<html><body style="word-wrap: break-word; -webkit-nbsp-mode: space; -webkit-line-break: after-white-space; "><div><blockquote type="cite"><div bgcolor="#ffffff" text="#000000"><br> <br> <div align="center">Mark Liberman <br> University of Pennsylvania <br> January 22<br> Tuesday 11 am<br> RI 480<br> Ellis Avenue<br> </div> <br> <div align="center"><b>On the nature of linguistic knowledge </b><br> </div> <br> A number of puzzles about speech and language are solved, or at least simplified, if we adopt the view that some kinds of linguistic knowledge, normally modeled as symbolic strings or structures, are instead discrete random variables: that is, probability distributions over a space of possible strings or structures. This perspective also allows a radically simple piece of antique learning theory to be brought to bear, with results that may be surprising to some. Illustrations of this claim will include the development of shared vocabulary within a speech community; the case of phonological "near mergers"; many of the phenomena generally cited in support of "exemplar theory", e.g. the phonological effects of common contexts of use; and some key aspects of the puzzling problem of intersubjective (dis)agreement in linguistic annotation. <br> <br> <br> Mark Liberman is Trustee Professor of Phonetics; Professor in the Departments of Linguistics and Computer Science; and Director of the Linguistic Data Consortium -- all at the University of Pennsylvania.<br> <br> He is the guest of the Computation Institute this coming Tuesday, January 22 at 11am, in RI 480 (Research Institute, Ellis Avenue), as part of its Deep Disciplinary Dive on language and computation.<br> <br> <br> </div> </blockquote></div><br><div> <span class="Apple-style-span" style="border-collapse: separate; border-spacing: 0px 0px; color: rgb(0, 0, 0); font-family: Helvetica; font-size: 12px; font-style: normal; font-variant: normal; font-weight: normal; letter-spacing: normal; line-height: normal; text-align: auto; -khtml-text-decorations-in-effect: none; text-indent: 0px; -apple-text-size-adjust: auto; text-transform: none; orphans: 2; white-space: normal; widows: 2; word-spacing: 0px; "><div style="word-wrap: break-word; -khtml-nbsp-mode: space; -khtml-line-break: after-white-space; "><span class="Apple-style-span" style="border-collapse: separate; border-spacing: 0px 0px; color: rgb(0, 0, 0); font-family: Helvetica; font-size: 12px; font-style: normal; font-variant: normal; font-weight: normal; letter-spacing: normal; line-height: normal; text-align: auto; -khtml-text-decorations-in-effect: none; text-indent: 0px; -apple-text-size-adjust: auto; text-transform: none; orphans: 2; white-space: normal; widows: 2; word-spacing: 0px; "><p style="margin: 0.0px 0.0px 0.0px 0.0px"><font face="Helvetica" size="3" style="font: 12.0px Helvetica">Nita</font></p><p style="margin: 0.0px 0.0px 0.0px 0.0px; font: 12.0px Helvetica; min-height: 14.0px"><br></p><p style="margin: 0.0px 0.0px 0.0px 0.0px"><font face="Helvetica" size="3" style="font: 12.0px Helvetica">**************************</font></p><p style="margin: 0.0px 0.0px 0.0px 0.0px"><font face="Helvetica" size="3" style="font: 12.0px Helvetica">Nita Yack</font></p><p style="margin: 0.0px 0.0px 0.0px 0.0px"><font face="Helvetica" size="3" style="font: 12.0px Helvetica">Departmental Administrator</font></p><p style="margin: 0.0px 0.0px 0.0px 0.0px"><font face="Helvetica" size="3" style="font: 12.0px Helvetica">Computer Science Department</font></p><p style="margin: 0.0px 0.0px 0.0px 0.0px"><font face="Helvetica" size="3" style="font: 12.0px Helvetica">1100 E. 58th Street - Room 151</font></p><p style="margin: 0.0px 0.0px 0.0px 0.0px"><font face="Helvetica" size="3" style="font: 12.0px Helvetica">Chicago, IL 60637</font></p><p style="margin: 0.0px 0.0px 0.0px 0.0px"><font face="Helvetica" size="3" style="font: 12.0px Helvetica">(773) 702-6019</font></p><p style="margin: 0.0px 0.0px 0.0px 0.0px"><font face="Helvetica" size="3" style="font: 12.0px Helvetica">(773) 702-8487 FAX</font></p><p style="margin: 0.0px 0.0px 0.0px 0.0px"><br class="khtml-block-placeholder"></p><p style="margin: 0.0px 0.0px 0.0px 0.0px"><font class="Apple-style-span" face="Arial" size="4"><span class="Apple-style-span" style="font-size: 16px;; font-family: Arial; "><span class="Apple-style-span" style="font-family: Arial; font-size: 16px; "><span class="Apple-style-span" style="font-family: Arial; font-size: 16px; ">"Hard work spotlights the character of people: some turn up their </span></span></span></font><font class="Apple-style-span" face="Arial" size="4"><span class="Apple-style-span" style="font-size: 16px;; font-family: Arial; "><span class="Apple-style-span" style="font-family: Arial; font-size: 16px; "><span class="Apple-style-span" style="font-family: Arial; font-size: 16px; ">sleeves, some turn up their noses, and </span></span></span></font><font class="Apple-style-span" face="Arial" size="4"><span class="Apple-style-span" style="font-size: 16px;; font-family: Arial; "><span class="Apple-style-span" style="font-family: Arial; font-size: 16px; "><span class="Apple-style-span" style="font-family: Arial; font-size: 16px; ">some don't turn up at all."</span></span></span></font></p><br class="Apple-interchange-newline"></span></div></span> </div><br></body></html>