Submitted by Renata Lopes (renatasil82@gmail.com) on 2016-06-09T14:49:23Z No. of bitstreams: 1 milenecristinedecastroteixeira.pdf: 1373244 bytes, checksum: 7bba0e38b23013ba9fba481b4563dce8 (MD5) / Approved for entry into archive by Adriana Oliveira (adriana.oliveira@ufjf.edu.br) on 2016-07-13T13:34:42Z (GMT) No. of bitstreams: 1 milenecristinedecastroteixeira.pdf: 1373244 bytes, checksum: 7bba0e38b23013ba9fba481b4563dce8 (MD5) / Made available in DSpace on 2016-07-13T13:34:42Z (GMT). No. of bitstreams: 1 milenecristinedecastroteixeira.pdf: 1373244 bytes, checksum: 7bba0e38b23013ba9fba481b4563dce8 (MD5) Previous issue date: 2012-02-29 / CAPES - Coordenação de Aperfeiçoamento de Pessoal de Nível Superior / Este estudo investiga as capacidades de abstração e generalização de padrões linguísticos nas etapas iniciais do processo de aquisição de língua materna, privilegiando relações de dependências não-adjacentes (DNA) e explora a relação entre itens funcionais e marcadores de palavras de Nome (word markers). Diferentemente de trabalhos anteriores, que usaram línguas totalmente artificiais – cujas propriedades fonológicas, morfológicas e prosódicas eram muito simples –, esta pesquisa usa uma língua pseudonatural, preservando tais propriedades. A conciliação entre um modelo de processamento voltado para a aquisição da linguagem (Bootstrapping Fonológico: Morgan & Demuth, 1996; Christophe et al., 1997) e um modelo de língua que considere níveis de interface entre o sistema linguístico e outros sistemas – perceptuais e cognitivos (Programa Minimalista: Chomsky 1995; 1999 e obras posteriores) - permite compreender a passagem de um nível de representação fonético/fonológico para um nível de representação formal. Assumindo-se ainda que mecanismos estatísticos e de abstração e generalização são recursos precocemente disponíveis e explorados por bebês no processo de categorização de elementos lexicais (Marcus et al., 1999; Gómez, 2002; Newport & Aslin, 2004), a conciliação entre o modelo de língua e o modelo de processamento pretende explicitar o modo como a criança extrai do continuum sonoro, além de pistas distribucionais e prosódicas, propriedades dos traços formais dos elementos funcionais nos quais o Sistema Computacional age resultando na derivação linguística. Bebês, com média de idade de 11 meses, foram expostos durante um curto período de tempo a uma língua diferente de sua língua materna e, posteriormente, expostos a novos DPs congruentes ou não aos apresentados anteriormente. Os resultados indicam que os bebês reagiram à diferença de padrões de DNA em função daqueles previamente apresentados, escutando por mais tempo padrões não familiarizados, sugerindo que a partir de uma curta exposição a uma língua pseudonatural – diferente do padrão do PB – bebês, aos 11 meses, são capazes de abstrair e generalizar o padrão dessa “língua”. Tais resultados sugerem que mecanismos de abstração e generalização podem ser recursos utilizados por crianças no processo inicial de aquisição lexical. / This study investigates the capacities of abstraction and generalization of linguistic patterns in the early stages of the acquisition of mother tongue, emphasizing the relationship of nonadjacent dependencies (DNA) and exploring the relationship between functional items and word markers of nouns. Unlike previous studies, which used artificial languages - whose phonological, morphological and prosodical properties were very simple - this research uses a pseudonatural language, preserving such properties. The conciliation between a psycholinguistic model aimed at the acquisition of language (Phonological Bootstrapping: Morgan & Demuth, 1996; Christophe et al., 1997) and a linguistic theory based on interface levels (Minimalist Program, Chomsky, 1995; 1999) allows us to understand the passage from one level of phonetic/phonological representation to a level of formal representation. Assuming also that statistical mechanisms of abstraction and generalization are resources available to infants and exploited early by them in the process of categorization of lexical (Marcus et al., 1999; Gómez, 2002; Newport & Aslin, 2004), the conciliation between the two theories aims to clarify how the child extracts from the sonorous continuum as well as distributional and prosodic clues, properties of the formal traces of the functional elements in which the Computational System acts resulting linguistic derivations. Babies at 11 months were exposed for a short period of time to a language other than their mother tongue and later exposed to new DPs congruent or not to those previously presented. The results indicate that babies reacted to different patterns of DNA according to those previously presented, listening longer to unfamiliar patterns, suggesting that from a short exposure to a pseudonatural language, babies at 11 months are able to abstract and generalize the pattern of this language. These results suggest that mechanisms of abstraction and generalization can be used by children in the initial process of language acquisition.

