Publications

Abstract

The classification of texts and pieces of texts uses the occurrence of, combinations of, words as an important indicator. Not every word or each combination of words gives a clear indication of the classification of a piece of text. Research has been done on methods that select some words or combinations of words that are more indicative of the type of a piece of text. These words or combinations of words are selected from the words and word-groups as they occur in the texts. These more indicative words or combinations of words we call ¿cue-phrases¿. The goal of these methods is to select the most indicative cue-phrases first. The collection of selected words and/or combinations thereof can then be used for training the classification system. To test these selection methods, a number of experiments has been done on a corpus containing cookbook recipes and on a corpus of four-participant meetings. To perform these experiments, a computer program was written. On the recipe corpus we looked at classifying the sentences into different types. Some examples of these types include ¿requirement¿ and ¿instruction¿. On the four-person meeting corpus we tried to learn, using only lexical features, whether a sentence is addressed to an individual or a group. The experiments on the recipe corpus produced good results that showed that, a number of, the used cue-phrase selection methods are suitable for feature selection. The experiments on the four-person meeting corpus where less successful in terms of performance off the classification task. We did see comparable patterns in selection methods, and considering the results of Jovanovic we can conclude that different features are needed for this particular classification task. One of the original goals was to look at ¿addressee¿ in discussions. Are sentences more often addressed to individuals inside discussions compared to outside discussions? However, in order to be able to accomplish this, we must first identify the segments of the text that are discussions. It proved hard to come to a reliable specification of discussions, and our initial definition wasn¿t sufficient.

Abstract

This paper describes ongoing research aiming at the description of variation in speech as represented by asynchronous articulatory features. We will first illustrate how distances in the articulatory feature space can be used for event detection along speech trajectories in this space. The temporal structure imposed by the cosine distance in articulatory feature space coincides to a large extent with the manual segmentation on phone level. The analysis also indicates that the articulatory feature representation provides better such alignments than the MFCC representation does. Secondly, we will present first results that indicate that articulatory features can be used to probe for acoustic differences in the onsets of Dutch singulars and plurals.

Abstract

This paper builds on previous work that aims at unraveling the structure of the speech signal by means of using probabilistic representations. The context of this work is a multi-pass speech recognition system in which a phone lattice is created and used as a basis for a lexical search in which symbolic mismatches are allowed at certain costs. The focus is on the optimization of the costs of phone insertions, deletions and substitutions that are used in the lexical decoding pass. Two optimization approaches are presented, one related to a multi-pass computational model for human speech recognition, the other based on a decoding in which Bayes’ risks are minimized. In the final section, the advantages of these optimization methods are discussed and compared.

Abstract

The Papuan languages of the central Solomon Islands are a negatively defined areal grouping: They are those four or possibly five languages in the central Solomon Islands that do not belong to the Austronesian family. Bilua (Vella Lavella), Touo (Rendova), Lavukaleve (Russell Islands), Savosavo (Savo Island) and possibly Kazukuru (New Georgia) have been identified as non-Austronesian since the early 20th century. However, their affiliations both to each other and to other languages still remain a mystery. Heterogeneous and until recently largely undescribed, they present an interesting departure from what is known both of Austronesian languages in the region and of the Papuan languages of the mainland of New Guinea.

Abstract

Machine learning models of visual action recognition are typically trained and tested on data from specific situations where actions are associated with certain objects. It is an open question how action-object associations in the training set influence a model's ability to generalize beyond trained situations. We set out to identify properties of training data that lead to action recognition models with greater generalization ability. To do this, we take inspiration from a cognitive mechanism called cross-situational learning, which states that human learners extract the meaning of concepts by observing instances of the same concept across different situations. We perform controlled experiments with various types of action-object associations, and identify key properties of action-object co-occurrence in training data that lead to better classifiers. Given that these properties are missing in the datasets that are typically used to train action classifiers in the computer vision literature, our work provides useful insights on how we should best construct datasets for efficiently training for better generalization.

