Date: Sun, 15 Dec 85 18:36 EST To: irdis at vpi Subject: IRList Digest V1 #25 IRList Digest Sunday, 15 Dec 1985 Volume 1 : Issue 25 Today's Topics: Query - Why use particular dictionaries for lexicon - (Reply on) Characteristics of Dictionaries Announcement - Tutorials on Generalized Markup and Generic Coding - System for Doc. Page Image Filing and Commun. - Positions in Commun. at U. CA San Diego Article - U.W. Centre for New OED Newsletter Summary ---------------------------------------------------------------------- Date: 26 Nov 1985 09:30-EST Subject: request for dict info From: BATES@BBNG.ARPA I would be very interested in complete citations for the Laffal "Concept Dict of English" and the thing you referred to in the AIList as the "Collins and Oxford Advanced Learner's dictionaries". Why are these particular dictionaries useful for NL lexicons? Thanks very much, Lyn Bates (BATES@BBNG.ARPA) ------------------------------ From: VTVAX3::FOXEA 15-DEC-1985 13:54 To: ARPA%"bates@bbng.arpa" Subj: Dictionaries Hi! Sorry for taking so long to answer your question. I was going to do it in IRList, but the machines I use for that have been down most of the time since you sent your message. So, here is a direct reply: 1) The dictionary that John Roach wanted is, according to him, one that defines words using a relatively small set of concepts. I have not seen it. He feels that a small number of concepts would make processing easier. I have heard the same comment in connection with Longman's. 2) Citations on the other two are - Collins English Dictionary, ISBN 0 00 433078-1 (std), 433080-3 (thumb indx) Patrick Hanks, Ed.; Collins; London; 1979. Oxford Advanced Learner's Dictionary of Current English,ISBN 0 19 431101 5 A S Hornby, Ed.; Oxford Univ. Press, Oxford, 1974. 3) Both are available from Oxford Text Archive for researchers at a nominal fee. This in itself is enough - I strove for a year to obtain some dictionary to no avail until Mike Lesk suggested this source. Noone I know of has used Collins; we have spent months trying to decode the typesetting and cleaning things up and will give the final result back to the Archive for redistribution. Roger Mitton in UK has worked on the OALDCE and cleaned it up; we will do more work reorganizing it for our purposes. We will extend work of Evens, Ahlswede and others to parse the dictionary entries as best as we can. 4) Here are some excerpts from Collins: This major new dictionary contains more vocab. references (over 162,000) and more text (over 3 million words) than any comparable one-volume dictionary. It sets new standards in the extent of its coverage and the clarity of its presen- tation. In-depth coverage of contemporary English. ... over 200 fields of knowledge ... Excellent coverage of science and technology ... Most important current meaning comes first. Preferred hyphenation points (or their absence) are indicated ... Examples in context ... Geographical and biographical names and a variety of proper nouns are included (over 14,000 of them), ... 5) Some excerpts from OALDCE: This is a completely revised, up-dated and re-set impression of the 3rd ed. It provides the student or teacher of the English language with the most practically useful and comprehensive record of the language as it is spoken and written today. This is a Dictionary that has been specially prepared for the learner of the English language. ... give the learner the most practical help ... It is for the learner who wants to develop further his knowledge of how English words, compounds, and idiomatic expressions are used, what they mean... ... particular attention to verb patterns. ... kinds of context in which the headword is normally used. The example phrases and sentences ... ... the Dictionary gives the specialist English area ... Proverbs ... ... taboo words ... So, Collins gives broad coverage of contemporary English, with science and technology, and was recently done, using modern lexicographic methods. The definitions are full and yet seem amenable to futher computer analysis. OALDCE is for those learning English, and has fewer entries but has idioms, compounds too. It uses simple language in definitions, and has verb patterns and numerous example phrases. Again, these should also be of value when automatically analyzed. Our aim is to build a lexicon to use in our retrieval work, and to be of use for other NL workers. Any suggestions would be welcome! Whereas work on Longman's and Webster's has gone on for a while, those publishers have prohibited access by other researchers, so we hope to provide an alternative. Eventually we hopeto analyze the dictionary definitions and examples to pull out even more than what we will learn directly. I hope this answers your question - sorry for being so long-winded! Regards, Ed ------------------------------ From: FOX 15-DEC-1985 17:02 Subj: Tutorials on GenCode/SGML Dec. 2-4 at The Four Seasons Hotel in Phil. GCA (Graphic Communications Assoc.) in conjunction with MARKUP USA, sponsored GenCode(Reg.)