Glottopedia - User contributions [en]

User:Dvdsn

2007-10-05T12:47:08Z

Dvdsn:

[http://www.mpi.nl/Members/DougDavidson Homepage]

History of quantitative linguistics

2007-10-05T12:31:44Z

Dvdsn: /* Development */

==The Beginning==

[[Image:Markov.gif|right|100px|Andrej Andreevič Markov (Андрей Андреевич Марков); * 14. Juni 1856 in Rjasan; † 20. Juli 1922 in Petrograd]]

The first scientific counts of units of language or text were published already in the 19th century. In Germany, Förstemann (1846, 1852) and Drobisch (1866), in Russia, Bunjakovskij (1847), in France Bourdon (1892), in Italy, Mariotti (1880) and in the USA, probably Sherman (1888) performed frequency studies as a means of linguistic description. First theoretical insight after many years of merely descriptive counts of various kinds, is due to the Russian mathematician A. A. Markov who created the base of the theory of Markov chains in 1913. This mathematical model of the sequential (syntagmatic) dependence among units in linear concatenation in the form of transition probabilities was – despite its mathematical significance – of only little use for linguistics. Some of the linguistics areas, such as syntax, were considered principally inappropriate for the application of this model type as they require recursive models in order to represent the self-embedding structures in syntax. Hence, applications of Markov chains were restricted to some efforts with respect to textual units and to phonology. (In modern computational linguistics and in natural language processing, however, Markov chains are a central component of the corresponding methods of language technology (“Hidden Markov Models”; cf. e.g., Brants 1999)).

==Development==

Later, quantitative studies of linguistic material were, in the first place, a consequence of practical demands: efforts to improve second language training and optimisation of stenographic systems are examples. Early quantitative observations and corresponding mathematical models in the field of vocabulary are originated from works by J.B. Estoup (1916), G.U. Yule (1924) und E.U. Condon (1928).

[[Image:Zipf.jpg|100px|left|George Kingsley Zipf (1902-1950)]]
The unveiled interrelations between frequency of words and the ranks of the frequency class (alternatively: between frequency and the number of words in the given frequency class) were systematically investigated by the above-mentioned founder of QL, George Kingley Zipf. He was the first to set up a theoretical model in order to explain the observations and to find a mathematical formula for the corresponding function – the famous “Zipf’s Law”. Zipf and others observed the same kind of dependence between rank and frequency (or size) on data from a number of scientific and every-day phenomena. Among his publications, his books “The Psycho-Biology of Language. An Introduction to Dynamic Philology” (1935) and “Human Behavior and the Principle of Least Effort” (1949) are considered the most important ones. Zipf formulated (in different terms) innovative thoughts on self-organisation, the principle of language economy and fundamental properties of linguistic laws long before modern systems theory arose, even without any preparatory work of others. His ideas, such as the “principle of least effort” and the “forces of unification and diversification” are important still today (even if they suffer from certain defects and mistakes) and they belong to the few things contemporary linguists know about QL. Later, Zipf’s model was conceptually and mathematically improved and enhanced by Benoît Mandelbrot (1953, 1959, 1961a, 1961b), the world-wide celebrated originator of fractal geometry. Zipf’s body of thought fecundated various scientific disciplines and enjoys increasing publicity again.

Shannon and Weaver (1949) applied information theory to linguistics and raised a storm of calculations on diverse language phenomena. Many linguists responded well to this novel approach, among them in particular Gustav Herdan (e.g., 1954, 1956, 1960, 1962, 1964 1966, 1969), Rajmund.G. Piotrowski (also spelled Piotrovskij) (1959, 1968, 1979) and Walter Meyer-Eppler (1959). The corresponding experiments and calculations, however, turned out to be of little help for a deeper insight, as the technical concept of information does not take into account linguistic semantics. Basically, not much more could be achieved than the measurement of entropy and redundancy, and thus the storm waned.

