LINGUIST List 7.1112

Mon Aug 5 1996

Qs: Cognitive Semantics, Language Change, Mandarin Phonemes

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

Directory

1. Otto Lassen, cognitive semantics
2. Chuck Coker, Language Change (EX-06-01)
3. Mark Sitkowski, Mandarin Phonemes

J'etudie le semantique cognitive. Je suis en train de decrire les
structures cognitives des mot et les formaliser afin que je puisse les
utiliser dans NLP (des programmes de traductions, de base de
donnees etc). Je suis danois. Est-ce qu'il y a parmi vous des
francais qui veulent decrire des differences entre ces 3
phrases quant aux structures cognitives: 

1. Ils placerent l'homme inerte sur la civiere. 
2. Ils mirent l'homme inerte sur la civiere. 
3. Ils poserent l'homme inerte sur la civiere.

Bien cordialement
Otto Lassen
olasseninet.uni-c.dk

I have an exercise in mind that I would like to try in my classes. I
want to take a few paragraphs and have people from various parts of
the world transcribe them into their own regional dialect of English
using the International Phonetic Alphabet. The purpose of the
exercise is to demonstrate how languages can split apart due to vowel
sound changes, addition or dropping of other sounds, etc. I speak the
"Southern California, United States," dialect, and sometimes have a
hard time understanding someone from, say, Australia. This is not
intended to be scientific research or anything like that, just an
example of how language changes.

If anyone would be interested in participating, please contact me. I
will compile the results and share them with any interested parties.
Please refer to "Exercise 6.1" in any replies.

Thanks,
Chuck Coker
CJCokerCris.Com

Does anyone have (or know someone who has) a set of Mandarin Chinese
phoneme audio files? I desperately need some for a speech synthesiser
project, which only needs these to reach near-completion.

As an alternative, a set of audio files for all the pinyin syllables
would do (I can modify my software).

If possible (this is *really* pushing my luck...) I'd prefer Sun .au
format, using a female voice - but, obviously, I'll take what I can
get.

- 
Best regards,
Mark

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 Mark Sitkowski ~{P&1H?^:C~}!
 Australian Computing and Communications Institute
 723 Swanston Street
 Carlton Victoria 3053
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 Phone: (613-9) 282-2530 E-mail: marksacci.com.au
 Fax: (613-9) 282-2534 WWW: http://www.acci.com.au/People/marks.html

 Home phone: (613-9) 729-0731 ~{8xNR4r5g;0~}!
 Home fax: (613-9) 720-1487
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