Towards a systematic corpus analysis of Arabic poetry

2001 ◽  
Vol 15 ◽  
pp. 103-112
Author(s):  
Georges Bohas ◽  
Djamel Eddine Kouloughli

Recent work on Arabic metrics aims at developing a coherent research programme which relies on the systematic analysis of electronic corpora. The computer program XALIYL performs, for any line of ancient Arabic poetry, an automatic recognition of the metre used. This operation takes place whatever the length of the verses, and regardless of whether they are encoded in ordinary Arabic script (with the addition of vowels) or by means of the TRS system, which relates functionally to ordinary Arabic script. XALIYL produces a textual database that contains the syllabic decomposition for each hemistich of each line, as well as its metrical analysis. It can cope not only with the general problems linked to re-syllabification and sandhi, but also with problems of syllabification specific to Arabic metrics. Errors due to the metrical scanning or to the editing of poems can be located automatically. Moreover, by allowing a computerised search for formulae, XALIYL provides significant information on the “formulaic systems” of ancient Arabic poetry.

1970 ◽  
Vol 64 (2) ◽  
pp. 41-45
Author(s):  
Theodor D. Sterling

□ In summary, we can say that as a result of recent work in implanting visual prostheses in correlated work in visual physiology, data processing, and materials technology and in the development of sophisticated simulation techniques, we have approached several steps closer to a vantage point from which we can state the conditions under which a reliable visual prosthesis in the armamentarium of sensory aids has been clarified as a result of the conference and the interest of the scientific community in the development of such a system has been stimulated. It is significant that Dr. MacNichol (the new director of NINDS) has made our computer program for simulating the output of a prosthesis available to scientists at the National Institutes of Health as well as members of the newly-formed National Eye Institute. It is also obvious that we can sustain scientific interest in the problems involved in the development of experiments toward a visual prosthesis, because of the simultaneously human and personal involvement of researchers in alleviating the problems of blindness.


2011 ◽  
Vol 1 (1) ◽  
pp. 15-23 ◽  
Author(s):  
Douglas Biber

The present paper introduces corpus-based analytical techniques and surveys some of the specific ways in which corpus analysis has been applied to the study of literature. In recent years, those research efforts have been mostly carried out under the umbrella of ‘corpus stylistics’. Most of these studies focus on the distribution of words (analyzing keywords, extended lexical phrases, or collocations) to identify textual features that are especially characteristic of an author or particular text. Corpus-based grammatical and pragmatic analyses of literary language are also briefly considered. Then, in the concluding part of the paper, I briefly survey earlier computational and statistical research on authorship attribution and literary style. While that research tradition is in some ways the precursor to more recent work in corpus stylistics, it is also complementary to recent research in its application of sophisticated statistical and computational methods.


2000 ◽  
Vol 3 (2) ◽  
pp. 188-216 ◽  
Author(s):  
Felipe Criado Boado ◽  
Victoria Villoch Vázquez

The study of landscape as social construction implies considering its economic and territorial dimensions, as much as its symbolic ones. A major topic in such kinds of studies is the reconstruction of the ways in which natural and social space was perceived by past societies. We ought to approach the project of building an archaeology of perception. One of the aims of such a research programme would be the evaluation of the effects of natural and artificial landscape features on past human observers. This paper will argue that a possible strategy for studying these dimensions of past landscapes could be based on the systematic analysis of the visual features of prehistoric monuments and in the characterization of the scenic effects and vistas related to them. A detailed analysis of the pattern of location of megalithic monuments and of their visibility and intervisibility allows us to recognize certain regularities which display an intention to take account of monuments by provoking dramatic artificial effects. In such a way, we could approach a phenomenology of prehistoric perception without falling into merely subjective solutions. This study is based on a systematic review of the megalithic monuments from Sierra de Barbanza (north-west Iberia). Its main aims are: (1) the proposal for a theoretical and methodological study of these phenomena, combined with; (2) a case-study to reconstruct those monumental strategies used to shape cultural landscapes in Neolithic Europe, and; (3) the explanation of continuities and changes of these traditions.


Author(s):  
Oxana V. Tikhonova

One of the most famous works of aljamiado literature (literature in Spanish in Arabic script) is the Poem of Yusuf (“Poema de Yúçuf” in Spanish). The poem was written by an anonymous Morisco poet at the end of the XIII – the beginning of the XIV centuries. The poem is based on the most common plot among the Moriscos – the twelfth sūrah of the Qur'an. The poem includes a scene of lament at the grave, which is not found either in the Qur'an or the Old Testament. Researchers of the middle nineteenth century considered the scene original. However, later it was defined that the scene had appeared due to the influence of the Jewish apocrypha. Modern researchers called into question the originality of the scene and the poem itself. Nevertheless, in the lament scene, we can trace not only the influence of the Qur'an or the Old Testament Apocrypha, but also the traditions of pre-Islamic Arabic poetry [A1], which were developed in Al-Andalus. The objective of this study is to show this influence. Undoubtedly, the author of The Poem of Yusuf created a touching image of the protagonist, which was appreciated by the Moriscos. The beginning of the poem was borrowed by the author from another aljamiado poem. Despite the persecution of the Spanish Inquisition, the poem has survived in several copies. Together, they represent a combination of traditions of Islamic, pre-Islamic and Christian versification. The article also contains the text of the lament at the grave in the original (Arabic) script and its scientific transcription by V. Menendez Pidal. It also includes a modern Spanish translation made by G. Ticknor. Thanks to his publication, the poem became known as a unique example of “amalgam elements of Eastern and Western civilizations, which were later reflected in Spanish poetry.”


