On the structure of solution-sets to regular word equations

For quadratic word equations, there exists an algorithm based on rewriting rules which generates a directed graph describing all solutions to the equation. For regular word equations – those for which each variable occurs at most once on each side of the equation – we investigate the properties of this graph, such as bounds on its diameter, size, and DAG-width, as well as providing some insights into symmetries in its structure. As a consequence, we obtain a combinatorial proof that the problem of deciding whether a regular word equation has a solution is in NP.

Semantic Characteristic of Nouns Formed with the Suffix -ost’ in the Modern Russian Literary Language

The article aims to demonstrate the semantic diversity of the nouns formed with the suffix -ost, which have been considered as one of the most regular word-formation types in the modern Russian language. In order to give a semantic portray of the given word-formation type we have analysed all the nouns with the given suffix, included in the Shvedova Dictionary and the Russian Newspapers of the End of XX Century Corpus, developed by Laboratory for General and Computational Lexicology and Lexicography, Lomonosov Moscow State University. The analysis shows that nouns formed with the given suffix, while consisting a large percentage of deadjectival nominalisations in the modern Russian language, show rather diverse semantic features. The main subtypes of meanings, which consist the semantic paradigm of the given word-formation type, are transpositional (construction of nouns that name a quality), parametric (nouns that can be used as a parameter for measuring) and subject meaning (nouns that refer to a concrete subject in the extralinguistic reality). In addition, the last subtype subject meaning is also consistent of nearly 20 semantic classes, including substance, a person, a place, a type of documents, an event, a phenomenon and so on. The analysis of the corpus data shows that a large proportion of the most frequently used words in newspaper texts are the words that have rather concrete meanings. Hence their definitions in dictionaries are ought to be updated in accordance with their usages in the corpus. The results could be applied in the future study of deadjectival nominalisation in the modern Russian language

From Two-Way Transducers to Regular Function Expressions

Transducers constitute a fundamental extension of automata. The class of regular word functions has recently emerged as an important class of word-to-word functions, characterized by means of (functional, or unambiguous, or deterministic) two-way transducers, copyless streaming string transducers, and MSO-definable graph transformations. A fundamental result in language theory is Kleene’s Theorem, relating finite state automata and regular expressions. Recently, a set of regular function expressions has been introduced and used to prove a similar result for regular word functions, by showing its equivalence with copyless streaming string transducers. In this paper, we propose a direct, simplified and effective translation from unambiguous two-way transducers to regular function expressions extending the Brzozowski and McCluskey algorithm. In addition, our approach allows us to derive a subset of regular function expressions characterizing the (strict) subclass of functional sweeping transducers.

SEPTEM VERBA A CHRISTO W STAROPOLSKICH APOKRYFACH NOWOTESTAMENTALNYCH W PERSPEKTYWIE ŹRÓDŁOZNAWCZEJ I LINGWISTYCZNEJ. CZĘŚĆ DRUGA: JĘZYKOWE UKSZTAŁTOWANIE

This article is the second and the last part of a series dedicated to the characteristics of a description of Christ’s seven words uttered on the cross as accounted in Old Polish biblical and apocryphal narrations. In part one, I focus on the origin of the words, the characteristics of Old Polish texts containing them. I highlight the most important differences in the narration of the specific fragments of Old Polish Passions of Jesus. Part two is entirely dedicated to the language of the fragments of Old Polish texts on Christ’s seven words uttered on the cross (ŻPJK, SCh and RD). First, I present the enumeration schemes in each apocrypha. They are strictly related to the tradition of religious instruction and teaching and are an attempt at sorting out the material. The article presents also the various ways in which Christ’s specific words are called. The regular word-forming structure of the modifiers affects the rhythmic form of the specific fragments of texts. Finally, I show how quotations from Christ were introduced into each apocrypha: how the utterances’ modal frame was shaped and what verbs of speech were used. It turns out that in each historic text, Christ’s words were treated differently: in the SCh, they were described most extensively and in the RD – least extensively but it is the RD where the enumerations are most precise with respect to the syntax, perhaps because the specific parts are at the smallest distance from each other. Christ’s seven words on the cross are least structured in the ŻPJK.