Submitted by Renata Lopes (renatasil82@gmail.com) on 2017-05-19T15:26:21Z No. of bitstreams: 1 lucianadeoliveirafariaazevedo.pdf: 2448500 bytes, checksum: eaee6df3b32bee6f42619f40a226e17f (MD5) / Approved for entry into archive by Adriana Oliveira (adriana.oliveira@ufjf.edu.br) on 2017-05-19T15:55:07Z (GMT) No. of bitstreams: 1 lucianadeoliveirafariaazevedo.pdf: 2448500 bytes, checksum: eaee6df3b32bee6f42619f40a226e17f (MD5) / Made available in DSpace on 2017-05-19T15:55:07Z (GMT). No. of bitstreams: 1 lucianadeoliveirafariaazevedo.pdf: 2448500 bytes, checksum: eaee6df3b32bee6f42619f40a226e17f (MD5) Previous issue date: 2008-08-29 / Esta dissertação aborda o processo de aquisição lexical por crianças brasileiras e investiga, particularmente, a relação entre categoria conceitual e categoria lingüística, e propriedades morfofonológicas do adjetivo. A hipótese que orienta esta dissertação é a de que a nomeação dos objetos e a presença de morfemas característicos de adjetivos são pistas robustas usadas pelas crianças no processo de aquisição de novos adjetivos. Adota-se uma perspectiva psicolingüística da aquisição da linguagem que pretende a conciliação de um modelo de processamento lingüístico (modelos de Bootstrapping Fonológico e Sintático), com um modelo de língua proposto pela Teoria Gerativa. A conciliação entre os modelos visa a explicar, satisfatoriamente, a forma pela qual a criança se torna capaz de, uma vez exposta a uma língua natural, extrair do material lingüístico ao qual é apresentada os elementos formadores do léxico de sua língua. Foram desenvolvidas duas atividades experimentais, usando-se a técnica de identificação de objeto, com crianças de dois e três anos. A primeira avalia o reconhecimento de novos adjetivos, comparando-se a apresentação de objetos nomeados (uma flor tapoja) ou com nomes vagos (uma coisa tapoja). No segundo experimento, foram acrescentados aos pseudo-adjetivos os sufixos -oso/a e –ado/a (uma casa jufosa) / uma coisa jufosa), em vista de investigar o papel do sufixo juntamente com a nomeação dos objetos como facilitadores na identificação do adjetivo pela criança. Adjetivos acompanhados de nome (Exper. 1) são mais facilmente identificados, mas quando acrescidos de sufixo (Exper. 2) são reconhecidos mesmo na presença de nomes vagos. Os resultados são compatíveis com nossa hipótese, pois sugerem que a nomeação e a marca morfofonológica são pistas robustas usadas pelas crianças para identificar novos adjetivos. / This dissertation approaches the process of lexical acquisition for Brazilian children and it investigates, particularly, the relationship among conceptual category and linguistic category, and properties morphophonological of the adjective. The hypothesis that guides this dissertation is the one that the nomination of the objects and the presence of morphemes characteristic of adjectives are robust tracks used by the children in the process of acquisition of new adjectives. A perspective psycholinguistic of the acquisition of the language is adopted that intends the conciliation of a model of linguistic processing (models of Phonological and Syntactic Bootstrapping), with a language model proposed by the Generative Theory. The conciliation among the models seeks to explain, satisfactorily, the form for the which the child becomes capable of, once exposed to a natural language, to extract of the linguistic material to which is presented the elements that form the lexicon of your language. Two experimental activities were developed, being used the technique of object identification, with two three year-old children. The first evaluates the recognition of new adjectives, being compared the presentation of nominated objects (a tapoja flower) or with vague names (a tapoja thing). In the second experiment, they were increased to the pseudo-adjectives the suffixes -oso/a and -ado/a (a jufosa house) / a jufosa thing), in view of investigating the paper of the suffix together with the nomination of the objects as facilitators in the identification of the adjective for the child accompanied Adjectives of name (Exper. 1) they are more easily identified, but when added of suffix (Exper. 2) they are recognized even in the presence of vague names. The results are compatible with our hypothesis, because they suggest that the nomination and the mark morphophonological are robust tracks used by the children to identify new adjectives.

