• Audio
  • Live tv
  • About Us
  • Contact Us
  • Privacy Policy
  • Terms of Service
Monday, March 27, 2023
Morning News
No Result
View All Result
  • Login
  • Home
  • News
    • Local
    • National
    • World
  • Markets
  • Economy
  • Crypto
  • Real Estate
  • Sports
  • Entertainment
  • Health
  • Tech
    • Automotive
    • Business
    • Computer Sciences
    • Consumer & Gadgets
    • Electronics & Semiconductors
    • Energy & Green Tech
    • Engineering
    • Hi Tech & Innovation
    • Machine learning & AI
    • Security
    • Hardware
    • Internet
    • Robotics
    • Software
    • Telecom
  • Lifestyle
    • Fashion
    • Travel
    • Canadian immigration
  • App
    • audio
    • live tv
  • Home
  • News
    • Local
    • National
    • World
  • Markets
  • Economy
  • Crypto
  • Real Estate
  • Sports
  • Entertainment
  • Health
  • Tech
    • Automotive
    • Business
    • Computer Sciences
    • Consumer & Gadgets
    • Electronics & Semiconductors
    • Energy & Green Tech
    • Engineering
    • Hi Tech & Innovation
    • Machine learning & AI
    • Security
    • Hardware
    • Internet
    • Robotics
    • Software
    • Telecom
  • Lifestyle
    • Fashion
    • Travel
    • Canadian immigration
  • App
    • audio
    • live tv
No Result
View All Result
Morning News
No Result
View All Result
Home Tech Computer Sciences

Computer system analyzes differences in the syntax of languages

by author
November 10, 2022
in Computer Sciences
Reading Time: 4 mins read
0 0
A A
0
0
SHARES
12
VIEWS
Share on FacebookShare on TwitterLinkedinReddit
languages
Credit: Pixabay/CC0 Public Domain

For decades, linguists have racked their brains over the question of precisely how the syntax of various languages is different. Ph.D. candidate Martin Kroon has developed a computer system that brings us closer to finding an answer. His Ph.D. defense is on 10 November.

Knowing about the similarities and differences between languages will bring us one step closer to understanding how our brains work. After all, discovering a structure that is shared by different languages could tell us a great deal about how the brain handles language. Until now, however, it has proved difficult to identify all the ways in which languages are the same or different.

“This is all done manually, but there are an awful lot of languages and basically an infinite number of sentences you can generate in them,” Kroon explains. This means that there’s a risk of bias. “You have to select in advance what you’re going to compare, which can cause you to overlook things or conversely to confirm things that don’t occur very often at all.”

Compressing language

Kroon therefore decided to take a different approach. A computer system should make it possible to compare different languages on a larger scale. “I mainly used transcripts of EU meetings, because they’re translated into all the European Union languages,” he says, and then explains how he applied two methods to the data.

“First, I was impressed by the Minimum Description Length (MDL) principle. This is actually a matter of compression, the same as you do on your computer: how do you make big data as small as possible, so that they fit into a zip file? To do this, MDL searches for patterns that occur frequently but are not too long. In Dutch, for example, this could be ‘article+noun.’ This pattern is easy to compress and you won’t find it in Czech, for example, because Czech doesn’t have articles.”

He found that the system worked. Patterns in the transcripts emerged, indicating syntactic similarities and differences. At the same time, however, the computer would often find differences that on closer inspection had very little to do with syntax.

“Some texts were translated manually, so you couldn’t compare them syntactically any more,” says Kroon. “For instance, the original English ‘to the matter at hand’ was translated into Dutch as ‘en nu het eigenlijke onderwerp’ (= ‘and now the actual subject’). This means the same thing, but it’s completely different in terms of syntax and structure.”

Projecting English onto Hungarian

Moreover, the way in which the languages were described linguistically was not always helpful: descriptions of linguistic phenomena used in Dutch could not be found in Czech and vice versa. And, for instance, the Dutch “te” as in “te doen” (= “to do”) was structurally tagged as a preposition, while its English counterpart “to” was structurally tagged as a particle. Or more arbitrarily, the European Union was often tagged in Czech as “adjective+noun,” while in English it was labeled “proper noun.”

“In the second test, I therefore projected the annotations of one language onto another, non-annotated language,” says Kroon. “I knew too much about Czech by then, so I used Hungarian for the second test. First, we had to work out which words are each other’s counterpart in sentences, which then allowed us to say: this is the finite verb in English, then this is probably the finite verb in Hungarian too.”