Physicist Wilhelm Fucks (1955) was responsible for a turn towards theoretical considerations in German QL. He set up, among others, a mathematical model of word length distributions and performed various investigations into language, literature, and music. In France, Charles Muller (1973, 1979) created a novel approach to study the vocabulary of a text, which is still popular today. In Russia, Zipfian linguistics was conducted particularly by Michail V. Arapov (1988; Arapov / Cherc 1983) in Moscow, who based his models of the dynamics of texts and of language development on the analysis of rank order. In Georgia, a group around Jurij K. Orlov (cf. 1982a, 1982b) established a tradition of studies into the statistical structure of texts based on the Zipf-Mandelbrot Law. The Estonian researcher Juhan Tuldava (1995, 1998) is famous for his mathematical methods of analysis of numerous text phenomena.

In the course of the history of QL, every now and then scientists from other disciplines, mainly mathematicians, worked on the application of mathematical models to and the development of methods for linguistic problems. Those of the results of their efforts which were based on linguistically substantiated fundaments enjoy continued existence, such as Mandelbrot’s work (1959), which prevailed against the competition with models without such a linguistic justification, whereas, e.g. Yule’s or Williams’ (1946, 1956, 1964) works are hardly mentioned any more.

Today, Quantitative Linguistics is a well-developed scientific discipline with a broad applicational impact.

==References==

*Aichele, Dieter. 2005. Quantitative Linguistik in Deutschland und Österreich. In: Reinhard Köhler, Gabriel Altmann & Rajmund G. Piotrowski (eds.). ''Quantitative Linguistik. Ein internationales Handbuch. Quantitative Linguistics. An international Handbook.'' (=HSK27) Berlin, New York: de Gruyter, 16-22.

*Grzybek, Peter & Kelih, Emmerich. 2005. Zur Vorgeschichte quantitativer Ansätze in der russischen Sprach- und Literaturwissenschaft. In: Reinhard Köhler, Gabriel Altmann & Rajmund G. Piotrowski (eds.). ''Quantitative Linguistik. Ein internationales Handbuch. Quantitative Linguistics. An international Handbook.'' (=HSK27) Berlin, New York: de Gruyter, 23-64.

*Köhler, Reinhard. Gegenstand und Arbeitsweise der quantitativen Linguistik. In: Reinhard Köhler, Gabriel Altmann & Rajmund G. Piotrowski (eds.). ''Quantitative Linguistik. Ein internationales Handbuch. Quantitative Linguistics. An international Handbook.'' (=HSK27) Berlin, New York: de Gruyter, 1-15.

[[Category:En]]
[[Category:Quantitative Linguistics]]

User:Dvdsn

2007-10-05T12:30:36Z

Dvdsn:

Doug Davidson;
Max Planck Institute for Psycholinguistics;
Nijmegen, The Netherlands

User:Dvdsn

2007-10-05T12:30:18Z

Dvdsn: New page: Doug Davidson Max Planck Institute for Psycholinguistics Nijmegen, The Netherlands

Doug Davidson
Max Planck Institute for Psycholinguistics
Nijmegen, The Netherlands

Glottopedia:How to contribute

2007-09-21T11:22:52Z

Dvdsn: /* Create a new article */

Thank you for your interest in Glottopedia! Contributing to this free encyclopedia of linguistics is easy. Please take the following steps:

==Getting started==

Before you can modify or write an article, you have to log in, and if you don't have an account yet, you need to [[Glottopedia:Creating an account|create an account]]. Click on '''log in/create account''' in the upper right corner of the page. Then enter a user name (your real name, or an abbreviation of it, not a pseudonym please), a password, your e-mail address, and your real name. Then an e-mail will be sent to you to verify your e-mail address. After confirming it, you can start editing.

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==Create a new article==

The following page explains how to create a new page in a Mediawiki wiki:
*[http://meta.wikimedia.org/wiki/Help:Starting_a_new_page Starting a new page]

Suppose in an existing article you see a word that is not linked and that seems worth an article of its own.

*Edit this article
*Select the word and click on ''Internal Link'' in the editing toolbar.
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This is only an example. It could be that you notice a red link (i.e. there is no article for this word yet), for which you would like to create an article, or maybe you would merely like to correct or add information in an existing article. There are many different ways in which you can help Glottopedia.