La linguistique informatique est un domaine de recherche qui se concentre sur les méthodes et les perspectives de la modélisation formelle (statistique ou symbolique) de la langue naturelle. La linguistique informatique, tout comme la linguistique théorique, est une discipline fortement modulaire : les niveaux d'analyse linguistique comprennent la segmentation, l'analyse morphologique, la désambiguïsation, l'analyse syntaxique et sémantique. Tandis qu'un nombre d'outils existent déjà pour les traitements de bas niveau (analyse morphologique, étiquetage grammatical), le hongrois peut être considéré comme une langue peu doté pour l'analyse syntaxique et sémantique. Le travail décrit dans la présente thèse vise à combler ce manque en créant des ressources pour le traitement syntaxique du hongrois : notamment, un analyseur en chunks et une base de données lexicale de schémas de sous-catégorisation verbale. La première partie de la recherche présentée ici se concentre sur la création d'un analyseur syntaxique de surface (ou analyseur en chunks) pour le hongrois. La sortie de l'analyseur de surface est conçue pour servir d'entrée pour un traitement ultérieur visant à annoter les relations de dépendance entre le prédicat et ses compléments essentiels et circonstanciels. L'analyseur profond est mis en œuvre dans NooJ (Silberztein, 2004) en tant qu'une cascade de grammaires. Le deuxième objectif de recherche était de proposer une représentation lexicale pour la structure argumentale en hongrois. Cette représentation doit pouvoir gérer la vaste gamme de phénomènes qui échappent à la dichotomie traditionnelle entre un complément essentiel et un circonstanciel (p. ex. des structures partiellement productives, des écarts entre la prédictibilité syntaxique et sémantique). Nous avons eu recours à des résultats de la recherche récente sur la réalisation d'arguments et choisi un cadre qui répond à nos critères et qui est adaptable à une langue non-configurationnelle. Nous avons utilisé la classification sémantique de Levin (1993) comme modèle. Nous avons adapté les notions relatives à cette classification, à savoir celle de la composante sémantique et celle de l'alternance syntaxique, ainsi que la méthodologie d'explorer et de décrire le comportement des prédicats à l'aide de cette représentation, à la tâche de construire une représentation lexicale des verbes dans une langue non-configurationnelle. La première étape consistait à définir les règles de codage et de construire un vaste base de données lexicale pour les verbes et leurs compléments. Par la suite, nous avons entrepris deux expériences pour l'enrichissement de ce lexique avec des informations sémantiques lexicales afin de formaliser des généralisations syntaxiques et sémantiques pertinentes sur les classes de prédicats sous-jacentes. La première approche que nous avons testée consistait en une élaboration manuelle de classification de verbes en fonction de leur structure de compléments et de l'attribution de rôles sémantiques à ces compléments. Nous avons cherché la réponse aux questions suivantes: quelles sont les composants sémantiques pertinents pour définir une classification sémantique des prédicats hongrois? Quelles sont les implications syntaxiques spécifiques à ces classes? Et, plus généralement, quelle est la nature des alternances spécifiques aux classes verbales en hongrois ? Dans la phase finale de la recherche, nous avons étudié le potentiel de l'acquisition automatique pour extraire des classes de verbes à partir de corpus. Nous avons effectué une classification non supervisée, basée sur des données distributionnelles, pour obtenir une classification sémantique pertinente des verbes hongrois. Nous avons également testé la méthode de classification non supervisée sur des données françaises. / We present the creation of two resources for Hungarian NLP applications: a rule-based shallow parser and a database of verbal subcategorization frames. Hungarian, as a non-configurational language with a rich morphology, presents specific challenges for NLP at the level of morphological and syntactic processing. While efficient and precise morphological analyzers are already available, Hungarian is under-resourced with respect to syntactic analysis. Our work aimed at overcoming this problem by providing resources for syntactic processing. Hungarian language is characterized by a rich morphology and a non-configurational encoding of grammatical functions. These features imply that the syntactic processing of Hungarian has to rely on morphological features rather than on constituent order. The broader interest of our undertaking is to propose representations and methods that are adapted to