Examines issues raised by corpus linguistics concerning the description of language. The article argues that it is necessary to start from correct descriptions of linguistic units and the contexts in which they occur. Corpus linguistics has joined with language teaching by sharing a recognition of the importance of a larger, schematic view of…

Explains distributional regularity (DR), an intuition that sound sequences occurring frequently and in multiple contexts are candidates for the lexicon. Describes study that proposed hypotheses about children's segmenting sounds using DR functions, exploiting phonotactic constraints on pronunciation, and learning word-boundary clusters. Details…

Highlights the use of corpus linguistics--or the the study of language through the use of a large collection of naturally-occurring written and spoken texts. Discusses corpora with computers, applications of corpus linguistics, and the University of Pennsylvania's Linguistic data Consortium, which is conducting a speech study to support linguistic…

Presents a model for the a priori analysis of natural language queries which uses an algorithm to transform the query into a logical pattern that is used to determine the answerability of the query. The results of testing by a prototype system implemented in PROLOG are discussed. (20 references) (CLB)

Describes a model that displays structures necessary to map between the conceptual and external levels in database management systems, using an algorithm that maps the syntactic representations of tuples onto semantic representations. A technique for translating tuples into natural language sentences is introduced, and a system implemented in…

Examines research on the interpretation of ambiguous sentences and the presence or absence of contextual override effects. This study also examines the requirements placed on computational models of word-by-word incremental processing. The emerging picture is of a multiple constraint-based system in which knowledge ranging from lexical through…

Discussion of discourse modeling in artificial intelligence and computational linguistics focuses on a dialog model that incorporates the illocutionary aspects of information-seeking dialogs. The relevance of a theory developed for the analysis of written texts--Rhetorical Structure Theory--is explained, and future work is discussed. (25…

Describes a linguistic analysis computational system that responds to highly complex queries about morphosyntactic and semantic structures contained in large sets of language acquisition data by identifying, displaying, and analyzing sentences that meet the defined linguistic criteria. (30 references) (Author/CB)

Using computational analysis, describes and analyzes selected lexical, discourse, and stylistic elements of English in international management that are essential for public identification of management and the manager. (Author/VWL)

Reviews the history of interlinguistics in China through scientific and specialist journals, tracing a path from early discussions of language policy through growing recognition of Esperanto as an object of scientific study to the application of interlinguistics in computing and terminology. (Author/JL)

Explores the use of language corpora, focusing on the use of corpora in the classroom by students rather than as a background resource for teachers and materials designers. (Author/VWL)

Examines how language corpora can inform the pedagogic process and asks who is to be the voice of authority with regard to spoken grammar. (Author/VWL)

Evaluates three commercial computer-based language translation programs' translation of a university social sciences telephone survey from English to Spanish. The three programs, "Spanish Scholar,""Spanish Assistant," and "Spanish Amigo," were rated as unacceptable in their quality of translations by native and near-native Spanish speakers. (nine…

Investigates the redundantly marked comparative "worser" in relation to its irregular, but etymologically justified, counterpart, "worse." Examines the diachronic development of the form as well as its distribution in the written language of the 16th and 17th centuries. (Author/VWL)

Through corpus analysis and experimentation, this article demonstrates that both grammatical complexity (heaviness) and discourse status (newness) simultaneously and independently influence word order in two English constructions. Argues that heavy and new constituents facilitate the processes of planning and production. (Author/VWL)