{"id":103,"date":"2009-04-15T16:50:09","date_gmt":"2009-04-15T14:50:09","guid":{"rendered":"http:\/\/elanguage.net\/blogs\/booknotices\/?p=103"},"modified":"2009-04-15T16:50:09","modified_gmt":"2009-04-15T14:50:09","slug":"language-cohesion-and-form","status":"publish","type":"post","link":"https:\/\/journals.linguisticsociety.org\/booknotices\/?p=103","title":{"rendered":"Language, cohesion and form."},"content":{"rendered":"

Language, cohesion and form.<\/strong><\/span> By <\/span>Margaret Masterman<\/strong><\/span>, ed. by <\/span>Yorick Wilks<\/strong><\/span>. (Studies in natural language processing.) Cambridge: Cambridge University Press, 2005. Pp. x, 312. ISBN 0521454891<\/a>. $101 (Hb).<\/span><\/p>\n

Reviewed by <\/span>Aleksandar \u010carapi\u0107<\/strong><\/span>, <\/span>University of Belgrade<\/em><\/span><\/p>\n

Language, cohesion and form<\/em><\/span> brings together some of the most influential papers by Margaret Masterman (1910\u20131986), a pioneer in the field of computational linguistics and the founder of the Cambridge Language Research Unit. According to the editor, Yorick Wilks, the collection \u2018is a posthumous tribute to Margaret Masterman\u2019, which aims to represent \u2018the influence of her ideas and life on the development of processing of language by computers, a part of what would now be called artificial intelligence\u2019 (ix). <\/span><\/p>\n

\n

In addition to the editor\u2019s preface, the collection consists of eleven chapters, which are organized into five parts. Part 1, \u2018<\/span>Basic forms for language structure\u2019<\/span> (21\u201380), opens with Ch. 1, \u2018Words\u2019, which\u2014using the term \u2018word\u2019 in the sense used by logicians\u2014discusses three typical philosophers\u2019 replies to the question \u2018What is a word?\u2019. Ch. 2, \u2018Fans and heads\u2019, is an extreme instance of M\u2019s idea that certain kinds of logical formalism were essential for understanding the function of language. Outlining a sketch of a mathematical model of language, Ch. 3, \u2018Classification, concept-formation and language\u2019, proposes an alternative method of analyzing language. <\/span><\/p>\n

\n

As the opening chapter of <\/span>Part 2<\/span>, \u2018<\/span>The thesaurus as a tool for machine translation<\/span>\u2019 (81\u2013146), Ch. 4, \u2018Potentialities of a mechanical thesaurus\u2019, deals with the thesaurus as an aid to mechanical translation (MT). It also provides examples of dictionary tree uses and outlines a mechanical translation program using a thesaurus. Ch. 5, \u2018What is a thesaurus\u2019, presents arguments for the necessity of an MT thesaurus.<\/span><\/p>\n

\n

Part 3<\/span>, \u2018<\/span>Experiments in machine translation\u2019<\/span> (147\u2013223), opens with Ch. 6, \u2018Agricola in curvo terram dimovit aratro\u2019, which, using Roget\u2019s Thesaurus, examines a first-stage translation from Latin into English. Ch. 7, \u2018Mechanical pidgin translation\u2019, provides \u2018an estimate of the research value of word-for-word translation into a language, rather than into the full normal form of an output language\u2019 (161). Ch. 8, \u2018Translation\u2019, presents a philosophical model of translation. <\/span><\/p>\n

\n

Ch. 9, \u2018Commentary on the Guberina hypothesis\u2019, opens <\/span>Part 4<\/span>, \u2018<\/span>Phrasings, breath groups and text processing\u2019<\/span> <\/em><\/span>(225\u201388). Ch. 10, \u2018Semantics algorithms\u2019, aims to compute semantic paragraph patterns.<\/span><\/p>\n

\n

Part 5, <\/span>\u2018Metaphor, analogy, and the philosophy of science\u2019<\/span> (281\u2013309), includes the final chapter, \u2018Braithwaite and Kuhn: Analogy-clusters within and without hypothetico-deductive systems in science\u2019, which, on the one hand, discusses Thomas Kuhn\u2019s relativist conceptions of science and of a paradigm, and on the other, Richard B. Braithwaite\u2019s account of science. <\/span><\/p>\n

\n

As the collection shows, M was ahead of her time because her beliefs and p<\/span>roposals \u2018for language processing by computer have now become part of the common stock of ideas in artificial intelligence (AI) and MT fields\u2019 (1). Some parts would not be easy to read without the commentaries of both the editor (Chs. 2, 8, and 10) and <\/span>Karen Sp\u00e4rk Jones<\/strong><\/span> (Ch. 6). In short, the collection represents an important document on the development of ideas related to AI and MT and is a nice tribute to a scientist whose ideas did not get sufficient attention during her lifetime. <\/span><\/p>\n

\n","protected":false},"excerpt":{"rendered":"

Language, cohesion and form. By Margaret Masterman, ed. by Yorick Wilks. (Studies in natural language processing.) Cambridge: Cambridge University Press, 2005. Pp. x, 312. ISBN 0521454891. $101 (Hb). Reviewed by Aleksandar \u010carapi\u0107, University of Belgrade Language, cohesion and form brings together some of the most influential papers by Margaret Masterman (1910\u20131986), a pioneer in the […]<\/p>\n","protected":false},"author":1,"featured_media":0,"comment_status":"closed","ping_status":"open","sticky":false,"template":"","format":"standard","meta":[],"categories":[],"tags":[],"_links":{"self":[{"href":"https:\/\/journals.linguisticsociety.org\/booknotices\/index.php?rest_route=\/wp\/v2\/posts\/103"}],"collection":[{"href":"https:\/\/journals.linguisticsociety.org\/booknotices\/index.php?rest_route=\/wp\/v2\/posts"}],"about":[{"href":"https:\/\/journals.linguisticsociety.org\/booknotices\/index.php?rest_route=\/wp\/v2\/types\/post"}],"author":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/journals.linguisticsociety.org\/booknotices\/index.php?rest_route=\/wp\/v2\/users\/1"}],"replies":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/journals.linguisticsociety.org\/booknotices\/index.php?rest_route=%2Fwp%2Fv2%2Fcomments&post=103"}],"version-history":[{"count":1,"href":"https:\/\/journals.linguisticsociety.org\/booknotices\/index.php?rest_route=\/wp\/v2\/posts\/103\/revisions"}],"predecessor-version":[{"id":104,"href":"https:\/\/journals.linguisticsociety.org\/booknotices\/index.php?rest_route=\/wp\/v2\/posts\/103\/revisions\/104"}],"wp:attachment":[{"href":"https:\/\/journals.linguisticsociety.org\/booknotices\/index.php?rest_route=%2Fwp%2Fv2%2Fmedia&parent=103"}],"wp:term":[{"taxonomy":"category","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/journals.linguisticsociety.org\/booknotices\/index.php?rest_route=%2Fwp%2Fv2%2Fcategories&post=103"},{"taxonomy":"post_tag","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/journals.linguisticsociety.org\/booknotices\/index.php?rest_route=%2Fwp%2Fv2%2Ftags&post=103"}],"curies":[{"name":"wp","href":"https:\/\/api.w.org\/{rel}","templated":true}]}}