Slavic Corpus and Computational Linguistics

Abstract

In this paper, we focus on corpus-linguistic studies that address theoretical questions and on computational linguistic work on corpus annotation, that makes corpora useful for linguistic work. First, we discuss why the corpus linguistic approach was discredited by generative linguists in the second half of the 20th century, how it made a comeback through advances in computing and was adopted by usage-based linguistics at the beginning of the 21st century. Then, we move on to an overview of necessary and common annotation layers and the issues that are encountered when performing automatic annotation, with special emphasis on Slavic languages. Finally, we survey the types of research requiring corpora that Slavic linguists are involved in world-wide, and the resources they have at their disposal.

Observation, experimentation, and replication in linguistics

“…Despite such claims, this is exactly what many scientists do (for further discussion, see Divjak et al 2017). Observation and exploration of natural phenomena is generally recognized as an indispensable part of scientific inquiry (Nilsen and Bowler 2020;Tukey 1977), not only as the basis of hypothesis generation across the physical and social sciences, but as the primary source of data for investigating causative relationships in several fields, including archaeology, astronomy, geology, and geography, where experimentation is often impossible because of the nature of the variables under analysis.…”

Systemic Paradigmatic Relations Between Bulgarian and Russian Lexis

“…Apart from the complicated system of verbal inflections, Bulgarian retains the distinction between simpleх and complex tenses, which also held true for Old Russian, but was to all intents and purposes lost (Mokienko, 2017): as many as nine tenses in Bulgarian, among which are минало свършено време, минало несвършено време, минало неопределено време, бъдеще време, бъдеще в миналото, бъдеще свършено в миналото, бъдеще предварительно време etc., are contrasted with only 3 tenses in Russian: past, present and future. In their paper "Slavic Corpus and Computational Linguistics" Divjak et al (2017) survey the types of research requiring corpora that Slavic linguists are involved in worldwide, and the resources they have at their disposal. According to the authors, corpora are a helpful tool in investigating crosslinguistic paradigmatic relations among words.…”