these specific characteristics, and at the same time are in line with state of the art research methodologies. More concretely, we attempt to adapt current results in argument realization and lexical semantics to the task of labeling sentence constituents according to their syntactic function and semantic role in Hungarian. Syntax and semantics are not completely independent modules in linguistic analysis and language processing: it has been known for decades that semantic properties of words affect their syntactic distribution. Within the syntax-semantics interface, the field of argument realization deals with the (partial or complete) prediction of verbal subcategorization from semantic properties. Research on verbal lexical semantics and semantically motivated mapping has been concentrating on predicting the syntactic realization of arguments, taking for granted (either explicitly or implicitly) that the distinction between arguments and adjuncts is known, and that adjuncts' syntactic realization is governed by productive syntactic rules, not lexical properties. However, besides the correlation between verbal aspect or actionsart and time adverbs (e.g. Vendler, 1967 or Kiefer, 1992 for Hungarian), the distribution of adjuncts among verbs or verb classes did not receive significant attention, especially within the lexical semantics framework. We claim that contrary to the widely shared presumption, adjuncts are often not fully productive. We therefore propose a gradual notion of productivity, defined in relation to Levin-type lexical semantic verb classes (Levin, 1993; Levin and Rappaport-Hovav, 2005). The definition we propose for the argument-adjunct dichotomy is based on evidence from Hungarian and exploits the idea that lexical semantics not only influences complement structure but is the key to the argument-adjunct distinction and the realization of adjuncts

The present thesis is devoted to the lexical acquisition of bilingual speakers in their first language, specifically Russian-speaking individuals living in the Czech Republic. The aim of the thesis is to follow up on previous foreign and Czech studies, focusing on the lexical acquisition of bilingual speakers. Such lexical acquisition is slower in their first language than the acquisition of comparable monolingual individuals. In the theoretical part, the thesis discusses the concepts of bilingualism, lexical deficit and language dominance, and presents an analysis of several recent foreign and Czech studies on the topic of lexical acquisition of bilingual speakers. In next part, we introduce the Russian-speaking community in the Czech Republic and the speech behaviour of this minority in the Czech Republic. The core of the thesis is a sophisticated experimental research design, which includes a verbal fluency test, a picture naming task and a questionnaire survey. The pre- survey for the picture naming task was conducted with participation of 243 respondents whose mother tongue is Russian. The output of the paper is a design of an experiment that can be followed up by further research. Keywords bilingualism, lexical acquisition, linguistic dominance, Russian-speaking community in the Czech Republic

Souvent, lorsque les locuteurs d'une langue n'ont pas accès à l'item conventionnel pour étiqueter un objet ou un événement, ils étendent, consciemment ou inconsciemment, le sens d'un autre item lexical disponible. Ce phénomène se produit particulièrement au cours de la phase d'acquisition lexicale des jeunes enfants. Lorsqu'une telle sur-extension sémantique va au-delà de la catégorie d'objet ou d'événement conventionnellement dénotée par l'item lexical produit, il s'agit d'une sur-extension catégorielle et l'énoncé produit est d'allure métaphorique: par exemple, « déshabiller la pomme » pour l'action peler une pomme est un énoncé d'allure métaphorique. Tout d'abord, cette thèse a permis de développer SLAM, un système de résolution lexicale automatique des métaphores produites en situation de manque du mot. SLAM s'appuie, d'une part, sur l'analyse syntaxique de grands corpus et, d'autre part, sur la structure Petit Monde Hiérarchique des réseaux lexicaux de synonymie. Par exemple, à partir des énoncés « elle déshabille* la pomme » ou « les bras* de l'arbre », SLAM permet d'obtenir les interprétations suivantes: respectivement, « elle pèle une pomme » et « les branches de l'arbre ».Ensuite, cette thèse a permis d'étudier spécifiquement la dynamique d'acquisition du lexique des verbes qui se stabilise après celui des noms. D'une part, des outils méthodologiques pour l'étude inter-linguistique de la dynamique d'acquisition du lexique des verbes ont été élaborés: (a) un cadre