==The structure of Glottopedia articles==

There are four different types of articles in Glottopedia:
*[[Glottopedia:Dictionary articles]] (which define, exemplify, translate, and comment on general and specific concepts and terms of linguistics
*[[Glottopedia:Survey articles]] (which offer a comprehensive discussion of linguistic concepts and methods)
*[[Glottopedia:Biographical articles]] (about the life and work of linguists)
*[[Glottopedia:Language articles]] (which provide basic information about most natural languages [comming soon])
For each kind of article, there are well-defined standards which specify its structure.
To ensure consistency, all authors should strictly stick to these standards.

==Copyright Issues==

Glottopedia exclusively aims at facilitating scientific exchange and has no commercial interests. If you notice any copyright violation in the articles, please alert us immediately by Email so that we can act right away. Do not copy entire passages, images or other copyrighted material into a Glottopedia article. If information is taken from copyrighted works, an indication of the source in the article is required. Please be aware that a violation of these rules can put the entire project in danger.

==Other languages==

*German [[Glottopedia:Mitmachen|Mitmachen]]
*Russian [[Glottopedia:содействовать|содействовать]]

Glottopedia:How to contribute

2007-09-21T11:21:50Z

Dvdsn: /* Modify an article */

Thank you for your interest in Glottopedia! Contributing to this free encyclopedia of linguistics is easy. Please take the following steps:

==Getting started==

Before you can modify or write an article, you have to log in, and if you don't have an account yet, you need to [[Glottopedia:Creating an account|create an account]]. Click on '''log in/create account''' in the upper right corner of the page. Then enter a user name (your real name, or an abbreviation of it, not a pseudonym please), a password, your e-mail address, and your real name. Then an e-mail will be sent to you to verify your e-mail address. After confirming it, you can start editing.

Please do not forget to write your real name and your affiliation (or former affiliation, if you don't have a current academic affiliation) on your [[Glottopedia:User page|user page]].

==Modify an article==

The first thing to note is that you should not be afraid to make mistakes. Even if you are a novice and you are not familiar with the way the software works, you can hardly do any damage. Even if you accidentally delete a passage that should be kept, this can easily be restored again.

In all Glottopedia articles (except for project pages like this one or the main page), you find an "Edit" tab at the top margin of the article. If you are [[Special:Userlogin|logged in]], you can edit and save the article after clicking this tab. After editing, you can also see a preview of the article (click on "Show preview"). Once you save the article (by clicking on "Save page"), the system creates a backup of the earlier version in the archive, and you new version is the version that is visible to the readers.

In the field "Summary" you should describe briefly what you changed and why before saving the article. If you only made a minor edit (such as correcting a typo, adding a link, etc.), check the field "This is a minor edit" and leave the "Summary" field empty.

While editing an article, you see at the bottom right a link [[Glottopedia:Help|Editing help]]. This will lead you to a page that helps you with explanations of the main features of the software for editing, formatting, adding links, etc. And of course you should observe the [[Glottopedia:Guidelines|Guidelines]] (you also find these in the sidebar under "Guidelines").

==Create a new article==

The follwoing page explains how to create a new page in a Mediawiki wiki:
*[http://meta.wikimedia.org/wiki/Help:Starting_a_new_page Starting a new page]

Suppose in an existing article you see a word that is not linked and that seems worth an article of its own.

*Edit this article
*Select the word and click on ''Internal Link'' in the editing toolbar.
*Dave the article
*Click on the word with the newly created link (it should still be red)
*A new window opens, in which you can write the new article

This is only an example. It could be that you notice a red link (i.e. there is no article for this word yet), for which you would like to create an article, or maybe you would merely like to correct or add information in an existing article. There are many different ways in which you can help Glottopedia.

==The structure of Glottopedia articles==

There are four different types of articles in Glottopedia:
*[[Glottopedia:Dictionary articles]] (which define, exemplify, translate, and comment on general and specific concepts and terms of linguistics
*[[Glottopedia:Survey articles]] (which offer a comprehensive discussion of linguistic concepts and methods)
*[[Glottopedia:Biographical articles]] (about the life and work of linguists)
*[[Glottopedia:Language articles]] (which provide basic information about most natural languages [comming soon])
For each kind of article, there are well-defined standards which specify its structure.
To ensure consistency, all authors should strictly stick to these standards.