Abstract

Ook al hebben we het niet altijd door, onze zintuigen werken altijd samen. Als je iemand ziet praten, bijvoorbeeld, verwerken je hersenen automatisch tegelijkertijd het geluid van de woorden en de bewegingen van de lippen. Omdat onze zintuigen altijd samenwerken zijn onze hersenen erg gevoelig voor dingen die ‘samenhoren’ en goed bij elkaar passen. In dit hoofdstuk beschrijven we een project onderzoekend leren met als thema ‘Samenwerkende zintuigen’.

Abstract

In this chapter we introduce the CLARIN Knowledge Centre for Atypical Communication Expertise. The mission of ACE is to support researchers engaged in languages which pose particular challenges for analysis; for this, we use the umbrella term “atypical communication”. This includes language use by second-language learners, people with language disorders or those suffering from lan-guage disabilities, and languages that pose unique challenges for analysis, such as sign languages and languages spoken in a multilingual context. The chapter presents details about the collaborations and outreach of the centre, the services offered, and a number of showcases for its activities.

Abstract

This book provides an overview of the grammatical structure of the language Yurakaré, an unclassified and previously undescribed language of central Bolivia. It consists of 8 chapters, each describing different aspects of the language. Chapter 1 is an introduction to the Yurakaré people and their language. Chapter 2 describes the phonology of the language, from the individual sounds to the stress system. In chapter 3 the morphology of Yurakaré is introduced, i.e. the parts of speech, and the different morphological processes. Chapter 4 is a description of the noun phrase and contains information about nouns, adjectives, postpositions and quantifiers. It also discusses the categories associated with the noun phrase in Yurakaré, such as number, possession, collectivity/distributivity, diminutive. In chapter 5, called 'Verbal agreement, voice and valency' there is a description of the argument structure of predicates, how arguments are expressed and how argument structure can be altered by means of voice and valency-changing operations such as applicatives, causative and middle voice. In chapter 6 there is an overview of verbal morphology, apart from the morphology associated with voice, valency and cross-reference discussed in chapter 5. There is also a description of adverbs in the language in this chapter. Chapter 7 discusses formal and functional properties of modal and aspectual enclitics. In chapter 8, finally, the structure of the clause (both simplex and complex) is discussed, including the switch-reference system and word order. The book ends with two text samples.

Abstract

Pitch, intonation, and speech rate were analyzed in a collection of everyday speech heard by one Dutch infant between the ages of six and nine months. Components of each of these variables were measured in the speech of three adult speakers (mother, father, baby-sitter) when they addressed the infant, and when they addressed another adult. The results are in line with previously reported findings which are usually based on laboratory or prearranged settings: infant-directed speech in a natural setting exhibits more pitch variation, a larger number of simple intonation contours, and slower speech rate than does adult-directed speech.

Abstract

Dutch distinguishes at least four sentence types: statements and questions, the latter type being subdivided into wh-questions (beginning with a question word), yes/no-questions (with inversion of subject and finite), and declarative questions (lexico-syntactically identical to statement). Acoustically, each of these (sub)types was found to have clearly distinct global F0-patterns, as well as a characteristic distribution of final rises [1,2]. The present paper explores the separate contribution of parameters of global downtrend and size of accent-lending pitch movements versus aspects of the terminal rise to the human identification of the four sentence (sub)types, at various positions in the time-course of the utterance. The results show that interrogativity in Dutch can be identified at an early point in the utterance. However, wh-questions are not distinct from statements.

Abstract

Recent studies using phoneme detection tasks have shown that spoken-language processing is neither facilitated nor interfered with by optional assimilation, but is inhibited by violation of obligatory assimilation. Interpretation of these results depends on an assessment of their generality, specifically, whether they also obtain when listeners are processing nonnative language. Two separate experiments are presented in which native listeners of German and native listeners of Dutch had to detect a target fricative in legal monosyllabic Dutch nonwords. All of the nonwords were correct realisations in standard Dutch. For German listeners, however, half of the nonwords contained phoneme strings which violate the German fricative assimilation rule. Whereas the Dutch listeners showed no significant effects, German listeners detected the target fricative faster when the German fricative assimilation was violated than when no violation occurred. The results might suggest that violation of assimilation rules does not have to make processing more difficult per se.