Using Wordscapes Game as a Tool to Develop EFL Learners’ Vocabulary Repertoire

The most vital part of our lives nowadays is technology. It has changed our lives in many ways. It makes life well-situated for us. At the present time, young people are more expected to be seen playing video games. Some assume that movies, TV, and video games are a bad influence on kids, and they hold responsible on these media for causing different problems. Supposed negative effects such as addiction, increased aggression, and various health consequences such as obesity and repetitive strain injuries tend to get far more media coverage than the positives. While there are some negatives on playing video games, there’s no denying that they stop us from getting outside. There are also some benefits. Surprisingly, playing video games can help our physical, mental, and emotional health. A growing number of researchers believed that if used in the right way, video and computer games have the potential to inspire learning. And they can help players improve organization and visual skills. Thus, when learning is channeled into an enjoyable game, they are very often willing to invest considerable time and effort in playing it. Moreover, in view of diverse learning styles and preferences the students display, benefits from games seem to cater for everyone as learners find playing activities much richer language studying work than doing other kinds of practice. If games are properly designed, they may become an excellent and essential part of a learners’ learning programme. On the other hand, it is noteworthy that games like any other activity or tool can be overused when exploited too much so that the motivating element disappears rapidly. ABSTRACT Playing games such as puzzle games, word search, crosswords, mix and matching, scrabble, etc. are brain motivating problems that test one’s creativity. These games increase brain power which makes them a proper choice for use in educational purposes besides just providing mere entertainment. They educate, improve your intelligence proportion, improve your cognitive ability, improve your concentration, develop motor skills, improve your problem solving skills, improve productivity and can improve your social skills. The most preferred game at the moment is the game developed by People Fun! named “WordScapes”. The game starts with easy puzzles and becomes challenging. There are over 800 puzzles in this game which is really astonishing. Despite the fact that, the developers call it up-to-the-minute word game, it’s quite regular word games. In addition, not too much only one of its kind like Alpha Swipe or Under a Spell. But, it’s really pleasurable and one of the most addicting word puzzle game. In addition to the distraction significance of games, they have great didactic latent. Games exclusively intended to deal with a specific problem such as developing learners’ vocabulary repertoire or teach a specific skill have been very successful, in particular because they are motivating, engaging, interactive, and provide rewards and strengthening to improve.

Modification of Stemming Algorithm Using A Non Deterministic Approach To Indonesian Text

Natural Language Processing is part of Artificial Intelegence that focus on language processing. One of stage in Natural Language Processing is Preprocessing. Preprocessing is the stage to prepare data before it is processed. There are many types of proccess in preprocessing, one of them is stemming. Stemming is process to find the root word from regular word. Errors when determining root words can cause misinformation. In addition, stemming process does not always produce one root word because there are several words in Indonesian that have two possibilities as root word or affixes word, e.g.the word “beruang”.To handle these problems, this study proposes a stemmer with more accurate word results by employing a non deterministic algorithm which gives more than one word candidate result. All rules are checked and the word results are kept in a candidate list. In case there are several word candidates were found, then one result will be chosen.This stemmer has been tested to 15.934 word and results in an accurate level of 93%. Therefore the stemmer can be used to detect words with more than one root word.

The Foot is not an obligatory constituent of the Prosodic Hierarchy: “stress” in Turkish, French and child English

This paper proposes that the presence/absence of the Foot is parametric; that is, contra much previous research (see e. g. Selkirk, Elisabeth (1995). Sentence prosody: intonation, stress and phrasing. In J. Goldsmith (ed.)The handbook of phonological theory. Cambridge, MA: Blackwell. 550–569., Vogel, Irene (2009). Universals of prosodic structure. In S. Scalise, E. Magni, & A. Bisetto (eds.)Universals of language today. Dordrecht: Springer. 59–82.), it is argued here that the Foot is not a universal constituent of the Prosodic Hierarchy; rather, some languages, such as Turkish and French, as well as early child languages, are footless. Several types of evidence are presented in support of this proposal, from both Turkish and French, as well as child English. A comparison of regular (word-final) and exceptional stress in Turkish reveals, for example, that regular “stress” is intonational prominence falling on the last syllable of prosodic words in the absence of foot structure. Both acoustic and formal evidence are presented in support of this proposal, as well as evidence from syntax-prosody interface. The paper also presents evidence for the footless status of French, which, unlike Turkish, is proposed to be completely footless. Several arguments are presented in support of this position, such as the fact that, in French, the domain of obligatory prominence is the Phonological Phrase (PPh), not the Prosodic Word (PWd); in a PPh consisting of several PWds, therefore, nonfinal PWds can surface without any kind of stress or prominence, suggesting that, at least for non-final PWds, one cannot assume stress or foot structure. Finally, the proposal is extended to additional languages, such as those demonstrating Default-to-Opposite Edge stress.

