LingBrowser: An active, Interactive and Intelligent Linguistic Content Browser Employing Natural Language Processing Technology

智能的、交互式的、可上网的工具有助于学习其他语言。在语言学项目和国际科学与工程办公室的支持下，由土耳其计算语言学家凯马尔·奥夫拉泽博士和专门研究音系学和形态的美国语言学家莎伦·因凯拉斯博士领导的一个研究小组将开发一种名为LingBrowser的新的多维工具，其目标是向语言学家和语言专业的学生提供关于土耳其语单词和文本的即时信息。LingBrowser可以分析从单个单词到整个文本的任何内容。一旦用户给出一个文本，LingBrowser将为用户高亮显示的任何单词提供有关发音、形态分析(显示复杂单词的部分及其含义)、语义(单词和某些短语的含义)以及在某种程度上的句法(确定高亮显示单词的词性及其在包含它们的句子中的语法角色)的即时信息。LingBrowser可以向用户显示同一文本中与突出显示的单词具有相同词根甚至相同结尾的其他单词，并在出现歧义时提供帮助。土耳其语中的许多单词都是模棱两可的，至少从包含它们的句子的上下文来看是这样。LingBrowser将列出给定单词的所有可能含义，并按上下文中可信的顺序对用户的含义进行排名。LingBrowser还可以立即列出文本中包含突出显示的一个或多个单词的所有句子，供用户查找有关特定单词或短语在土耳其语中的确切使用情况的更多信息。LingBrowser将是一个非常有用的研究工具，对于寻求更多地了解土耳其语语法(语音、词法、句法)的专业语言学家和高级语言学生以及翻译人员来说都是如此。它体现了词典的所有功能，但远远超出了词典所能提供的功能。LingBrowser将在土耳其和美国的一系列合作访问期间开发，它在计算方面具有创新性；它将是语言学专业学生使用的第一个基于自然语言处理(NLP)的高级文本浏览和探索工具。它的平台无关性使其具有高度的适应性，可在不同类型的计算机上使用，其模块化设计使其不仅可以轻松适应土耳其语以外的语言，而且以后还可以适应其他类型的使用，包括为更初级的语言学习者进行的语言教学练习。LingBrowser的广泛影响有两个方面：(A)LingBrowser将使土耳其语语法研究的活动增加，以及(B)基于LingBrowser中体现的计算创新，增加其他语言的相关计算工具的开发。该奖项由NSF国际科学与工程办公室共同资助。

Intelligent, interactive and internet-accessible tools can be helpful in learning (about) other languages. With support from both the Linguistics Program and the Office of International Science and Engineering, a research team led by Dr. Kemal Oflazer, a Turkish computational linguist, and Dr. Sharon Inkelas, an American linguist specializing in phonology and morphology, will develop a new, multidimensional tool, called LingBrowser, whose aim is to make available to linguists and language students instantaneous information about Turkish words and texts. LingBrowser can analyze anything from a single word to an entire text. Once given a text by the user, LingBrowser will provide, for any words that the user highlights, instantaneous information about pronunciation, morphological analysis (showing the parts of complex words and their meanings), semantics (the meanings of words and some phrases) and, to some degree, syntax (determining the part of speech of highlighted words and their grammatical role in the sentence containing them). LingBrowser can show the user other words in the same text which share the same root or even the same endings as the highlighted word, and offer assistance in cases of ambiguity. Many words in Turkish are ambiguous, at least when viewed out of the context of the sentence containing them. LingBrowser will list all of the possible meanings of a given word and rank, for the user, the meanings in order of plausibility in context. LingBrowser can also instantly list all of the sentences in the text containing a highlighted word or words, for users seeking more information about how exactly a particular word or phrase is used in Turkish. LingBrowser will be a highly useful research tool both to professional linguists seeking to learn more about the grammar (phonology, morphology, syntax) of Turkish and to advanced students of the language as well as translators. It embodies all of the functionality of dictionaries but goes far beyond what a dictionary can offer. LingBrowser, which will be developed during a series of collaborative visits both in Turkey and in the United States, is computationally innovative; it will be the first advanced natural language processing (NLP)-based text browsing and exploration tool for use by linguistics students. Its platform independence makes it highly adaptable, usable on different types of computers, and its modular design makes it easily adaptable not only to languages other than Turkish but also, down the road, to additional types of uses, including language instruction drills for the more elementary language learner. The broader impacts of LingBrowser are twofold: (a) an increase in activity in research into Turkish grammar that LingBrowser will make possible, and (b) an increase in the development of related computational tools for other languages, based on the computational innovations embodied in LingBrowser.This award is co-funded by NSF's Office of International Science and Engineering.