LINGUIST List 9.851

Tue Jun 9 1998

FYI: Linguistic Olympics,3-D/NLP Demo,Coling-ACL'98

Editor for this issue: Anita Huang <anitalinguistlist.org>

Directory

1. Tom Payne, Linguistic Olympics
2. Philip A. Bralich, Ph.D., 3-D/NLP Demo
3. Priscilla Rasmussen, Coling-ACL'98 Registration

On May 16th, 1998, the first US edition of the "Linguistic Olympics"
took place in Eugene, Oregon. The Linguistic Olympics is a
good-natured educational activity that combines analytic reasoning and
cultural awareness. Secondary school students compete by solving
linguistic puzzles in languages they have never learned. The puzzles
are of varying degrees of difficulty, but all are solvable using
ordinary reasoning and analytic skills possessed by middle and high
school students. The Linguistic Olympics has been a yearly event in
Russia since 1965, and is credited with inspiring many individuals to
pursue linguistics as an academic field of study. In 1996 I had the
privilege of observing the Linguistic Olympics in Moscow, in which 450
students competed. Since then, Dr. Valentin Vydrin of the European
University of St. Petersburg and I have worked to develop an American
version of the Linguistic Olympics. A full report on our first efforts
can be found at the following URL:

http://darkwing.uoregon.edu/~tpayne/lingolym/LOreport.htm

I would be very interested in your comments, and would be glad to
provide as much help as I can if anyone would like to try something
similar.

To help demonstrate the possibilities and the sheer fun of NLP with
3-D animations we have just produced a demo product using characters
from Haptek Technologies. The software package allows you to chat
with an alien. The main point is to input statements you want to
query such as

 You saw the tall dark stranger in the park.
 The tall dark stranger was carrying a knife.

Then you can ask things like, "What was the stranger doing?" "Where
did you see the stranger?" And then get the answer straight from the
alien's lips. The graphics and speech generation technology from
Haptek are very nice and make this a very pleasurable intro to the
future marriage of edutainment and NLP.

Using this format of course you could input an entire murder mystery.
The guys who write scripts for muds and moos could probably get a
hundred stories for this one character alone.

It is available from the download section of our web site at
http://www.ergo-ling.com.

Great Fun!

Phil Bralich


Philip A. Bralich, Ph.D.
President and CEO
Ergo Linguistic Technologies
2800 Woodlawn Drive, Suite 175
Honolulu, HI 96822

Tel: (808)539-3920
Fax: (808)539-3924

Philip A. Bralich, President
Ergo Linguistic Technologies
2800 Woodlawn Drive, Suite 175
Honolulu, HI 96822
tel:(808)539-3920
fax:(880)539-3924

			 COLING-ACL'98
			 Register Now!

Registration is now open for the upcoming Coling-ACL'98 conference, to
be held 10-14 August 1998, at the Universite de Montreal, Montreal,
Quebec, Canada. Those who register early (before July 1) will benefit
from substantial savings.

The registration and hotel reservation forms are available on the Web
at the following URL:

	 http://coling-acl98.iro.umontreal.ca/

For your convenience, we provide for online registration (though your
payment slip must faxed or mailed). Please use this method of
registration if at all possible.

Otherwise, you may contact one of the following for an email or
hardcopy version of the registration forms:

					
Coling-ACL'98 Priscilla Rasmussen
RALI, DIRO				Coling-ACL'98 
Universite de Montreal			ACL 
P. O. Box 6128, Succ. Centre-ville	75 Paterson Street, Suite 9 
Montreal (Quebec) CANADA H3C 3J7	New Brunswick, NJ 08901 USA 
					 
coling-acl98iro.umontreal.ca		aclaclweb.org or 
Tel: +1-514-343-6111 ext. 4104	 rasmussecs.rutgers.edu 
Fax: +1-514-343-2496			+1-732-873-3898 
					+1-732-873-0014 

We look forward to seeing you in Montreal!


	-- COLING-ACL'98 Organizing Committee
 26 May 1998