Does French have verbal-nexus Noun+Noun compounds?

Though components of subordinate NN compounds may in principle display a wide variety of semantic relationships, data from Romance suggest that in languages where the NN pattern is still new and peripheral, the different subtypes of NN compounds do not necessarily emerge at the same rhythm. The aim of this article is to verify the assumption that French, unlike Italian, does not have an available word-formation pattern of verbal-nexus NN compounds (i.e. compounds in which the verb-argument relationship is featured). With reference to extensive corpus data, it will be demonstrated that in both languages many different subtypes of verbal-nexus NN compounds are attested, but Italian has already developed a consistent and regular word-formation paradigm based on one particular subtype of verbal-nexus NN compounds, while French data do not display such regularity, and the verbal-nexus pattern is much more peripheral in this language.

Quintilian, Inst. 1, 5, 40 on solecism and Apollonius Dyscolus

Throughout the history of the Latin grammatical tradition barbarism is regularly described according to the system of the four categories of change known as quadripertita ratio, whereas the description of solecism is more controversial. In the grammatical chapters of his first book, Quintilian attests to the application of the fourfold system to solecism in his age, but he also knows a second tradition, which ends up becoming the predominant theory in Latin grammar and regards solecism as the fault by substitution (inmutatio). Quintilian attributes this tradition to some anonymous grammarians (quidam) who have not been identified yet. After considering Quintilian’s testimony in light of the Greek sources and especially Apollonius Dyscolus’ Syntax, we have concluded that Quintilian and Apollonius may rely on a common source, probably of Alexandrine descent, which separated solecism from the first three categories of change of the fourfold system (addition, subtraction and inversion of the regular word order).

Subtractive Morphology

Subtraction consists in a shortening of a morphological base as in the Russian derivation mikrobiologija ‘microbiology’ → mikrobiolog ‘microbiologist.’ Of course, one can doubt the correctness of the direction of this derivation and claim that the shorter form mikrobiolog serves as a base for mikrobiologija and not vice versa. However, from the literature on word-formation it is well known that the most important diagnostic criterion for being a product of a derivation is semantic dependence; i.e., the definition of the derivative depends on the meaning of its base. In our case, the definition of mikrobiolog depends on mikrobiologija (a microbiologist is not a microscopic biologist but a person specialized in the field of microbiology; microbiology is the study of microscopic organisms). As can be seen from the Russian example, subtraction differs from concatenative affixation, i.e., from affixation by addition of a discrete affix (see the Oxford Bibliographies article “Affixation.” Therefore, in the literature, subtraction is seen as an instance of nonconcatenative morphology and is usually analyzed either as process morphology without morphemes or as addition of defective phonological material. Subtraction has been reported in derivation and inflection and in well-studied and lesser-studied languages. Among the most frequently cited examples of subtraction in textbooks and reference resources are the masculine forms of some French adjectives (e.g., masc. bon /bõ/ ‘good’—fem. bonne /bon/) and the formation of perfective verbs from imperfective ones in the Uto-Aztekan language Tohono O’odham (called “Papago” in some sources) (e.g., singular: imperf. him ‘walk’—perf. hi:, plural: imperf. hihim—perf. hihi). However, it has to be mentioned here that numerous studies on theoretical morphology have provided alternative, nonsubtractive analyses of those French and Tohono O’odham data. Additionally, opinions differ on how much form can be deleted in subtraction. Some linguists claim that subtraction deletes a phoneme, others speak of a mora, and still others assume that subtractive morphology deletes segments of different lengths. Some linguists postulate subtraction only if the shortened material does not coincide with an existing morpheme elsewhere in a language, whereas others show that the deleted material can be equal in form with an existing affix. Opinions also differ on what a proper word-formation process is and which morphological derivations involve subtraction. Unlike most morphology textbooks, some theoretical studies see hypocoristics, blends, and clippings as instances of (more or less regular) word-formation and refer to them as either “subtractive truncation” or “subtractive word-formation.” Thus we come to terminology; in the literature, different labels have been used to refer to subtraction(-like) formations: minus feature, minus formation, disfixation, subtractive morph, (subtractive) truncation, backformation, or just shortening.