méthodologique pour la construction de procédures d'identification des sur-extensions sémantiques catégorielles des verbes; (b) une méthodologie pour le repérage des stimuli visuels d'action sans biais culturel. D'autre part, les liens entre la structure des réseaux lexicaux de synonymie et la dynamique d'acquisition du lexique des verbes en français et en mandarin ont été mis au jour. Après avoir pointé des différences dans la dynamique d'acquisition du lexique des verbes par les jeunes enfants natifs du français et du mandarin, cette étude a servi à construire le score REFLEX, mesure du degré d'acquisition du lexique des verbes, qui permet de catégoriser automatiquement les jeunes enfants vs adultes en français et en mandarin. / When speakers have no access to the conventional label for an object or an event, they tend to extend, consciously or not, the meaning of another available lexical label. This phenomenon often occurs during the lexical acquisition stage of young children. When a such overextension goes beyond the conventional object or event category denoted by the produced label, it is a categorical overextension and the produced utterance is metaphorical: for instance, ``to undress an apple'' for the action to peel an apple is metaphorical.During this thesis, I developed SLAM, a computational system that automatically gives lexical solutions to metaphors filling a lexical gap. SLAM is based on a syntactic analysis of large corpora and on the Hierarchical Small World structure of synonymy networks. For instance, when the produced utterances are ``elle déshabille* une pomme'' ( ``she undresses* an apple'') or ``les bras* de l'arbr'' (``the arms* of the tree''), SLAM gives the interpretations here after: respectively, ``elle pèle une pomme'' (``she peels an apple'') and ``les branches de l'arbre'' (``the branches of the tree'').Then, I studied the dynamics of verb lexicon acquisition that is longer than noun lexicon acquisition. On the one hand, I built methodological tools for inter-linguistic studies of the dynamics of verb lexicon acquisition: (a) a methodological frame to build procedures to identify categorical overextensions of verbs; (b) a methodology to detect visual stimuli containing actions without cultural bias. On the other hand, I highlighted the links between the structure of synonymy networks and the dynamics of verbs lexicon acquisition in french and mandarin. This study has indicated differences in dynamics of verb lexicon acquisition between french and mandarin native speakers. Finally, I built REFLEX, a score that indicates the degree of verb lexicon acquisition and automatically categorizes young children vs adults in french and mandarin.

Cette thèse présente un environnement ouvert et souple pour l'acquisition automatique d'expressions multimots (MWE) à partir de corpus textuels monolingues. Cette recherche est motivée par l'importance des MWE pour les applications du TALN. Après avoir brièvement présenté les modules de l'environnement, le mémoire présente des résultats d'évaluation intrinsèque en utilisant deux applications: la lexicographie assistée par ordinateur et la traduction automatique statistique. Ces deux applications peuvent bénéficier de l'acquisition automatique de MWE, et les expressions acquises automatiquement à partir de corpus peuvent à la fois les accélérer et améliorer leur qualité. Les résultats prometteurs de nos expériences nous encouragent à mener des recherches ultérieures sur la façon optimale d'intégrer le traitement des MWE dans ces applications et dans bien d'autres / This thesis presents an open and flexible methodological framework for the automatic acquisition of multiword expressions (MWEs) from monolingual textual corpora. This research is motivated by the importance of MWEs for NLP applications. After briefly presenting the modules of the framework, the work reports extrinsic evaluation results considering two applications: computer-aided lexicography and statistical machine translation. Both applications can benefit from automatic MWE acquisition and the expressions acquired automatically from corpora can both speed up and improve their quality. The promising results of our experiments encourage further investigation about the optimal way to integrate MWE treatment into these and many other applications.

