LINGUIST List 10.1691

Sat Nov 6 1999

Qs: Translate Greek/Chinese, Vulgarism, 'As Follow'

Editor for this issue: Lydia Grebenyova <lydialinguistlist.org>



We'd like to remind readers that the responses to queries are usually best posted to the individual asking the question. That individual is then strongly encouraged to post a summary to the list. This policy was instituted to help control the huge volume of mail on LINGUIST; so we would appreciate your cooperating with it whenever it seems appropriate.

Directory

  • Mark Irwin, Statistical Analysis of Translation/Greek Roots - Chinese Characters
  • A. Pawlowski, Vulgarisms: Polish/English
  • lc22, Original Form: "As follows"

    Message 1: Statistical Analysis of Translation/Greek Roots - Chinese Characters

     Date: Fri, 5 Nov 1999 13:35:39 +0900
    From: Mark Irwin <padzilcs.hokudai.ac.jp>
    Subject: Statistical Analysis of Translation/Greek Roots - Chinese Characters


    Statistical Analysis of Translation Between Greek Roots and Chinese Characters

    I am currently carrying out some research aimed at providing an improved pedagogical method for teaching English medical vocabulary to Japanese learners of English. My question is this:

    Given a set of Greek-based medical roots commonly found in medical English lexical items (= X) and a set of the direct Chinese character equivalents of these individual roots (= Y), does there exist a statistical method to measure the 'correctness' of the Chinese character output (Y) against the 'real' translation (= Z) gained from looking up the word in a dictionary?

    For example, an English medical word composed of two Greek roots, AAAA-BBBB, is input into X and the Chinese character output is 1-2. The 'real' translation (Z) of AAAA-BBBB is, in fact, 1-3. Can a 'correlation of correctness' between 1-2 and 1-3 be measured in a quantifiably statistical way, given that the Chinese characters 2 and 3 may be very similar in meaning or totally unrelated? Again an input CCCC-DDDD outputs the Chinese characters 4-5, but the Z is in fact 5-4 (correct characters, reverse order). Or UUUU-VVVV-WWWW-XXXX outputs 6-7-8-9, but the Z is actually 6-7-0-9-8, (i.e. an extra Chinese character and a reversal of the last two characters). Each of the Ys shown as examples above differ from their respective Zs in ways that affect the user's ability to grasp from the output Y what the real translation (Z) may be and it is this I am seeking to quantify in some way.

    Any help would be much appreciated. Please reply off-list.

    Mark Irwin Dept. of Language & Culture, Hokkaido University padzilcs.hokudai.ac.jp

    Message 2: Vulgarisms: Polish/English

     Date: Fri, 5 Nov 1999 07:04:43 +0100 (MET)
    From: A. Pawlowski <apawlowpwr.wroc.pl>
    Subject: Vulgarisms: Polish/English


    Dear Subscribers,

    I write on behalf of my colleague who's now preparing her PhD dissertation on vulgarisms in Polish and English and would like to collect more material for her comparative study of that aspect of language. She would be really happy, if some of you could fill her questionnaire:

    http://orion.zssk.pwr.wroc.pl/~ankieta/

    She promised to post a summary.

    A.Pawlowski

    Message 3: Original Form: "As follows"

     Date: Sat, 06 Nov 99 09:58 EST
    From: lc22 <Linda_K_COLEMANumail.umd.edu>
    Subject: Original Form: "As follows"


    A question was recently raised in our English dept. concerning why, in a sentence like (1), "as follows" is used rather than "as follow." (1) The people in attendance were as follows: . . . . It seems clear enough that "as follows" is at this point simply idiomatic; I have been able to find no evidence that "as follow" is even a possibility. The question is, does anyone know, or can anyone suggest, what the (or an) original full form might have been? Presumably there's a missing empty _it_, in the phrase, but the question then arises: why is a form that usually deals with listing of several items frozen in the singular?

    Any ideas, thoughts, suggestions, similar examples, would be welcome. Please reply privately to LC22umail.umd.edu

    Thanks

    Linda Coleman Department of English University of Maryland College Park, MD 20742 LC22umail.umd.edu