ymoslem/acl-abstracts huggingface dataset:
Shallow Parsing for Nepal Bhasa Complement Clauses (2022)

Accelerating the process of data collection, annotation, and analysis is an urgent need for linguistic fieldwork and documentation of endangered languages (Bird, 2009). Our experiments describe how we maximize the quality for the Nepal Bhasa syntactic complement structure chunking model. Native speaker language consultants were trained to annotate a minimally selected raw data set (Su{\'a}rez et al.,2019). The embedded clauses, matrix verbs, and embedded verbs are annotated. We apply both statistical training algorithms and transfer learning in our training, including Naive Bayes, MaxEnt, and fine-tuning the pre-trained mBERT model (Devlin et al., 2018). We show that with limited annotated data, the model is already sufficient for the task. The modeling resources we used are largely available for many other endangered languages. The practice is easy to duplicate for training a shallow parser for other endangered languages in general.
Using LARA to create image-based and phonetically annotated multimodal texts for endangered languages (2022)

We describe recent extensions to the open source Learning And Reading Assistant (LARA) supporting image-based and phonetically annotated texts. We motivate the utility of these extensions both in general and specifically in relation to endangered and archaic languages, and illustrate with examples from the revived Australian language Barngarla, Icelandic Sign Language, Irish Gaelic, Old Norse manuscripts and Egyptian hieroglyphics.
Recovering Text from Endangered Languages Corrupted PDF documents (2022)

In this paper we present an approach to efficiently recover texts from corrupted documents of endangered languages. Textual resources for such languages are scarce, and sometimes the few available resources are corrupted PDF documents. Endangered languages are not supported by standard tools and present even the additional difficulties of not possessing any corpus over which to train language models to assist with the recovery. The approach presented is able to fully recover born digital PDF documents with minimal effort, thereby helping the preservation effort of endangered languages, by extending the range of documents usable for corpus building.
Learning Through Transcription (2022)

Transcribing speech for primarily oral, local languages is often a joint effort involving speakers and outsiders. It is commonly motivated by externally-defined scientific goals, alongside local motivations such as language acquisition and access to heritage materials. We explore the task of {\textquoteleft}learning through transcription' through the design of a system for collaborative speech annotation. We have developed a prototype to support local and remote learner-speaker interactions in remote Aboriginal communities in northern Australia. We show that situated systems design for inclusive non-expert practice is a promising new direction for working with speakers of local languages.
Developing a Part-Of-Speech tagger for te reo M\=aori (2022)

This paper discusses the development of a Part-of-Speech tagger for te reo M{\={a}}ori which is the Indigenous language of Aotearoa, also known as New Zealand, see Morrison. Henceforth, Part-of-Speech will be referred to as POS throughout this paper and te reo M{\={a}}ori will be referred to as M{\={a}}ori, while Universal Dependencies will be referred to as UD. Prior to the development of this tagger, there was no POS tagger for M{\={a}}ori from Aotearoa. POS taggers tag words according to their syntactic or grammatical category. However, many traditional syntactic categories, and by consequence POS labels, do not {\textquotedblleft}work for{\textquotedblright} M{\={a}}ori. By this we mean that, for some of the traditional categories, The definition of, or guidelines for, an existing category is not suitable for M{\={a}}ori. They do not have an existing category for certain word classes of M{\={a}}ori. They do not reflect a M{\={a}}ori worldview of the M{\={a}}ori language. We wanted a tagset that is usable with industry-wide tools, but we also needed a tagset that would meet the needs of M{\={a}}ori. Therefore, we based our tagset and guidelines on the UD tagset and tagging conventions, however the categorization of words has been significantly altered to be appropriate for M{\={a}}ori. This is because at the time of development of our POS tagger, the UD conventions had still not been used to tag a Polyneisan language such as M{\={a}}ori, nor did it provide any guidelines about how to tag them. To that end, we worked with highly-proficient, specially-selected M{\={a}}ori speakers and linguists who are specialists in M{\={a}}ori. This has ensured that our POS labels and guidelines conventions faithfully reflect a M{\={a}}ori speaker`s conceptualization of their language.
Challenges and Perspectives for Innu-Aimun within Indigenous Language Technologies (2022)

