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A computational linguistic farce in three acts

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Re: A computational linguistic farce in three acts

#51

Post by SomeStupidPoint »

YeGoblynQueenne wrote: post #44
SomeStupidPoint wrote: post #39

Earlier quoted context omitted.

You guys seem confused: I'm not claiming that what you're calling semantics doesn't exist; I'm saying that it's merely convoluted syntactical rules, and calling it a different name is misleading. It would be correct to say that the sentence in isolation is a parse error, but with the diagram, it's merely elaborate syntax. My point isn't that there aren't higher order rules (and approximations) -- just that the divisi…

>> You guys seem confused: I'm not claiming that what you're calling semantics doesn't exist; I'm saying that it's merely convoluted syntactical rules, and calling it a different name is misleading. Syntax and semantics, or structure and meaning, are completely different things- in fact they are entirely unrelated and their only association is by arbitrary convention (we all agree that certain structures are associat…

Translation is hard precisely because semantics is carried by syntax -- when the syntax is radically different, you can only approximate the higher order structures.

If semantics were actually distinct and carried by both languages, you could translate without that loss of subtle meaning.

I also completely disagree with your last sentence: semamtics could easily be syntax that has rules which are hard to compute.

NLP has trouble with long-range (or broad) effects, which are (some of) what I mean by higher order syntax.

Re: A computational linguistic farce in three acts

#52

Post by WorldMaker »

mark_edward wrote: post #37
lgessler wrote: post #18

Earlier quoted context omitted.

> I hear German is very grammatical, and that Hungarian is ... erm odd ? Just want to point out that "grammatical" probably isn't the word you want here. Every language is grammatical by definition in the sense that there are rules that govern its sound system, word formation system, syntax, etc. The concept you're getting at, though--that some languages are easier for computer programs and/or speakers of Indo-Europe…

do you think analytic would be a good term here? i heard mandarin is very analytic language, maybe that could be a good choice

"Regular" would be the classic linguistics term, would it not? Although computer science limits the term to the use of regular languages in the Chomsky hierarchy sense (that is, more specifically to regular expressions and the languages they describe), I am under the impression linguistics as a whole treats regularity as a multivariate spectrum. Some languages have more regularity in terms of grammar productions or morphology than English.

Re: A computational linguistic farce in three acts

#53

Post by mark_edward »

WorldMaker wrote: post #52
mark_edward wrote: post #37

Earlier quoted context omitted.

do you think analytic would be a good term here? i heard mandarin is very analytic language, maybe that could be a good choice

"Regular" would be the classic linguistics term, would it not? Although computer science limits the term to the use of regular languages in the Chomsky hierarchy sense (that is, more specifically to regular expressions and the languages they describe), I am under the impression linguistics as a whole treats regularity as a multivariate spectrum. Some languages have more regularity in terms of grammar productions or m…

i meant analytic in this sense of the word https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Analytic_language

I don't know too much about computational linguistics but it seems highly analytic languages could be easier to work with, but I'm not sure.

Re: A computational linguistic farce in three acts

#54

Post by yorwba »

SomeStupidPoint wrote: post #51
YeGoblynQueenne wrote: post #44

Earlier quoted context omitted.

>> You guys seem confused: I'm not claiming that what you're calling semantics doesn't exist; I'm saying that it's merely convoluted syntactical rules, and calling it a different name is misleading. Syntax and semantics, or structure and meaning, are completely different things- in fact they are entirely unrelated and their only association is by arbitrary convention (we all agree that certain structures are associat…

Translation is hard precisely because semantics is carried by syntax -- when the syntax is radically different, you can only approximate the higher order structures. If semantics were actually distinct and carried by both languages, you could translate without that loss of subtle meaning. I also completely disagree with your last sentence: semamtics could easily be syntax that has rules which are hard to compute. NLP…

Syntax is usually used to describe those rules of a language that are easy to compute; so easy that you don't have to understand the meaning (semantics) to do it. E.g. you can point to a missing semicolon in a C program without understanding what the program does.

Of course you can call the rules of well-formedness "higher-order syntax" in the sense that the computation required to decide it is of a higher order than syntax, but the distinction between syntax and semantics is by no means unnatural. It has been discovered independently several times; some ancient studies of the syntax of Sanskrit have survived to this day.

Re: A computational linguistic farce in three acts

#55

Post by WorldMaker »

mark_edward wrote: post #53
WorldMaker wrote: post #52

Earlier quoted context omitted.

"Regular" would be the classic linguistics term, would it not? Although computer science limits the term to the use of regular languages in the Chomsky hierarchy sense (that is, more specifically to regular expressions and the languages they describe), I am under the impression linguistics as a whole treats regularity as a multivariate spectrum. Some languages have more regularity in terms of grammar productions or m…

i meant analytic in this sense of the word https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Analytic_language I don't know too much about computational linguistics but it seems highly analytic languages could be easier to work with, but I'm not sure.

That points to Isolating [1] and I think highly isolating may be the more useful distinction to this specific example. (Modern English is rather analytic, having dropped most, but not all, inflections in the Middle English era. Mandarin Chinese is much more isolating than Modern English.)

[1] https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Isolating_language

Re: A computational linguistic farce in three acts

#56

Post by aisofteng »

dang wrote: post #41
aisofteng wrote: post #27

Earlier quoted context omitted.

Oh, you used the religiously verified word of "strawman"! What you said made little to no sense and had no backing. Yours was a perfect example of layman speculation without any basis. Nothing you said made any coherent sense, nor had any backing. They don't even deserve a response.

Your comments have repeatedly been violating the HN guidelines by being uncivil and/or unsubstantive and generally nasty. We ban accounts that do this, so please stop doing this, and instead post civilly and substantively (or not at all). https://news.ycombinator.com/newsguidelines.html https://news.ycombinator.com/newswelcome.html

You're completely right and I apologize. I'll reign it in.

Thank you for all the work you do moderating this community.

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