba Veselinova <lveselinemunix.emich.edu>

Directory

1. Ron Sun, NEW MAILING LIST: Hybrid Models: Learning and Architectures
2. Gert Webelhuth, Re: Summary, part II of Tense/Aspect particles
3. , Soundex
4. List Management, More Info. re online seminar

ANNOUNCING A NEW MAILING LIST:

The <Hybrid Models: Learning and Architectures> mailing lists.
 -------------------------------------------

As we discussed at the CSI workshop at IJCAI in this August,
we now establish this new mailing list for the specific purpose of
exchanging information and ideas regarding hybrid models, especially models
integrating symbolic and connectionist processes. Other hybrid models,
such as fuzzy logic+neural networks and GA+NN, are also covered.

This is an unmoderated list. Conference and workshop announcements,
papers and technical reports, informed discussions of specific
topics in hybrid model areas, and other pertinent messages
are appropriate items for submission.
Email your submission to hybrid-listcs.ua.edu, which will be automatically
forwarded to all the recipients of the list.

Information regarding subscription is attached below.
For questions and suggestions regarding this list, send email to
rsuncs.ua.edu (only if you have to).

This mailing list has incorporated the old HYBRID list at Brown U. maintained
by Michael Perrone (thanks to Michael), and included names of those who
attended the 1995 CSI workshop or expressed interest in it.
(To remove your name from the list, see the instruction at the end of this
message.)

Regards,
- Ron Sun


 =======================================================
The University of Alabama Department of Computer Science has set up a list
service for this:

To subscribe to this list service, send an e-mail message to the userid
"listproccs.ua.edu" with NO SUBJECT, but a one-line text message,
as shown below:

 SUBSCRIBE hybrid-list YourFirstName YourLastName

You should receive a response back indicating your addition to the list.

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 Two weeks ago, I posted a message asking for examples of tense or aspect
 being expressed by morphologically unbound particles. I received a large
 number of responses and found more valuable data than I could have hoped.
 I would like to thank the following linguists in addition to those
 mentioned in my first thank you list posted last week:

 Nicholas Ostler
 Richard C. DeArmond
 Steve Matthews
 Beatrice Santorini
 Loran A. Billings
 Susan Meredith Burt
 Ricky Jacobs
 Dorothy Disterheft
 Alistair Knott
 Paula S. Newman
 Annabel Cormack
 Mike Dickey
 Geoffrey Millar
 Jill Hart
 Mike Mackenzie
 Charles Randriamasimana
 Andi Wu


 Thanks you very much for your help!

 Gert Webelhuth
 Department of Linguistics
 U of North Carolina at Chapel Hill

On Oct. 4, the following question, under the subject "SOUNDEX Software
Question" was posted:

>Dear Linguists!
>
>There is a wonderful search algorithm for English words based on phonetic
>properties of the searched items. It is called SOUNDEX. Essentially, it
>provides a way to conduct fuzzy searches and find everything which
>sounds somewhat like the entered words with a given degree of proximity.
>
>Does anybody know of similar algorithms for foreign languages? Has anybody
>done any customization of the original SOUNDEX written 25 years ago? Please
>reply directly or through the group.

Questions about Soundex occur every once in a while on the linguist list.
The Soundex algorithm actually has fairly little to do with phonetic
properties, even though it is often called a "phonetic" technique. It
has been used primarily in name-matching applications. The following
discussion has been lifted from a rough draft of my Ph.D. thesis on
using artificial neural networks to match romanized Chinese names:

	In compression (or "phonetic") techniques, letters will be
assigned to certain groups and be expressed by a symbol for that group;
additionally there are rules for truncating names and combining vowel or
consonant clusters. The most well-known of the compression algorithms
is the Soundex technique, which was originally developed for the 1890
census. Its original form is as follows:
	The code (or "key") consists of four alphanumeric symbols, derived
in the following manner:
 rrtain the first letter of the name, and drop all occurrences
 oo A, E, H, I, O, U, W and Y, in other positions;
 tte last three symbols are the digits 1-6, chosen from the
 ffllowing table:
				11B, F, P, V
				2	C, G, J, K, Q, S, X, Z
				33D, T
				44L
				55M, N
 66 R
 ii consecutive letters of the original name have the same
 ccde, delete all but the first letter;
 ii a code has less than three digits, fill out the key with
 zzros; if a code has more than three digits, delete the
 eecess digits. (Knuth 1973:391-392)
 TTe technique seems to have been concerned largely with Eurocentric
names, but even with these kinds of names, the technique has substantial
problems with both precision (the ratio of relevant names retrieved to
all names retrieved, a measure of how many undesirable matches are
returned) and recall (the ratio of relevant names retrieved to all
relevant names, a measure of how many desirable matches are found).
Nevertheless, the system worked well enough to continue to be used
today, and to spawn many variant schemes and competing algorithms
(Hermansen 1985:16-23, Taft 1970:48-92)*. A practical advantage of
compression techniques is that much of the computational work can be
done before an actual name search by compressing all names beforehand,
thus speeding up name searches, as only a new name entered need be
analyzed, before comparing it against all of the already-compressed
names in the database.

