We present semantic methods for showing that a term-rewriting system is confluent. We also present methods for completing a given term-rewriting system to obtain an equivalent confluent system. These methods differ from the well-known and widely studied Knuth-Bendix method in that they emphasize semantics rather than syntax. Also, they often require more user interaction than the purely syntact...

We show that jointly parsing a bitext can substantially improve parse quality on both sides. In a maximum entropy bitext parsing model, we define a distribution over source trees, target trees, and node-to-node alignments between them. Features include monolingual parse scores and various measures of syntactic divergence. Using the translated portion of the Chinese treebank, our model is traine...

This paper presents the theory, design and evaluation of a new type of computer-supported collaborative interface intended to help young children practice certain oral language skills critical for later written literacy acquisition. Based on a theory of “emergent literacy”, this paper describes a toy – TellTale – designed to let young children create, share and edit oral language in a way simil...

When we study how phonological representations align with syntactic and semantic representations, we principally study imperfect parallelism.1 Prosodic representations must be to some degree faithful to the syntactic and semantic representations they express (otherwise, prosodic cues would not be as useful as they in fact are in syntactic and semantic processing, Wagner & Watson (2010)). But th...

The standard view of English reduced auxiliaries takes them to be (postlexical) clitics (Kaisse 1983). However, Spencer (1991) puts forward some persuasive arguments that a subset of these forms, the non-syllabic reduced auxiliaries, are actually aaxes (tense innec-tions) rather than clitics, while the syllabic reduced auxiliaries are post-lexical clitics. We accept the logic of Spencer's posit...

This experimental study investigated the learners’ integrative acquisition of obligatory overt subjects and subject-verb clause agreement in English as an L2. In L1 acquisition research, correlations between superficially unrelated linguistic phenomena are analyzed in terms of integrative effects. For instance, in English L1 acquisition, there is evidence for an integrative appearance of subjec...

We demonstrate the charge state of C60 on a Cu(111) surface can be made optimal, i.e., forming C60(3-) as required for superconductivity in bulk alkali-doped C60, purely through interface reconstruction rather than with foreign dopants. We link the origin of the C60(3-) charge state to a reconstructed interface with ordered (4x4) 7-atom vacancy holes in the surface. In contrast, C60 adsorbed on...