Forwarded message from Archna below

---------- Forwarded message ---------
Von: Archna Bhatia <[email protected]>
Date: Do., 9. Feb. 2023 um 19:58 Uhr
Subject: Re: [Corpora-List] Deadline extension: 19th Workshop on Multiword
Expressions (MWE 2023)
To: Ada Wan <[email protected]>, kilian Evang <[email protected]>
Cc: Mike Scott <[email protected]>, [email protected] <
[email protected]>, [email protected] <
[email protected]>


Thanks, Ada. I think using the terms “fixed” and “idiomatic” make the
category appear more restrictive, and would need qualifications such as
“fixed” is a relative term here, etc. With “multiwords/multiword
expressions” also, there are stipulations (the notion of wordhood may not
be applicable to every single language and in the same way) but since the
term has been used for a long while, there is a bit of a shared
understanding of this term, including about these stipulations. I am open
to better terminology. Using just “expressions”, however, seems too vague
and loses some generalizations about the idiosyncrasies that "multiword
expressions” demonstrate. Every expression in not the same, “multiword
expressions” show characteristics different from other expressions. I
understand there is some fluidity also there when trying to distinguish
between multiwords and non multiword expressions.

There are so many angles that one could look at language from. I don’t see
anything wrong with the view that studies expressions covering all aspects
as you suggest without distinguishing between expressions based on notions
of wordhood. The task you suggest will help in developing understanding
about language and how languages are similar or different and how they are
used.  I don’t think it disqualifies efforts that distinguish between
“multiword expressions” and non-multiword expressions though, and the
idiosyncrasies are not limited to morphology/syntax, idiosyncrasies are
found in other linguistic aspects too when characterizing "multiword
expressions”.

~ Archna

On Feb 9, 2023, at 11:17 AM, Ada Wan <[email protected]> wrote:

Hi Archna, hi Kilian, hi all

Thanks for your replies.

TLDR on my part: I'd be fine going with "expressions" (instead of
"fixed/idiomatic expressions"). Neither "word" nor "morphology/syntax"
(apart from the ordering of elements and/or sequential patterns) is
necessary in the analyses of such.

-----

More specifically:

[@Archna] Re "fixed/idiomatic expressions": I don't think it matters much
whether they are "fixed" or "idiomatic". A "fixed expression" is one that
is usually more impervious to (lexical) change. One can measure this
quality in a longitudinal study, e.g. in relation to other aspects of
language change etc.. Re how "fixed" is "fixed": it's relative, much like
many other aspects of language studies. By "idiomatic", one could mean that
there is an element of idiosyncrasy (as "idiom"/"idioma").

The message that I am trying to get across is that "word" is a superflous
category in the study of language. Would you mind please justifying why you
need "words"?

The same goes for morphology, actually. In essence, morphological analyses
involve selective decomposition, not decomposition of all decomposable
units. Hence if one is only accounting for variations within an expression
as a ((sub-)character) sequence involving "morphemes" (assuming definable
rigorously) and discounting the changes in other parts of the sequence,
that would be an incomplete analysis of the expression. Instead, one can
just refer to expressions as "expressions", as e.g. sequences/strings of
various lengths/vocabs in (sub-)characters --- such an account is also more
flexible and accommodating to diverse languages/registers/modalities.

A study of "expressions" can cover all other aspects --- not just lexical
but also functional ones. One doesn't need to incorporate/impose any ad hoc
notions of "wordhood" in these studies.

Suggestion: I believe there are many more interesting tasks in this area,
instead of trying to find/define "words" within expressions, or to "parse"
them according to some structuralist assumptions (i.e.
morphologically/syntactically). For example, the community could start
(some multi-year project) building an international multilingual parallel
(note: not everything would be parallelizable) database of all expressions
and terminologies ever existed with contextual (historical/cultural/social)
information and start verifying their sources and status of current use.
(Just be aware, though, that one is not reinforcing values that shouldn't
be further emphasized / transfered to posterity --- as an ethical
consideration. So if something is in the grey area now, document clearly
what the current attitudes towards a certain value are, so posterity can
look back and evaluate with respect to their point of view.)