Submitted by Renata Lopes (renatasil82@gmail.com) on 2016-04-05T13:59:08Z No. of bitstreams: 1 azussamatsuoka.pdf: 3758292 bytes, checksum: 774cb991b0c5692d75381aa929113ca5 (MD5) / Approved for entry into archive by Adriana Oliveira (adriana.oliveira@ufjf.edu.br) on 2016-04-24T03:40:59Z (GMT) No. of bitstreams: 1 azussamatsuoka.pdf: 3758292 bytes, checksum: 774cb991b0c5692d75381aa929113ca5 (MD5) / Made available in DSpace on 2016-04-24T03:40:59Z (GMT). No. of bitstreams: 1 azussamatsuoka.pdf: 3758292 bytes, checksum: 774cb991b0c5692d75381aa929113ca5 (MD5) Previous issue date: 2013-12-18 / CAPES - Coordenação de Aperfeiçoamento de Pessoal de Nível Superior / Esta tese investiga a contribuição das propriedades prosódicas da fala dirigida à criança (FDC) para a aquisição do adjetivo no Português Brasileiro (PB). No PB, os adjetivos constituem uma categoria sem marca morfológica obrigatória de gênero e sem posição sintática fixa. Além disso, adjetivos e nomes compartilham marcas morfofonológicas de gênero e número e podem aparecer imediatamente após o Determinante (DET) no DP, o que poderia dificultar a distinção entre essas duas categorias lexicais pela criança no processo de aquisição. Assim, esta tese busca, como objetivo geral, investigar o papel das pistas prosódicas de ADJ(etivo) na fala dirigida à criança brasileira para a aquisição lexical. Assumimos a perspectiva gerativista e o modelo de língua proposto pelo Programa Minimalista (CHOMSKY, 1995 e anos seguintes). Assumimos a Hipótese do Bootstrapping Prosódico (CHRISTOPHE et al.,1997; MORGAN & DEMUTH, 1996) como explicação do modo pelo qual a criança procede à formação do seu léxico inicial e à aquisição da sintaxe de sua língua, pela exploração de habilidades perceptuais. Como objetivos específicos, a presente tese busca: (i) em situação de interação mãe-criança, caracterizar propriedades prosódicas de N(ome) e ADJ no DP pleno na FDC; (ii) investigar a sensibilidade de bebês, em seu primeiro ano de vida, a pistas prosódicas da FDC brasileira, relativas ao posicionamento de ADJ no DP pleno; (iii) verificar o papel das pistas prosódicas de ADJ no PB no mapeamento de palavras novas a propriedades de objetos por crianças em torno de 2 e 3 anos. Na primeira atividade experimental, observamos que os parâmetros prosódicos de ADJ são realçados, se comparados aos de N, em FDC produzida em situação de interação semiespontânea. Na segunda atividade experimental, bebês em seu primeiro ano de vida parecem ser sensíveis às distinções de ordem prosódica dos DPs plenos, nos quais a posição do ADJ foi manipulada. Na terceira atividade experimental, crianças de 2 e 3 anos exploraram pistas prosódicas de ADJ para o mapeamento de pseudopalavras em função de adjetivos. Em conjunto, os resultados obtidos são compatíveis com a hipótese de que as pistas prosódicas são fonte robusta para a distinção dos elementos lexicais de N e ADJ na FDC brasileira e sustentam a tese de que o uso dessas pistas pode ser relevante para a aquisição de ADJ e para o desencadeamento do processo de aquisição lexical pela criança brasileira. / This thesis investigates the role of prosodic properties of infant directed speech (IDS) for the acquisition of adjectives in Brazilian Portuguese (BP). In BP, adjectives constitute a category that does not present fixed morphological mark or syntactic position. Besides, adjectives and nouns share mopho-phonological morphemes, and either one can follow DET- in the DP. This study aims at investigating the role of prosodic cues of ADJ(ective) in Brazilian IDS for distinguishing lexical elements of ADJ(adjectivs) and N(ouns) and for the process of language acquisition. The generative language model proposed by Chomsky (1995, and subsequent works), Minimalism Program is assumed. We also assume the Prosodic/Phonological Bootstrapping Hypothesis (MORGAN & DEMUTH, 1996; CHRISTOPHE et al., 1997) that explains how children acquire their lexicon exploring perceptual abilities. Our specific objectives are: (i) characterize prosodic properties of N and ADJ in the DP, in a mother-child interactive situation; (ii) investigate infants sensitivity to prosodic cues of Brazilian IDS, related to the position of ADJ in the DP; (iii) verify the role of prosodic properties of the adjective in BP for the mapping of pseudo words to object properties by 2- and 3- year-old children. In the first experiment, we observed that ADJ is accented, in comparison to N, when IDS was produced in a semi-spontaneous environment. In the second experiment, infants were sensitive to prosodic distinctions in DPs, in which the position of ADJ was manipulated. In the third experiment, 2- and 3- year-old used prosodic cues of ADJ to map novel words to properties. Our results are compatible with the hypothesis that prosodic cues are reliable sources of information for the distinction of the lexical elements of N and ADJ in Brazilian IDS and indicate that prosodic cues might be relevant for the acquisition of ADJ and for the bootstrapping of the process of lexical acquisition by Brazilian children.