Innu-Aimun is an Algonquian language spoken in Eastern Canada. It is the language of the Innu, an Indigenous people that now lives for the most part in a dozen communities across Quebec and Labrador. Although it is alive, Innu-Aimun sees important preservation and revitalization challenges and issues. The state of its technology is still nascent, with very few existing applications. This paper proposes a first survey of the available linguistic resources and existing technology for Innu-Aimun. Considering the existing linguistic and textual resources, we argue that developing language technology is feasible and propose first steps towards NLP applications like machine translation. The goal of developing such technologies is first and foremost to help efforts in improving language transmission and cultural safety and preservation for Innu-Aimun speakers, as those are considered urgent and vital issues. Finally, we discuss the importance of close collaboration and consultation with the Innu community in order to ensure that language technologies are developed respectfully and in accordance with that goal.
Using Speech and NLP Resources to build an iCALL platform for a minority language, the story of An Sc\'eala\'i, the Irish experience to date (2022)

This paper describes how emerging linguistic resources and technologies can be used to build a language learning platform for Irish, an endangered language. This platform, An Sc{\'e}ala{\'i}, harvests learner corpora - a vital resource both to study the stages of learners' language acquisition and to guide future platform development. A technical description of the platform is provided, including details of how different speech technologies and linguistic resources are fused to provide a holistic learner experience. The active continuous participation of the community, and platform evaluations by learners and teachers, are discussed.
Closing the NLP Gap: Documentary Linguistics and NLP Need a Shared Software Infrastructure (2022)

For decades, researchers in natural language processing and computational linguistics have been developing models and algorithms that aim to serve the needs of language documentation projects. However, these models have seen little use in language documentation despite their great potential for making documentary linguistic artefacts better and easier to produce. In this work, we argue that a major reason for this NLP gap is the lack of a strong foundation of application software which can on the one hand serve the complex needs of language documentation and on the other hand provide effortless integration with NLP models. We further present and describe a work-in-progress system we have developed to serve this need, Glam.
Can We Use Word Embeddings for Enhancing Guarani-Spanish Machine Translation? (2022)

Machine translation for low-resource languages, such as Guarani, is a challenging task due to the lack of data. One way of tackling it is using pretrained word embeddings for model initialization. In this work we try to check if currently available data is enough to train rich embeddings for enhancing MT for Guarani and Spanish, by building a set of word embedding collections and training MT systems using them. We found that the trained vectors are strong enough to slightly improve the performance of some of the translation models and also to speed up the training convergence.
Faoi Gheasa an adaptive game for Irish language learning (2022)

In this paper, we present a game with a purpose (GWAP) (Von Ahn 2006). The aim of the game is to promote language learning and {\textquoteleft}noticing' (Skehan, 2013). The game has been designed for Irish, but the framework could be used for other languages. Irish is a minority language which means that L2 learners have limited opportunities for exposure to the language, and additionally, there are also limited (digital) learning resources available. This research incorporates game development, language pedagogy and ICALL language materials development. This paper will focus on the language materials development as this is a bottleneck in the teaching and learning of minority and endangered languages.
Using Graph-Based Methods to Augment Online Dictionaries of Endangered Languages (2022)

Many endangered Uralic languages have multilingual machine readable dictionaries saved in an XML format. However, the dictionaries cover translations very inconsistently between language pairs, for instance, the Livonian dictionary has some translations to Finnish, Latvian and Estonian, and the Komi-Zyrian dictionary has some translations to Finnish, English and Russian. We utilize graph-based approaches to augment such dictionaries by predicting new translations to existing and new languages based on different dictionaries for endangered languages and Wiktionaries. Our study focuses on the lexical resources for Komi-Zyrian (kpv), Erzya (myv) and Livonian (liv). We evaluate our approach by human judges fluent in the three endangered languages in question. Based on the evaluation, the method predicted good or acceptable translations 77{\%} of the time. Furthermore, we train a neural prediction model to predict the quality of the automatically predicted translations with an 81{\%} accuracy. The resulting extensions to the dictionaries are made available on the online dictionary platform used by the speakers of these languages.
Reusing a Multi-lingual Setup to Bootstrap a Grammar Checker for a Very Low Resource Language without Data (2022)

Grammar checkers (GEC) are needed for digital language survival. Very low resource languages like Lule S{\'a}mi with less than 3,000 speakers need to hurry to build these tools, but do not have the big corpus data that are required for the construction of machine learning tools. We present a rule-based tool and a workflow where the work done for a related language can speed up the process. We use an existing grammar to infer rules for the new language, and we do not need a large gold corpus of annotated grammar errors, but a smaller corpus of regression tests is built while developing the tool. We present a test case for Lule S{\'a}mi reusing resources from North S{\'a}mi, show how we achieve a categorisation of the most frequent errors, and present a preliminary evaluation of the system. We hope this serves as an inspiration for small languages that need advanced tools in a limited amount of time, but do not have big data.
A Word-and-Paradigm Workflow for Fieldwork Annotation (2022)

