scholarly journals Prosodic structure in language understanding: Evidence from tone sandhi in Mandarin

1989 ◽  
Vol 85 (S1) ◽  
pp. S99-S99 ◽  
Author(s):  
Shari R. Speer ◽  
Chi Lin Shi
Keyword(s):  
Prosodic Structure ◽  
Tone Sandhi ◽  
Language Understanding

Prosodic Structure in Language Understanding: Evidence from Tone Sandhi in Mandarin

1989 ◽  
Vol 32 (4) ◽  
pp. 337-354 ◽  
Author(s):  
Shari R. Speer ◽  
Chi-Lin Shih ◽  
Maria L. Slowiaczek
Keyword(s):  
Prosodic Structure ◽  
Tone Sandhi ◽  
Language Understanding

Lexical government and tone group formation in Xiamen Chinese

Phonology ◽  
1994 ◽  
Vol 11 (2) ◽  
pp. 237-275 ◽  
Author(s):  
Jo-wang Lin
Keyword(s):  
General Theory ◽  
Syntactic Structure ◽  
Group Formation ◽  
Phonological Representation ◽  
Prosodic Structure ◽  
Tone Sandhi ◽  
Field Of Study ◽  
The Past ◽  
Syntactic Information

The study of the relation between syntactic structure and phonological representation has attracted the attention of many phonologists in the past few years. One important contribution to this field of study is Chen's (1987) work on Xiamen Chinese tone sandhi domains. He suggests that the syntax–phonology relation appeals to syntactic information such as category types and the edges of syntactic bracketings. This insight has been further elaborated in the general theory of the syntax—phonology relation of Selkirk (1986). In this theory, the relation between syntactic structure and prosodic structure above the foot and below the intonational phrase is defined in terms of the edges of syntactic constituents of designated types. More precisely, this theory incorporates two hypotheses. One is that there are designated category types in syntactic structure with respect to which one end (Right or Left) of the designated category is relevant in the formulation of a prosodic constituent C, which extends from one instance of the appropriate end (R/L) of the designated category to the next. This hypothesis has been called the End Parameter.

Forthcoming articles

2001 ◽  
Vol 37 (2) ◽  
pp. 465-465
Keyword(s):  
Discourse Markers ◽  
Review Article ◽  
Tone Sandhi ◽  
Language Understanding ◽  
Syntactic Theory ◽  
Minimalist Approach ◽  
Chinese Dialects ◽  
Analysis Of Variation ◽  
Dynamic Syntax ◽  
The Brain

A. Alexopoulu & D. Kolliakou: On linkhood and clitic left dislocationA. Cornilescu: Romanian nominalizations: case and aspectual structureD. A. Dinnsen, Kathleen M. O'Connor & Judith A. Gierut: The puzzle-puddle-pickle problem and the Duke-of-York gambit in acquisitionD. Lightfoot: Myths and the prehistory of grammarsG. Morgan, N. Smith, I. Tsimpli & B. Woll: Language against the odds: the learning of BSL by a polyglot savantJ. Romero Trillo: A mathematical model for the analysis of variation of discourseS. A. Schwenter: Discourse markers and the PA/SN distinctionH. Tanaka: Right-dislocation as scramblingE. Yuasa & J. M. Sadock: Pseudo-subordination: a mismatch between syntax and semanticsZ. Bao: Review article of MATTHEW Y. CHEN, Tone sandhi: patterns across Chinese dialectsD. Bickerton: Linguists play catchup with evolution (L. JENKINS, Bio-linguistics: exploring the biology of language and D. LORITZ, How the brain evolved language)R. Cann: Review article of R. KEMPSON, W. MEYER-VIOL & D. GABBAY, Dynamic syntax: the flow of language understandingR. Freidin: Remarks on basic syntax (P. CULICOVER, Principles and Parameters: introduction to syntactic theory; J. MCCAWLEY, The syntactic phenomena of English; A. RADFORD, Syntactic theory and the structure of English: a Minimalist approach; and I. ROBERTS, Comparative syntax)T. Langendoen: Review article of M. ARONOFF & J. REES-MILLER, The handbook of linguisticsN. B. Vincent: Review article of G. CINQUE, Adverbs and functional heads: a cross-linguistic perspective