Robotica ◽  
1990 ◽  
Vol 8 (4) ◽  
pp. 285-297 ◽  
Author(s):  
K. Khodabandehloo

SUMMARYThis paper presents the findings of a research programme leading to the development of a robotic system for packaging poultry portions. The results show that an integrated system, incorporating machine vision and robots, can be made feasible for industrial use. The elements of this system, including the end-effector, the vision module, the robot hardware and the system software are presented. Models and algorithms for automatic recognition and handling of poultry portions are discussed.


Author(s):  
FADI BIADSY ◽  
RAID SAABNI ◽  
JIHAD EL-SANA

Arabic script is naturally cursive and unconstrained and, as a result, an automatic recognition of its handwriting is a challenging problem. The analysis of Arabic script is further complicated in comparison to Latin script due to obligatory dots/stokes that are placed above or below most letters. In this paper, we introduce a new approach that performs online Arabic word recognition on a continuous word-part level, while performing training on the letter level. In addition, we appropriately handle delayed strokes by first detecting them and then integrating them into the word-part body. Our current implementation is based on Hidden Markov Models (HMM) and correctly handles most of the Arabic script recognition difficulties. We have tested our implementation using various dictionaries and multiple writers and have achieved encouraging results for both writer-dependent and writer-independent recognition.


2019 ◽  
Vol 24 (1-2) ◽  
pp. 33-51
Author(s):  
Madhu Neupane Bastola

Corpus linguistics can inform language teaching in various aspects from syllabus designing to creating exercises based on the real use of language. However, its use in language teaching is still rare. In the context of Nepal, though corpus linguistics forms a part of the University Curriculum in English Education, the students are rarely offered a practical experience of corpus analysis. The same is the case with teacher training courses. This paper followed an analytical procedure for identifying phraseological variation within a two-word ‘concgram’ that is a set of co-occurring words. In this paper, a two-word concgram, make/effort, is analyzed to identify concgram configurations, the most frequently used form, and its meaning by using concordance lines. Lastly, the paper presents the implications of corpus analysis in English language teaching.


Author(s):  
Dan Brodkin

Recent work suggests that prosodic structure has the capacity to retain significant information about recursive syntactic constituency. This paper presents a novel argument for this view from the domain of second-position clitic linearization. In Mandar (Austronesian, Indonesia), many second-positon elements are linearized in domains which correspond to functional projections along the clausal spine (TP, vP). The process which positions these clitics is irreducibly postsyntactic in nature. This observation suggests that TP, vP, and other 'functional' phrases must remain constituents at a prosodic level of representation. This conclusion provides further evidence for the view that under ideal circumstances, syntactic phrases map to prosodic equivalents in a one-to-one fashion.


Author(s):  
E. V. Boeva

The article proposes a comprehensive approach to the analysis of the topographic repertoire of Ukrainian spells. Peculiarities of topographical and toponymic vocabulary functioning in the most ancient texts of ritual folklore are deduced. It has been determined that the spells reflect different geographical areas with the help of 7 structural-and-semantic types of topolexes; their artistic-and-aesthetic focus has been identified. Geographical names as culturally loaded onyms in folklore texts carry a huge layer of culturally significant information in their semantics. In this case the name is an abridged history of the inner life and spirit of the people. The cultural component of the language at the vocabulary level (hence the proper names) to some extent fixes the culture of the people - the native speakers, reflects the inherent worldview of the people. It has been proved that the disclosure of the functional load and mechanisms of onomastic vocabulary in folklore texts will contribute to the clarification and deepening of the theoretical foundations of onomastics as a linguistic science. Each geographical name, entering folklore texts, is combined with a complex range of relations that can be restored only on the basis of a comprehensive systematic analysis of all manifestations of spiritual and material culture of the people, taking into account regional data distribution and knowledge of typologically related cultures. One of the toponyms’ functions in the texts of the spells is a targeted one, but this category of proper names in folklore texts performs not only a nominative function, but often acquires a generalized abstract meaning, adds other semes to their lexicographically fixed meaning, which implicitly contain people's attitudes to the world. It has been proved that geographical names appear in folklore genres as peculiar concepts of the linguistic-and-figurative sphere of the Slavic mentality. 


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