==Copyright Issues==

Glottopedia exclusively aims at facilitating scientific exchange and has no commercial interests. If you notice any copyright violation in the articles, please alert us immediately by Email so that we can act right away. Do not copy entire passages, images or other copyrighted material into a Glottopedia article. If information is taken from copyrighted works, an indication of the source in the article is required. Please be aware that a violation of these rules can put the entire project in danger.

==Other languages==

*German [[Glottopedia:Mitmachen|Mitmachen]]
*Russian [[Glottopedia:содействовать|содействовать]]

Glottopedia:How to contribute

2007-09-21T11:21:17Z

Dvdsn: /* Modify an article */

Thank you for your interest in Glottopedia! Contributing to this free encyclopedia of linguistics is easy. Please take the following steps:

==Getting started==

Before you can modify or write an article, you have to log in, and if you don't have an account yet, you need to [[Glottopedia:Creating an account|create an account]]. Click on '''log in/create account''' in the upper right corner of the page. Then enter a user name (your real name, or an abbreviation of it, not a pseudonym please), a password, your e-mail address, and your real name. Then an e-mail will be sent to you to verify your e-mail address. After confirming it, you can start editing.

Please do not forget to write your real name and your affiliation (or former affiliation, if you don't have a current academic affiliation) on your [[Glottopedia:User page|user page]].

==Modify an article==

The first thing to note is that you should not be afraid to make mistakes. Even if you are a novice and you are not familiar with the way the software works, you can hardly do any damage. Even if you accidentally delete a passage that should be kept, this can easily be restored again.

In all Glottopedia articles (except for project pages like this one or the main page), you find an "Edit" tab at the top margin of the article. If you are [[Special:Userlogin|logged in]], you can edit and save the article after clicking this tab. After editing, you can also see a preview of the article (click on "Show preview"). Once you save the article (by clicking on "Save page"), the system creates a backup of the earlier version in the archive, and you new version is the version that is visible to the readers.

In the field "Summary" you should describe briefly what you changed and why before saving the article. If you only made a minor edit (such as correcting a typo, adding a link, etc.), check the field "This is a minor edit" and leave the "Summary" field empty.

While editing an article, you see at the bottom right a link [[Glottopedia:Help|Editing help]]. This will lead to you to a page that helps you with explanations of the main features of the software for editing, formatting, adding links, etc. And of course you should observe the [[Glottopedia:Guidelines|Guidelines]] (you also find these in the sidebar under "Guidelines").

==Create a new article==

The follwoing page explains how to create a new page in a Mediawiki wiki:
*[http://meta.wikimedia.org/wiki/Help:Starting_a_new_page Starting a new page]

Suppose in an existing article you see a word that is not linked and that seems worth an article of its own.

*Edit this article
*Select the word and click on ''Internal Link'' in the editing toolbar.
*Dave the article
*Click on the word with the newly created link (it should still be red)
*A new window opens, in which you can write the new article

This is only an example. It could be that you notice a red link (i.e. there is no article for this word yet), for which you would like to create an article, or maybe you would merely like to correct or add information in an existing article. There are many different ways in which you can help Glottopedia.

==The structure of Glottopedia articles==

There are four different types of articles in Glottopedia:
*[[Glottopedia:Dictionary articles]] (which define, exemplify, translate, and comment on general and specific concepts and terms of linguistics
*[[Glottopedia:Survey articles]] (which offer a comprehensive discussion of linguistic concepts and methods)
*[[Glottopedia:Biographical articles]] (about the life and work of linguists)
*[[Glottopedia:Language articles]] (which provide basic information about most natural languages [comming soon])
For each kind of article, there are well-defined standards which specify its structure.
To ensure consistency, all authors should strictly stick to these standards.

==Copyright Issues==

Glottopedia exclusively aims at facilitating scientific exchange and has no commercial interests. If you notice any copyright violation in the articles, please alert us immediately by Email so that we can act right away. Do not copy entire passages, images or other copyrighted material into a Glottopedia article. If information is taken from copyrighted works, an indication of the source in the article is required. Please be aware that a violation of these rules can put the entire project in danger.

==Other languages==

*German [[Glottopedia:Mitmachen|Mitmachen]]
*Russian [[Glottopedia:содействовать|содействовать]]