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No. of bitstreams: 1 milenecristinedecastroteixeiralaguardia.pdf: 2174544 bytes, checksum: 2efb54d1db55344c6cc5db2a04382473 (MD5) Previous issue date: 2016-11-03 / CAPES - Coordenação de Aperfeiçoamento de Pessoal de Nível Superior / Este estudo diz respeito às etapas iniciais da aquisição lexical, focalizando a capacidade de o bebê identificar, abstrair e generalizar padrões de dependências não-adjacentes (DNAs) nos enunciados linguísticos e de usá-los na categorização inicial de elementos do léxico. Nossa tese é que o estabelecimento de relações entre elementos de DNAs é parte da etapa inicial de aquisição lexical e que, para tal estabelecimento, além de habilidades perceptuais, faz-se necessário o uso de habilidades computacionais – de manipulação de símbolos através de algoritmos – que torne possíveis (i) o reconhecimento e a identificação de elementos interrelacionados, que se apresentam em configuração de DNAs, e (ii) a abstração e generalização desses padrões a novos estímulos. DNAs são definidas como a co-ocorrência de marcadores morfossintáticos e/ou fonológicos, com material interveniente. Elegeram-se as DNAs como objeto de estudo por serem altamente frequentes nas línguas naturais e expressarem relações morfossintáticas (p.ex., concordância verbal, nominal de gênero e/ou de número etc.). Trabalhos com línguas artificiais (SAFFRAN et al 1996; GOMEZ et al. 2006; GOMEZ & MAYE, 2005; GOMEZ & LAKUSTA, 2004; LANGUS et al 2012 ; VAN DEN BOS et al 2012) sustentam que habilidades estatísticas e probabilísticas, de domínio geral, subjazem ao tratamento de DNAs por bebês e adultos. Nossa hipótese, em consonância com Marcus et al. (1999) e Peña et al. (2002), é que tais habilidades, sozinhas, não dão conta do tratamento de DNAs em língua natural e, portanto, bebês recorrem tanto a mecanismos gerais quanto a mecanismos computacionais/simbólicos, especificamente linguísticos, na aquisição de uma língua. Duas atividades experimentais foram desenvolvidas, com os seguintes objetivos específicos: (i) investigar se em ambiente prosódico determinado – alinhadas à fronteiras de sintagmas fonológicos – DNAs seriam mais facilmente percebidas por bebês do que em ambientes em que estão distantes de fronteiras fonológicas (Experimento 1 – participantes: bebês canadenses e bebês brasileiros, com média de idade de 11 meses); (ii) investigar se bebês são capazes de categorizar linguisticamente os elementos do léxico a partir do reconhecimento, abstração e generalização de DNAs (Experimento 2- participantes: bebês brasileiros, com média de idade de 11 meses). Nossos resultados são discutidos a partir de uma abordagem mista/integrada, que assume habilidades gerais e especificamente linguísticas no tratamento de enunciados pelo bebê durante o processo inicial de aquisição (GERVAIN & MEHLER, 2010; ENDRESS, NESPOR & MEHLER, 2009) e na hipótese do Bootstrapping prosódico (MORGAN & DEMUTH, 1996; CHRISTOPHE et al., 1997, 2008) e indicam que um ambiente prosódico específico (presença de fronteiras de sintagmas fonológicos) favorece o reconhecimento, abstração e generalização de DNAs e que estas favorecem a categorização inicial de itens do léxico. / This study investigates the initial stages of language acquisition by focusing on infant’s ability to identify, abstract and generalize non adjacent dependency (NAD) patterns in linguistic stimuli and also use them in initial word categorization. NAD is defined as the cooccurrence of morphosyntactic and/or phonological markers over one (or more) intervening element. Our thesis is that the identification of NAD relationships is part of initial lexical acquisition. Infants use perceptual and computational abilities in order to (i) recognize the related terms which appears in NAD configuration, and (ii) abstract and generalize these patterns to new stimuli. NAD was chosen as focus of this study since they are highly frequent elements in natural languages and they express morphosyntactic agreement ( verbal and noun ones). Research on NAD learning using artificial languages argue that statistical and probabilistic abilities, which belong to general cognitive domains, underlie the NAD treatment by infants and adults (SAFFRAN et al 1996; GOMEZ et al. 2006; GOMEZ & MAYE, 2005; GOMEZ & LAKUSTA, 2004; LANGUS et al 2012 ; VAN DEN BOS et al 2012). Our hypothesis, according to Marcus et al. (1999) e Peña et al. (2002), is that infants use as domain general mechanisms as well computational/symbolic, domain specific mechanisms are also necessary to NAD learning. Two experiments were conducted in order to: (i) explore if NAD in a specific prosodic context – aligned to phonological phrase boundary – are better perceived by 11-month-old infants than when they are far from a phonological phrase boundary (Experiment 1 – Canadian and Brazilian infants; (ii) to explore if 11-month-old infants can track and represent NAD at an abstract level and use them to categorize novel content words (Experiment 2 – Brazilian infants. Our results suggest that NAD aligned to prosodic phrase boundaries facilitate its recognition, abstraction and generalization and that abstract level representation of NAD promotes the initial word categorization. Taken together, our results are consistent with the prosodic bootstrapping hypothesis (MORGAN & DEMUTH, 1996; CHRISTOPHE et al., 1997, 2008) and lend support to an integrated approach with assumes that general and specific domain abilities are necessary for language acquisition (GERVAIN & MEHLER, 2010; ENDRESS, NESPOR & MEHLER, 2009).