/SGML Tutoria Series Monday - GenCode/SGML Orientation Tutorial Tuesday- TechPub Implementation Training Session (Technical Manuals) Wedn. - AAP Implementation Training Session (Book Publishing) GCA is at 1730 N. Lynn St., Suite 604, Arlington VA 22209 2085 (703)841-8160 Excerpts from Announcement: Generic coding ... each text element is identified ... categorically, e.g., as a heading ..., as a paragraph ..., a footnote, a reference, etc. X3J6 Committee of ... ANSI ... developed a Standard Generalized Markup Language (SGML) ... SGML describes both the syntax and grammar for developing document structure to express the relationships between the various elements of the doc. The Association of American Publishers (AAP) is engaged in a $250,000, two-year project to develop a standard set of Author Guidelines specifically aimed at the book publishing industry. Code use conforms to SGML. ------------------------------ From: "Richard (Dick) Marcus" Date: Thu, 5 Dec 85 14:48 EST Subject: Seminar Announcement Laboratory for Information and Decision Systems Seminar Title: EXPERIMENTAL SYSTEM FOR DOCUMENT PAGE IMAGE FILING AND COMMUNICATION Time: 2 PM, Thursday, December 12, 1985 Location: Room 36-839 Speaker: Ryuichi Ogagwa C&C Systems Research Laboratories NEC Corporation, Japan Abstract: An experimental image system, which provides a document page filing and communication facility in a high resolution image format, has been developed. System design emphasizes rapid access (within a few seconds) and ease of use. The system has been operated in an experimental environment for one year. Rapid response time has proven to be essential for user acceptance of the image services. A common file facility and a data presentation facility for meetings ("electronic viewgraph" with magnification) have proven to be suitable application areas. Requirements to make a personal filing facility useful have been elucidated. Host: Richard Marcus ------------------------------ From: T3B%PSUVM.BITNET%wiscvm.wisc.edu@CSNET-RELAY Date: Tue, 10 Dec 85 15:52 EST Subject: CRTNET NEWSLETTER 17 [Extract - Ed] JOBS AT UNIVERSITY OF CALIFORNIA, SAN DIEGO The Department of Communication at the University of California, San Diego is recruiting for one or more permanent faculty positions beginning 1986-87. In addition, one year temporary position may also become available at the Lecturer to Acting/Visiting Professor levels. SPECIFIC AREAS IN WHICH WE WISH TO RECRUIT: 1) Communication and the Individual. Developmental psychology and linguistics, concepts of mind, impact of the new communication technologies on cognition and human development; communication issues in the international/Third World area. 2) Social/political impact or context of new communication technologies. Impact of the computer; communication and education; history of communication technologies. 3) History of Communication/Media. Social and cultural history of communication in Europe and the United States with expertise in at least one non-European/U.S. area. 4) Theories of interpretation. Familiarity with both semiotic and historical approaches to verbal and visual forms of communicationist theories of communication. 5) Drama and Communication. Text to performance. Performance as communication; audience; political communication through TV, live performance, visual media, community and street theater. 6) Bilingual Communication. Courses in Communication and Community; Language and Society; bi-lingualism. Candidates must have Ph.D or equivalent and demonstrated research and teaching ability. Significant publication record required at senior levels. Salary dependent on level of appointment. Send vita, statement of interests, and the names of three references by March 1, 1986 to Recruitment (MES/SYS) Dept. of Communication (D-003), UCSD La Jolla, CA 92093 EOE/AAE ------------------------------ From: FOX 15-DEC-1985 17:29 Subj: UW Center for the New OED Newsletter 7, Nov. 1985 [Extracts] Information in Data, Centre's 1st annual workshop, Nov. 7-8 95 registrants from Canada, US, Europe, UK Package of papers and tech. aids presented during 3 sessions available early 1986, $10 Canadian (plus $2 if mailed outside Canada). Checks payable to Univ. of Waterloo. Send payment to UW Centre for the New OED, Univ. of Waterloo, Waterloo, Ontario, Canada N2L 3G1 Application Workshops Weekly, began in Sept., good for interdisciplinary exchange, well attended. New OED Seminars Oct. 30, New Words editor John Simpson, "Some Editorial Problems in Revising the New OED" Nov. 12, Prof. Nicoletta Calzolari, Dept. Ling. Univ. Pisa and Inst. of Comp. Linguistics, "The Italian Lexical Database" Nov. 13, Visiting Fellow Sylvia Osborn, Univ. W. Ontario Dept of CS, Database Modelling and the New OED Last seminar of term, Prof. William Cameron, Chrm. Dept. Mod. Lang. and Literature and former Dean of School of Lib. and Inf. Sci (SLIS) at Western Ontario, "Research Opportunities in a Collection of Early Dictionaries" Visiting Fellows Reinhard Hartmann returned Nov 17 to Univ of Exeter, resuming as Director of Language Centre and the Dictionary Research Centre Dr. Sylvia Osborn returned end of Nov. to W. Ontario SPIRES Database Work is in progress to establish a small database using SPIRES, with a bibliography of "core" reference materials. Later, may add info. about dictionary and related projects and research centres, utiliza- tion of lexical databases, names and interests of researchers, loca- tions and descriptions of major dictionary collections and of machine readable reference texts, etc. Donna Lee Berg, the Centre's librarian, would appreciate receiving any info, descriptive material, papers relating to these interests. ------------------------------ END OF IRList Digest ********************