There are many challenges in morphological fieldwork annotation, it heavily relies on segmentation and feature labeling (which have both practical and theoretical drawbacks), it`s time-intensive, and the annotator needs to be linguistically trained and may still annotate things inconsistently. We propose a workflow that relies on unsupervised and active learning grounded in Word-and-Paradigm morphology (WP). Machine learning has the potential to greatly accelerate the annotation process and allow a human annotator to focus on problematic cases, while the WP approach makes for an annotation system that is word-based and relational, removing the need to make decisions about feature labeling and segmentation early in the process and allowing speakers of the language of interest to participate more actively, since linguistic training is not necessary. We present a proof-of-concept for the first step of the workflow, in a realistic fieldwork setting, annotators can process hundreds of forms per hour.
Fine-tuning pre-trained models for Automatic Speech Recognition, experiments on a fieldwork corpus of Japhug (Trans-Himalayan family) (2022)

This is a report on results obtained in the development of speech recognition tools intended to support linguistic documentation efforts. The test case is an extensive fieldwork corpus of Japhug, an endangered language of the Trans-Himalayan (Sino-Tibetan) family. The goal is to reduce the transcription workload of field linguists. The method used is a deep learning approach based on the language-specific tuning of a generic pre-trained representation model, XLS-R, using a Transformer architecture. We note difficulties in implementation, in terms of learning stability. But this approach brings significant improvements nonetheless. The quality of phonemic transcription is improved over earlier experiments; and most significantly, the new approach allows for reaching the stage of automatic word recognition. Subjective evaluation of the tool by the author of the training data confirms the usefulness of this approach.
Morphologically annotated corpora of Pomak (2022)

The project XXXX is developing a platform to enable researchers of living languages to easily create and make available state-of-the-art spoken and textual annotated resources. As a case study we use Greek and Pomak, the latter being an endangered oral Slavic language of the Balkans (including Thrace/Greece). The linguistic documentation of Pomak is an ongoing work by an interdisciplinary team in close cooperation with the Pomak community of Greece. We describe our experience in the development of a Latin-based orthography and morphologically annotated text corpora of Pomak with state-of-the-art NLP technology. These resources will be made openly available on the XXXX site and the gold annotated corpora of Pomak will be made available on the Universal Dependencies treebank repository.
Enhancing Documentation of Hupa with Automatic Speech Recognition (2022)

This study investigates applications of automatic speech recognition (ASR) techniques to Hupa, a critically endangered Native American language from the Dene (Athabaskan) language family. Using around 9h12m of spoken data produced by one elder who is a first-language Hupa speaker, we experimented with different evaluation schemes and training settings. On average a fully connected deep neural network reached a word error rate of 35.26{\%}. Our overall results illustrate the utility of ASR for making Hupa language documentation more accessible and usable. In addition, we found that when training acoustic models, using recordings with transcripts that were not carefully verified did not necessarily have a negative effect on model performance. This shows promise for speech corpora of indigenous languages that commonly include transcriptions produced by second-language speakers or linguists who have advanced knowledge in the language of interest.
Do Language Models Make Human-like Predictions about the Coreferents of Italian Anaphoric Zero Pronouns? (2022)

Some languages allow arguments to be omitted in certain contexts. Yet human language comprehenders reliably infer the intended referents of these zero pronouns, in part because they construct expectations about which referents are more likely. We ask whether Neural Language Models also extract the same expectations. We test whether 12 contemporary language models display expectations that reflect human behavior when exposed to sentences with zero pronouns from five behavioral experiments conducted in Italian by Carminati (2005). We find that three models - XGLM 2.9B, 4.5B, and 7.5B - capture the human behavior from all the experiments, with others successfully modeling some of the results. This result suggests that human expectations about coreference can be derived from exposure to language, and also indicates features of language models that allow them to better reflect human behavior.
Language Acquisition through Intention Reading and Pattern Finding (2022)

One of AI`s grand challenges consists in the development of autonomous agents with communication systems offering the robustness, flexibility and adaptivity found in human languages. While the processes through which children acquire language are by now relatively well understood, a faithful computational operationalisation of the underlying mechanisms is still lacking. Two main cognitive processes are involved in child language acquisition. First, children need to reconstruct the intended meaning of observed utterances, a process called intention reading. Then, they can gradually abstract away from concrete utterances in a process called pattern finding and acquire productive schemata that generalise over form and meaning. In this paper, we introduce a mechanistic model of the intention reading process and its integration with pattern finding capacities. Concretely, we present an agent-based simulation in which an agent learns a grammar that enables them to ask and answer questions about a scene. This involves the reconstruction of queries that correspond to observed questions based on the answer and scene alone, and the generalization of linguistic schemata based on these reconstructed question-query pairs. The result is a productive grammar which can be used to map between natural language questions and queries without ever having observed the queries.
Stability of Syntactic Dialect Classification over Space and Time (2022)