Aquesta tesi tracta l'adquisició automàtica de classes semàntiques per a adjectius. La tesi es basa en dues hipòtesis. La primera, que alguns aspectes de la semàntica dels adjectius no són totalment impredictibles, sinó que corresponen a un conjunt de tipus denotacionals, o classes semàntiques. En conseqüència, els adjectius es poden agrupar en funció de la seva classe semàntica. La segona hipòtesi de treball és que la classe semàntica es reflecteix en més d'un nivell de descripció lingüística. Les interfícies entre morfologia i semàntica i entre sintaxi i semàntica són les que s'exploren en detall a la tesi. Com que no ens podíem basar en una classificació establerta prèviament, bona part dels esforços van dirigits precisament a definir una classificació adequada. La proposta de classificació s'assoleix mitjançant una metodologia iterativa. Es combinen aproximacions deductives i inductives, cosa que permet evolucionar d'una classificació inicial basada en la bibliografia teòrica a una classificació final que té en compte els resultats empírics dels diversos experiments. / Esta tesis versa sobre la adquisición automática de clases semánticas para adjetivos. La tesis se basa en dos hipótesis. La primera, que algunos aspectos de la semántica de los adjetivos no son totalmente impredecibles, sino que corresponden a un conjunto de tipos denotacionales, o clases semánticas. En consecuencia, los adjetivos se pueden agrupar en función de su clase semántica. La segunda hipótesis de trabajo es que la clase semántica se refleja en más de un nivel de descripción lingüística. Las interfaces entre morfología y semántica y entre sintaxis y semántica son las que se exploran en detalle en la tesis. Dado que no nos podíamos basar en una clasificación establecida previamente, buena parte de los esfuerzos van dirigidos precisamente a definir una clasificación adecuada. La propuesta de clasificación se logra mediante una metodología iterativa. Se combinan aproximaciones deductivas e inductivas, cosa que permite evolucionar de una clasificación inicial basada en la bibliografía teórica a una clasificación final que tiene en cuenta los resultados empíricos de los diversos experimentos. / This thesis concerns the automatic acquisition of semantic classes for adjectives. Our work builds on two hypotheses: first, that some aspects of the semantics of adjectives are not totally unpredictable, but correspond to a set of denotational types (semantic classes). Therefore, adjectives can be grouped together according to their semantic class. Second, that the semantic class of an adjective can be traced in more than one linguistic level. In particular, the morphology-semantics and syntax-semantics interfaces are explored for clues that lead to the acquisition of the targeted semantic classes.Since we could not rely on a previously established classification, a major effort is devoted to defining an adequate classification. The classification proposal is reached through an iterative methodology. By combining deductive and inductive approaches, we evolve from an initial classification based on literature review to a final classification proposal that takes advantage of the insight gained through a set of experiments.

Este trabajo presenta un estudio empírico del uso y función del metalenguaje en el conocimiento científico experto y los lenguajes de especialidad en lengua inglesa, con especial atención al establecimiento, modificación y negociación de la terminología común del grupo de especialistas de cada área. Mediante enunciados discursivos llamados Operaciones Metalingüísticas Explícitas se formaliza y analiza el carácter dinámico de las estructuras conceptuales científicas y los sublenguajes que las vehiculan.Por otro lado, se presenta la implementación de un sistema automático de extracción de información metalingüística en textos de especialidad. El sistema MOP (Metalinguistic Operation Processor) extrae enunciados metalingüísticos y definiciones de documentos especializados, utilizando tanto autómatas de estados finitos como algoritmos de aprendizaje automático. El sistema crear bases semi-estructuradas de información terminológica llamadas Metalinguistic Information Databases (MID), de utilidad para la lexicografía especializada, el procesamiento del lenguaje natural y el estudio empírico de la evolución del conocimiento científico, entre otras aplicaciones. / This work presents an empirical study of the use and function of metalanguage in expert scientific knowledge and special-domain languages, with special focus on how each field's terminology is established, modified and negotiated within the group of experts. Through discourse statements called Explicit metalinguistic Operations the dynamic nature of conceptual structures and the sublanguages that embody them are formalized and analyzed.On the other hand, it presents a system implementation for the automatic extraction of metalinguistic information from specialized texts. The Metalinguistic Operation Processor (MOP) system extracts metalinguistic statements and definitions from special-domain documents, using finite-state machinery and machine-learning algorithms. The system creates semi-structured databases called Metalinguistic Information Databases (MID), useful for specialized lexicography, Natural Language Processing, and the empirical study of scientific knowledge, among other applications.