Counter questions to Archna:
What are the motivations behind your suggestion to access/interpret
language using "words"? How do you define "words" and justify the
sufficiency/necessity of morphology/syntax in relation to the study of
these expressions, esp. when the morphological decomposition of these
expressions is arbitrary and helps little (or not at all) with explanation
or prediction?

Re "complex lexical terms", @Kilian: I'm just wondering what kind of terms
that would be considered "terms" that wouldn't be considered lexical (I was
tempted to add "lexical" to "expressions" as well, but thought that might
be a bit redundant)? It depends on how one defines "terms", of course. And
how "complex" are expressions really? They are just more calcified units
after all, aren't they? (Why do we/some always seem to want to add the term
"complex" to everything? Things that aren't "complex" are also worthy of
studying!)

Curious what you think...

Thanks and best
Ada

Why I'm advocating #noWords:
Fairness in Representation for Multilingual NLP: Insights from Controlled
Experiments on Conditional Language Modeling
https://openreview.net/forum?id=-llS6TiOew
<https://nam02.safelinks.protection.outlook.com/?url=https%3A%2F%2Fopenreview.net%2Fforum%3Fid%3D-llS6TiOew&data=05%7C01%7Cabhatia%40ihmc.org%7C3d437044e42f42c2c61408db0ab92ccb%7C2b38115bebad4aba9ea3b3779d8f4f43%7C1%7C0%7C638115562691707319%7CUnknown%7CTWFpbGZsb3d8eyJWIjoiMC4wLjAwMDAiLCJQIjoiV2luMzIiLCJBTiI6Ik1haWwiLCJXVCI6Mn0%3D%7C3000%7C%7C%7C&sdata=jea7YNI7295cJ2CY0jwxrsjID7DcDqerqI3IQxj9hUc%3D&reserved=0>
https://drive.google.com/file/d/1eKbhdZkPJ0HgU1RsGXGFBPGameWIVdt9/view
<https://nam02.safelinks.protection.outlook.com/?url=https%3A%2F%2Fdrive.google.com%2Ffile%2Fd%2F1eKbhdZkPJ0HgU1RsGXGFBPGameWIVdt9%2Fview&data=05%7C01%7Cabhatia%40ihmc.org%7C3d437044e42f42c2c61408db0ab92ccb%7C2b38115bebad4aba9ea3b3779d8f4f43%7C1%7C0%7C638115562691707319%7CUnknown%7CTWFpbGZsb3d8eyJWIjoiMC4wLjAwMDAiLCJQIjoiV2luMzIiLCJBTiI6Ik1haWwiLCJXVCI6Mn0%3D%7C3000%7C%7C%7C&sdata=ZZ%2F8v%2FsH6RRAlIxLYsG1tYvFOFaTZFzVtCfvsQ8ZcuY%3D&reserved=0>
(It took me a while for everything to sink in.)


On Thu, Feb 9, 2023 at 3:27 PM Mike Scott via Corpora <
[email protected]> wrote:

> I must say I'm perfectly happy with "multi-word expression", or
> "multi-word unit".
>
> I feel sympathy with Archna's post (and incidentally wish Archna didn't
> have to go through a friend!)
> Cheers -- Mike
>
> --
>
> Mike Scottlexically.net 
> <https://nam02.safelinks.protection.outlook.com/?url=http%3A%2F%2Flexically.net%2F&data=05%7C01%7Cabhatia%40ihmc.org%7C3d437044e42f42c2c61408db0ab92ccb%7C2b38115bebad4aba9ea3b3779d8f4f43%7C1%7C0%7C638115562691707319%7CUnknown%7CTWFpbGZsb3d8eyJWIjoiMC4wLjAwMDAiLCJQIjoiV2luMzIiLCJBTiI6Ik1haWwiLCJXVCI6Mn0%3D%7C3000%7C%7C%7C&sdata=lnpEPfv%2B4UmB1e0xVkC4hsIs%2B9GqwDnSzzMpwiFWZHw%3D&reserved=0>
> Lexical Analysis Software and Aston University
>
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--
Archna Bhatia, Ph.D.
Research Scientist, Institute for Human & Machine Cognition
15 SE Osceola Ave, Ocala, FL 34471
(352) 387-3061
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