Collaborative Proposal-Using the Web as a Corpus for Empirical Linguistic Research

。该项目将开发工具，使从万维网上检索基于词汇内容和句法结构的自然发生的句子成为可能，为语言学家提供一个即时的、容易访问的原始语言数据来源。pi将在词汇语义/语法接口上研究特定的语言假设，作为这些工具的说明性应用。在高层次上，这项计划工作是迈向语言学研究新范式的重要一步。网络语言学研究不再完全依赖于试图（否定）证明某一特定假设的语言学家产生的内省数据，而是将利用pi开发的方法和工具来提供自然发生的数据，这些数据可以作为理论的基础。关于具体的语言问题，目标是提供规则和约束的解释，这些规则和约束支配着三种及物性变化（中间、非宾格、未指定对象删除），并且pi期望通过他们的工具提供的数据能够阐明能力和表现之间的“灰色”区域，也就是说，似乎落在规则支配行为之外的语言行为。虽然自然发生的数据在生成语法中不被给予很大的重视，但文本语料库的使用在更大的语言事业中具有传统。在自然发生的文本世界中，万维网是一个爆炸性的新现象，它是一个本质上尚未开发的资源，体现了语言的丰富性和动态性，呈现了无与伦比的规模和多样性的数据资源。

. This project will develop tools that make it possible to retrieve naturally occurring sentences from the World Wide Web on the basis of lexical content and syntactic structure, providing linguists with an immediate, easily accessible source of raw linguistic data. The PIs will investigate specific linguistic hypotheses at the lexical semantics/syntax interface as an illustrative application of these tools. At a high level, the planned work constitutes an important step toward a new paradigm for linguistic research. Rather than relying entirely on introspective data generated by the linguist who is trying to (dis)prove a particular hypothesis, Web-enabled linguistics research will draw on the methodology and the tools developed by the PIs to supply naturally occurring data on which theories can rest. With regard to specific linguistic questions, the goal is to provide an explanation of the rules and constraints that govern three transitivity alternations (Middle, Unaccusative, Unspecified Object Deletion), and the PIs expect data made available by their tools to shed light on the "grey" area between competence and performance, that is, the linguistic behavior that seems to fall outside of rule-governed behavior. Although naturally occurring data are not accorded great emphasis in generative syntax, the use of text corpora has a tradition in the greater linguistic enterprise. An explosive new phenomenon in the world of naturally occurring text, the World Wide Web is an essentially untapped resource that embodies the rich and dynamic nature of language, presenting a data resource of unparalleled size and diversity.