John Goldsmith, Yu Hu, Irina Matveeva, and Colin Sprague 

A heuristic for morpheme discovery based on string edit distance

 In this journal said talks about study about this topic, we must to learn about morphology of languages, that is, with a high average number of morphemes per word. In this paper, the writer focus in Swahili, a major Bantu language of East Africa, and the goal is the development of a system that can automatically produce a morphological analyzer of a text on the basis of a large corpus. In addition, the writer wan to present a new bootstrapping heuristic, one that is particularly useful in the analysis of languages with rich morphologies and that is based on the string edit distance dynamic programming algorithm. To show that how it works and how it can be used to rank and quantify the robustness of morphological generalizations in a set of data.

As we know, the bootstrapping heuristic is designed to rapidly come up with a set of candidate strings of morphemes, while the model consists of an explicit formulation of either what constitute an adequate morphology for a set of data, or  an objective function that must be optimized, given a corpus of data, in order to find the correct morphological analysis.

According Goldsmith (2001) for using the discovery of signatures as the bootstrapping heuristic, where a signature is a maximal set of stems and suffixes with the property that all combinations of stems and suffixes are found in the corpus in question. So, we can conclude, In particular, a signature is a set of forms that can be characterized by the rule of the bootstrapping heuristic.

In the all part of this paper, we can conclude, the SED-based heuristic is empirically superior to the SF- and PF-based heuristics as a means of identifying morphemes in natural languages with rich morphologies. The SED-based heuristic that we have described is a rapid method for analyzing data from languages such as Swahili and the other Bantu with a rich morphology, and coming u

Pragmatics

Pragmatics is the study of meaning of words, phrases and full sentences, but unlike semantics which deals with the objective meanings of words that can be found in dictionaries, pragmatics is more concerned with the meanings that words in fact convey when they are used, or with intended speaker meaning as it is sometimes referred to. It can be said that pragmatics attempts to analyze how it happens that often more is communicated than said. As frequently the meaning of discourse is context-dependant, pragmatics examines the devices used by language users (ex. deictic expressions, or anaphora) in order to express the desired meaning and how it is perceived.

The interpretation of what meanings the speaker wanted to convey using particular words is often influenced by factors such as the listeners’ assumptions or the context. In pragmatics two types of context can be differentiated: linguistic context and physical context. Linguistic context, sometimes called co-text is the set of words that surround the lexical item in question in the same phrase, or sentence. The physical context is the location of a given word, the situation in which it is used, as well as timing, all of which aid proper understating of the words.

There are numerous frequently used words which depend on the physical context for their correct understanding, such as: there, that, it, or tomorrow. Terms like that are known as deictic expressions. Depending on what such words refer to they can be classified as person deixis: him, they, you; spatial deixis: there, here; and temporal deixis: then, inanhour, tomorrow. However, in pragmatics it is assumed that words do not refer to anything by themselves and it is people who in order to grasp the communicated idea perform an act of identifying what the speaker meant. This act is called reference.

Another act involved in the analysis of discourse so as to make an association between what is said and what must be meant is inference and it is often used in connection with anaphora. Anaphora is subsequent mentioning of a formerly introduced item, as in the following sentences: ‘He went to a shop’, ‘ It was closed’. When shop was mentioned for the second time the pronoun it was used to refer to it. Moreover, when people make use of such linguistic devices they necessarily make some assumptions about the knowledge of the speaker. Although some of the assumptions might be wrong, most of them are usually correct what makes the exchange of information smooth. What the producer of discourse correctly assumes to be known by the text’s recipient is described as a presupposition.

In addition to that, pragmatics is also concerned with the functions of utterances such as promising, requesting, informing which are referred to as speech acts. Certain grammatical structures are associated with corresponding functions, as in the interrogative structure ‘Do you drink tea?’ the functions is questioning. Such a case can be described as a direct speech act. However, when the interrogative structure is used to fulfill a different purpose as in ‘Can you close the window?’ where it clearly is not a question about ability, but a polite request, such a situation is described as an indirect speech act.

The use of both directs and indirect speech acts is strongly connected with the linguistic concept of politeness. Politeness in the study of language is defined as showing awareness of others people self-image by adjusting own speech style. Every person’s self image in pragmatics is called face and utterances presenting a threat to the interlocutor are known as face-threatening acts, while those which lessen the threats are called face saving acts. It is assumed that the use of indirect questions is characteristic of face saving acts.

Modern English

     

The Origins and Development of the English Language, 6th ed., by John Algeo (Wadsworth Publishing, 2009)

Observations:

• Standardization of English
  "The early part of the modern English period saw the establishment of the standard written language that we know today. The standardization of the language was due in the first place to the need of the central government for regular procedures by which to conduct its business, to keep its records, and to communicate with the citizens of the land. Standard languages are usually the byproducts of bureaucracy . . . rather than spontaneous developments of the folk or the artifice of writers and scholars. John H. Fisher (1977, 1979) argues that standard English was first the language of the Court of Chancery, founded in the 15th century to give prompt justice to English citizens and to consolidate the King's influence in the nation. It was then taken up by early printers, who adapted it for other purposes and spread it wherever their books were read, until finally it fell into the hands of school teachers, dictionary makers, and grammarians.
  
  Inflectional and syntactical developments in this early Modern English are important, if somewhat less spectacular than the phonological ones. They continue the trend established during Middle English times that changed our grammar from a synthetic to an analytic system."
  (Thomas Pyles and John Algeo, The Origins and Development of the English Language. Harcourt, 1982)

• "The printing press, the reading habit, and all forms of communication are favorable to the spread of ideas and stimulating to the growth of the vocabulary, while these same agencies, together with social consciousness . . ., work actively toward the promotion and maintenance of a standard, especially in grammar and usage."
  (Albert C. Baugh and Thomas Cable, A History of the English Language. Prentice-Hall, 1978)

• The Normative Tradition
  "From its very early days, the Royal Society concerned itself with matters of language, setting up a committee in 1664 whose principal aim was to encourage the members of the Royal Society to use appropriate and correct language. This committee, however, was not to meet more than a couple of times. Subsequently, writers such as John Dryden, Daniel Defoe, and Joseph Addison, as well as Thomas Sheridan's godfather, Jonathan Swift, were each in turn to call for an English Academy to concern itself with language--and in particular to constrain what they perceived as the irregularities of usage."
  (Ingrid Tieken-Boon van Ostade, "English at the Onset of the Normative Tradition." The Oxford History of English, ed. by Lynda Mugglestone. Oxford Univ. Press, 2006)

• Global English
  "As for the view of English beyond Britain, the tentative optimism of the 18th century gave way to a new view of 'global English,' an outlook in which confidence turned into triumphalism. A turning point in this emergent idea occurred in January 1851 when the great philologist Jacob Grimm declared to the Royal Academy in Berlin that English 'may be called justly a language of the world: and seems, like the English nation, to be destined to reign in future with still more extensive sway over all parts of the globe.' . . . Dozens of comments expressed this wisdom: 'The English tongue has become a rank polyglot, and is spreading over the earth like some hardy plant whose seed is sown by the wind,' as Ralcy Husted Bell wrote in 1909. Such views led to a new perspective on multilingualism: those who did not know English should set promptly about learning it!"
  (Richard W. Bailey, "English Among the Languages." The Oxford History of English, ed. by Lynda Mugglestone. Oxford Univ. Press, 2006)