The acquisition of phonological alternations: The case of the Mandarin tone sandhi process

2019 ◽  
Vol 40 (6) ◽  
pp. 1495-1526 ◽  
Author(s):  
Ping Tang ◽  
Ivan Yuen ◽  
Nan Xu Rattanasone ◽  
Liqun Gao ◽  
Katherine Demuth
Keyword(s):  
Acoustic Analysis ◽  
Prosodic Structure ◽  
Surface Form ◽  
Tone Sandhi ◽  
Phonological Process ◽  
Phonological Processes ◽  
Prosodic Structures ◽  
Mandarin Tone

AbstractPhonological processes can pose a learning challenge for children, where the surface form for an underlying contrast may vary as a function of the phonological environment. Mandarin tone sandhi is a complex phonological process that requires knowledge about both the tonal and the prosodic context in which it applies. The present study explored the productive knowledge of tone sandhi processes by 108 3- to 5-year-old Mandarin-speaking children and 33 adults. Participants were asked to produce novel tone sandhi compounds in different tonal contexts and prosodic structures. Acoustic analysis showed that 3-year-olds have abstracted the tone sandhi process and can productively apply it to novel disyllabic words across tonal contexts. However, even 5-year-olds still differed from adults in applying tone sandhi in response to the trisyllabic prosodic structure. The results are discussed in terms of the factors that influence how tone sandhi processes, and phonological alternations more generally, are acquired.

The Distinction between Linguistic and Conceptual Semantics in Medical Terminology and its Implication for NLP-Based Knowledge Acquisition

1998 ◽  
Vol 37 (04/05) ◽  
pp. 327-333 ◽  
Author(s):  
F. Buekens ◽  
G. De Moor ◽  
A. Waagmeester ◽  
W. Ceusters
Keyword(s):  
Natural Language ◽  
Knowledge Acquisition ◽  
Natural Language Understanding ◽  
Knowledge Bases ◽  
Linguistic Knowledge ◽  
Medical Terminology ◽  
Language Understanding ◽  
Conceptual Semantics

AbstractNatural language understanding systems have to exploit various kinds of knowledge in order to represent the meaning behind texts. Getting this knowledge in place is often such a huge enterprise that it is tempting to look for systems that can discover such knowledge automatically. We describe how the distinction between conceptual and linguistic semantics may assist in reaching this objective, provided that distinguishing between them is not done too rigorously. We present several examples to support this view and argue that in a multilingual environment, linguistic ontologies should be designed as interfaces between domain conceptualizations and linguistic knowledge bases.

Automated Coding of Patient Discharge Summaries Using Conceptual Graphs

1995 ◽  
Vol 34 (04) ◽  
pp. 345-351 ◽  
Author(s):  
A. Burgun ◽  
L. P. Seka ◽  
D. Delamarre ◽  
P. Le Beux
Keyword(s):  
Natural Language ◽  
Patient Discharge ◽  
Natural Language Understanding ◽  
Assessment Procedure ◽  
Coding System ◽  
Language Understanding ◽  
Processing Scheme ◽  
Automated Coding ◽  
Conceptual Graph ◽  
Discharge Summaries

Abstract:In medicine, as in other domains, indexing and classification is a natural human task which is used for information retrieval and representation. In the medical field, encoding of patient discharge summaries is still a manual time-consuming task. This paper describes an automated coding system of patient discharge summaries from the field of coronary diseases into the ICD-9-CM classification. The system is developed in the context of the European AIM MENELAS project, a natural-language understanding system which uses the conceptual-graph formalism. Indexing is performed by using a two-step processing scheme; a first recognition stage is implemented by a matching procedure and a secondary selection stage is made according to the coding priorities. We show the general features of the necessary translation of the classification terms in the conceptual-graph model, and for the coding rules compliance. An advantage of the system is to provide an objective evaluation and assessment procedure for natural-language understanding.

Sign in / Sign up

Export Citation Format

Share Document