This paper analyses the degree to which dialect classifiers based on syntactic representations remain stable over space and time. While previous work has shown that the combination of grammar induction and geospatial text classification produces robust dialect models, we do not know what influence both changing grammars and changing populations have on dialect models. This paper constructs a test set for 12 dialects of English that spans three years at monthly intervals with a fixed spatial distribution across 1,120 cities. Syntactic representations are formulated within the usage-based Construction Grammar paradigm (CxG). The decay rate of classification performance for each dialect over time allows us to identify regions undergoing syntactic change. And the distribution of classification accuracy within dialect regions allows us to identify the degree to which the grammar of a dialect is internally heterogeneous. The main contribution of this paper is to show that a rigorous evaluation of dialect classification models can be used to find both variation over space and change over time.
Subject Verb Agreement Error Patterns in Meaningless Sentences: Humans vs. BERT (2022)

Both humans and neural language models are able to perform subject verb number agreement (SVA). In principle, semantics shouldn`t interfere with this task, which only requires syntactic knowledge. In this work we test whether meaning interferes with this type of agreement in English in syntactic structures of various complexities. To do so, we generate both semantically well-formed and nonsensical items. We compare the performance of BERT-base to that of humans, obtained with a psycholinguistic online crowdsourcing experiment. We find that BERT and humans are both sensitive to our semantic manipulation: They fail more often when presented with nonsensical items, especially when their syntactic structure features an attractor (a noun phrase between the subject and the verb that has not the same number as the subject). We also find that the effect of meaningfulness on SVA errors is stronger for BERT than for humans, showing higher lexical sensitivity of the former on this task.
Measuring Morphological Fusion Using Partial Information Decomposition (2022)

Morphological systems across languages vary when it comes to the relation between form and meaning. In some languages, a single meaning feature corresponds to a single morpheme, whereas in other languages, multiple meaning features are bundled together into one morpheme. The two types of languages have been called agglutinative and fusional, respectively, but this distinction does not capture the graded nature of the phenomenon. We provide a mathematically precise way of characterizing morphological systems using partial information decomposition, a framework for decomposing mutual information into three components: unique, redundant, and synergistic information. We show that highly fusional languages are characterized by high levels of synergy.
Smells like Teen Spirit: An Exploration of Sensorial Style in Literary Genres (2022)

It is well recognized that sensory perceptions and language have interconnections through numerous studies in psychology, neuroscience, and sensorial linguistics. Set in this rich context we ask whether the use of sensorial language in writings is part of linguistic style? This question is important from the view of stylometrics research where a rich set of language features have been explored, but with insufficient attention given to features related to sensorial language. Taking this as the goal we explore several angles about sensorial language and style in collections of lyrics, novels, and poetry. We find, for example, that individual use of sensorial language is not a random phenomenon; choice is likely involved. Also, sensorial style is generally stable over time - the shifts are extremely small. Moreover, style can be extracted from just a few hundred sentences that have sensorial terms. We also identify representative and distinctive features within each genre. For example, we observe that 4 of the top 6 representative features in novels collection involved individuals using olfactory language where we expected them to use non-olfactory language.
Metaphorical Polysemy Detection: Conventional Metaphor Meets Word Sense Disambiguation (2022)

Linguists distinguish between novel and conventional metaphor, a distinction which the metaphor detection task in NLP does not take into account. Instead, metaphoricity is formulated as a property of a token in a sentence, regardless of metaphor type. In this paper, we investigate the limitations of treating conventional metaphors in this way, and advocate for an alternative which we name {\textquoteleft}metaphorical polysemy detection' (MPD). In MPD, only conventional metaphoricity is treated, and it is formulated as a property of word senses in a lexicon. We develop the first MPD model, which learns to identify conventional metaphors in the English WordNet. To train it, we present a novel training procedure that combines metaphor detection with {\textquoteleft}word sense disambiguation' (WSD). For evaluation, we manually annotate metaphor in two subsets of WordNet. Our model significantly outperforms a strong baseline based on a state-of-the-art metaphor detection model, attaining an ROC-AUC score of .78 (compared to .65) on one of the sets. Additionally, when paired with a WSD model, our approach outperforms a state-of-the-art metaphor detection model at identifying conventional metaphors in text (.659 F1 compared to .626).