* Hermansen (1985) dissusses in more detail the strength and
weaknesses of Soundex and its variant and competitor algorithms,
while Taft (1970) presents a comparison of 23 compression algorithms.

KNUTH, DONALD E. (1973). The Art of Computer Programming, volume 3:
 SSrting and Searching. Reading, MA: Addison-Wesley.
HERMANSEN, JOHN CHRISTIAN (1985). Automatic name searching in large
 ddta bases of international names. Washington, D.C.:
 GGorgetown University Dissertation.
TAFT, ROBERT L. (1970). Name Search Techniques. Bureau of Systems
 DDvelopment, New York State Identification and Intelligence
 SSstem, Albany, NY (Special Rep. No.1).

 MMrk Lewellen

 ONLINE PROFESSIONAL DEVELOPMENT SEMINAR!

in whole language approaches to the teaching of reading and writing

This message supplements our previous message on this subject, with two
new pieces of information: additional telephone and fax numbers of the
publisher of the assigned text for the seminar; and an exciting announcement
about the author of the book, Marie Wilson Nelson.
 **************

We are also pleased to announce that the author of the assigned text,
_At the Point of Need_, Professor Marie Wilson Nelson, has graciously agreed
to participate in the seminar and to answer questions on her book.

 ***************

This online seminar is being offered free of charge on the TESLFF-L branch
of the TESL-L (Teachers of English as a Second Language) electronic forum.
train teachers in the use and adaptation of the Fluency First (Whole
Language) approach to teaching ESL/EFL reading and writing, based on the
research and writing of linguists such as John Mayher and Stephen Krashen.

The online seminar leaders are Adele McGowan-Gilhooly and Anthea Tillyer.
The initial seminar will run from November 1, 1995 to June 1, 1996. For
this first pilot seminar, there will be no credit and no "homework". We
plan to offer graduate credit (CUNY) for later offerings of this seminar.
participate and benefit fully will need to do the following:

 If you would like to participate in this training and these seminars,
you need to do the following immediately:

 1. Join TESLFF-L (see instructions below)
 2. Buy the book: _At the Point of Need_ by Marie Nelson (Boyton Cook/
 Heinemann) ISBN 0-86709-265-3

 361 Hanover Street, Portsmouth. NH 03801
 (tel. orders) 1-800 541-2086
 +1 1-603 431-7894 worldwide,except Canada

 (fax orders) 1-800 847-0938
 +1 1-603 431-7840
 CANADA
 tel: 1-905 660-0611
 1-905 660-0676 Irwin Publishing


 3. Read the first five chapters of the book by November 1
 4. Plan to try out at least SOME of the techniques and ideas raised
 in branch discussions and in the book. However, if you are not
 teaching at the moment, you are still welcome.

 5. Plan to keep a reflective journal of your teaching and your seminar
 experience.

 6. Give feedback to the seminar leaders and participants in June, '96

 Online discussion will be supplemented by archived materials.

 Schools who would like to have on-site training for teachers can
contact Anthea Tillyer (ATICCCUNYVM.CUNY.EDU) or Adele McGowan Gilhooly
(+1 212 650-6289) to arrange an onsite visit, can receive the training
onsite if they pay travel and expenses (no fees!)

 To join TESLFF-L:
Assuming that you are already a TESL-L member, send a message to
 LISTSERVCUNYVM.CUNY.EDU
As the body of the message, type 2 words:
 SUB TESLFF-L

If you are NOT already a member of TESL-L, your request to join TESLFF-L
will not be accepted by the computer because membership of TESL-L branches
is only open to TESL-L members. To join TESL-L, send a message to
 LISTSERVCUNYVM.CUNY.EDU
As the text of the message, type four words:
 SUB TESL-L first-name last-name

Example: sub tesl-l Genghis Khan

We look forward to an exciting few months of professional growth!

Anthea Tillyer & Adele McGowan Gilhooly
City College
ESL Department
NAC 5/218 vox: +1 212 650-6289
New York. NY 10031 fax: +1 212 489-3687