Abstract

Field data are drawn from a particular speech community at a certain place and time. The intent of this survey is to enrich understanding of the various socio-cultural contexts in which linguistic and “cognitive” data may have been collected, so that we can explore the role which societal, cultural and contextual factors may play in this material. The questionnaire gives guidelines concerning types of ethnographic information that are important to cross-cultural and cross-linguistic enquiry, and will be especially useful to researchers who do not have specialised training in anthropology.

Abstract

How do languages encode different kinds of movement, and what features do people pay attention to when describing motion events? This document outlines topics concerning the investigation of “enter” and “exit” events. It helps contextualise research tasks that examine this domain (see 'Motion Elicitation' and 'Enter/Exit animation') and gives some pointers about what other questions can be explored.

Abstract

How do languages encode different kinds of movement, and what features do people pay attention to when describing motion events? This task investigates the expression of “enter” and “exit” activities, that is, events involving motion in(to) and motion out (of) container-like items. The researcher first uses particular stimuli (a ball, a cup, rice, etc.) to elicit descriptions of enter/exit events from one consultant, and then asks another consultant to demonstrate the event based on these descriptions. See also the related entries Enter/Exit Animation and Background Questions for Enter/Exit Research.

Abstract

Utilization of computer tools in linguistic research has gained importance with the maturation of media frameworks for the handling of digital audio and video. The increased use of these tools in gesture, sign language and multimodal interaction studies has led to stronger requirements on the flexibility, the efficiency and in particular the time accuracy of annotation tools. This paper describes the efforts made to make ELAN a tool that meets these requirements, with special attention to the developments in the area of time accuracy. In subsequent sections an overview will be given of other enhancements in the latest versions of ELAN, that make it a useful tool in multimodality research.

Abstract

A number of serious reasons will convince an increasing amount of researchers to store their relevant material in centers which we will call "language resource archives". They combine the duty of taking care of long-term preservation as well as the task to give access to their material to different user groups. Access here is meant in the sense that an active interaction with the data will be made possible to support the integration of new data, new versions or commentaries of all sort. Modern Language Resource Archives will have to adhere to a number of basic principles to fulfill all requirements and they will have to be involved in federations to create joint language resource domains making it even more simple for the researchers to access the data. This paper makes an attempt to formulate the essential pillars language resource archives have to adhere to.

Abstract

Demonstratives—simple referential devices like this and that—are linguistic universals, but their meaning varies cross-linguistically. In languages like English and Italian, demonstratives are thought to encode the referent’s distance from the producer (e.g., that one means “the one far away from me”),
while in others, like Portuguese and Spanish, they encode relative distance from both producer and receiver (e.g., aquel means “the one far away from both of us”). Here we propose that demonstratives are also sensitive to the receiver’s focus of attention, hence requiring a deeper form of social cognition
than previously thought. We provide initial empirical and computational evidence for this idea, suggesting that producers use
demonstratives to redirect the receiver’s attention towards the intended referent, rather than only to indicate its physical distance.

Abstract

Although sign language-using communities exist in all areas of the world, few sign languages have been documented in detail. Sign languages occur in a variety of sociocultural contexts, ranging from sign languages used in closed village communities to officially recognized national sign languages. They may be grouped into language families on historical grounds or may participate in various language contact situations. Systematic cross-linguistic comparison reveals both significant structural similarities and important typological differences between sign languages. Focusing on information from non-Western countries, this article provides an overview of the sign languages of the world.

Abstract

Picture book reading is a common word-learning context from which parents repeatedly name objects to their child and it has been found to facilitate early word learning. To learn the correct word-object mappings in a book-reading context, infants need to be able to link what they see with what they hear. However, given multiple objects on every book page, it is not clear how infants direct their attention to objects named by parents. The aim of the current study is to examine how infants mechanistically discover the correct word-object mappings during book reading in real time. We used head-mounted eye-tracking during parent-infant picture book reading and measured the infant's moment-by-moment visual attention to the named referent. We also examined how gesture cues provided by both the child and the parent may influence infants' attention to the named target. We found that although parents provided many object labels during book reading, infants were not able to attend to the named objects easily. However, their abilities to follow and use gestures to direct the other social partner’s attention increase the chance of looking at the named target during parent naming.