Meanwhile, a Hungarian syntax specialist manually compiled a list of differences between English and Hungarian. Ideally, the software would find the same characteristic similarities and differences. “That didn’t quite work out,” Kroon has to admit. “We found confirmation for many of the hypotheses that I’d formulated on the basis of the software. But at the same time we weren’t able to find all the characteristic differences. So my results can mostly give linguists a push in the right direction: try having a look here, because these might be interesting patterns. But completely automatic? As yet, we still need human interpretation too much for that.”

More research is therefore needed. And Kroon sees this as definitely worthwhile. “All research starts with a question, and that question can only exist because we can put our thoughts into words. In my view, this means that researching language is just as important as everything else.”

Provided by
Leiden University

Citation:
Computer system analyzes differences in the syntax of languages (2022, November 10)
retrieved 10 November 2022
from https://techxplore.com/news/2022-11-differences-syntax-languages.html
This document is subject to copyright. Apart from any fair dealing for the purpose of private study or research, no
part may be reproduced without the written permission. The content is provided for information purposes only.
Tags: big datacomputer systemdifferent languageslanguagepatterns
Previous Post

Trump lashes out at potential rival DeSantis, questioning his loyalty

Next Post

Report: Chris Evans In ‘Serious’ Relationship With Actress Alba Baptista

Related Posts

Computer Sciences

Wireless technique enables quantum computer to send and receive data without generating too much error-causing heat

March 23, 2023
11
Computer Sciences

US Census data vulnerable to attack without enhanced privacy measures, shows study

March 23, 2023
11
Next Post
Chris Evans and Alba Baptista

Report: Chris Evans In ‘Serious’ Relationship With Actress Alba Baptista

Leave a Reply Cancel reply

Your email address will not be published. Required fields are marked *

POPULAR TODAY

Energy & Green Tech

Eco-friendly underwater cleaning of ship hulls

by author
March 26, 2023
0
12

Results of the samples irradiated with the laser and those not irradiated. Credit: LZH Biofouling is the growth of algae,...

West Bank violence

Palestinian gunman critically wounds Israeli in new violence

March 26, 2023
12

How a small town Canadian grandmother ended up in a Hong Kong prison

March 26, 2023
12

Suspect in Amqui, Que. pedestrian deaths charged; police identify victims

March 26, 2023
12
Austin, Texas

The 10 Best (and Worst) U.S. Cities for Sleep

March 26, 2023
12

POPULAR NEWS

Why Ray Dalio says SVB collapse is a ‘canary in the coal mine’

March 21, 2023
20

Hackers scored data center logins for big corporations more than a year ago. Now they’re selling that information

March 21, 2023
16
A woman holds out her hands to a physician.

Osteoarthritis: Experimental Drug May Help Reduce Inflammation and Symtpoms, Early Study Finds

March 23, 2023
16

A new way to trap radioactive waste in minerals for long-term storage

March 21, 2023
15
Fearman's Pork Inc. can be seen above on March 9, 2023 after a ammonia leak sent 15 employees to hospital (CTV News Toronto)

Ammonia leak at Ontario pork factory sends 15 workers to hospital

March 21, 2023
14

EDITOR'S PICK

Local

Senior rushed to hospital after being rescued from highrise fire downtown

by author
March 15, 2023
0
12

A man in his 70s has been rushed to hospital after being rescued from an early-morning fire at a downtown...

Read more

Parkinson’s Disease May be Caused by Common Dry-Cleaning Chemical

Female-owned businesses on the rise, but barriers persist: study

Loblaw facing ‘over 1,000 supplier requests’ for fresh price hikes: Galen G. Weston

Jimmy Carter Receiving Hospice Care At Home Instead Of Additional Medical Intervention, Carter Center Says

Morning News

Welcome to our Ads

Create ads focused on the objectives most important to your business Please contact us info@morns.ca

  • Home
  • Audio
  • Live tv
  • About Us
  • Contact Us
  • Privacy Policy
  • Terms of Service

© 2022 Morning News - morns.ca by morns.ca.

No Result
View All Result
  • Home
  • News
    • Local
    • National
    • World
  • Markets
  • Economy
  • Crypto
  • Real Estate
  • Sports
  • Entertainment
  • Health
  • Tech
    • Automotive
    • Business
    • Computer Sciences
    • Consumer & Gadgets
    • Electronics & Semiconductors
    • Energy & Green Tech
    • Engineering
    • Hi Tech & Innovation
    • Machine learning & AI
    • Security
    • Hardware
    • Internet
    • Robotics
    • Software
    • Telecom
  • Lifestyle
    • Fashion
    • Travel
    • Canadian immigration
  • App
    • audio
    • live tv
  • Login

© 2022 Morning News - morns.ca by morns.ca.

Welcome Back!

Sign In with Facebook
Sign In with Google
Sign In with Linked In
OR

Login to your account below

Forgotten Password?

Retrieve your password

Please enter your username or email address to reset your password.

Log In
Go to mobile version