4.0790 Rs: QV2/RSV; Ethiopic; Grammar; Parsing; ... (7/136)

Elaine Brennan & Allen Renear (EDITORS@BROWNVM.BITNET)
Sun, 2 Dec 90 23:43:08 EST

Humanist Discussion Group, Vol. 4, No. 0790. Sunday, 2 Dec 1990.


(1) Date: Wed, 28 Nov 90 15:48 EST (22 lines)
From: "DAVID L. BARR" <DBARR@WSU.BITNET>
Subject: Quick Verse

(2) Date: Wed, 28 Nov 90 21:03:49 +0000 (35 lines)
From: Dominik Wujastyk <ucgadkw@ucl.ac.uk>
Subject: ETHIOPIC E-TEXTS (4.0750)

(3) Date: Wed, 28 Nov 90 21:09:05 +0000 (24 lines)
From: Dominik Wujastyk <ucgadkw@ucl.ac.uk>
Subject: Re: 4.0753 Rs: Hyphenation

(4) Date: Tue, 27 Nov 90 17:48 PST (8 lines)
From: "Vicky A. Walsh" <IMD7VAW@UCLAMVS.BITNET>
Subject: Parsing Projects

(5) Date: Fri, 30 Nov 90 18:02:14 EST (5 lines)
From: Germaine Warkentin <WARKENT@vm.epas.utoronto.ca>
Subject: Grammar checkers

(6) Date: Wed, 28 Nov 90 09:29:28 MST (20 lines)
From: koontz@alpha.bldr.nist.gov (John E. Koontz)
Subject: Re: 4.0767 Native American Lists

(7) Date: Thu, 29 Nov 90 11:29:32 PST (22 lines)
From: Joseph Jones <USERLJOE@UBCMTSL.BITNET>
Subject: Rs: Twain quotation

(1) --------------------------------------------------------------------
Date: Wed, 28 Nov 90 15:48 EST
From: "DAVID L. BARR" <DBARR@WSU.BITNET>
Subject: Quick Verse

I obtained QV2 only yesterday, but so far can report that it works quite
well. I got the New RSV text and retrieval is very fast (because it is
completely indexed). Takes a little over 3mb. The ability of a
supplemental program called QV Companion to output text directly into a
word processor (in my case WP5.1) is truely remarkable. No intermediate
files and complete flexibility in both your request (word matches or
reference) and in format.

It is not true boolean logic, but you can do searches in the formats:
& word1 word2 (gets verses with both words)
| word1 word2 (gets verses with either word)

I would be glad to respond to specific questions, but can report that my
initial impression is very positive.

David L. Barr, University Honors Program, Wright
State University, Dayton, OH 45435 dbarr@wsu.bitnet or
dbarr@desire.wright.edu

(2) --------------------------------------------------------------60----
Date: Wed, 28 Nov 90 21:03:49 +0000
From: Dominik Wujastyk <ucgadkw@ucl.ac.uk>
Subject: ETHIOPIC E-TEXTS (4.0750)

> Humanist Discussion Group, Vol. 4, No. 0750. Monday, 26 Nov 1990.
> Date: Sun, 25 Nov 90 15:28:14 CST
> From: "Robin C. Cover" <ZRCC1001@SMUVM1>

> Can anyone advise me on the availability of machine-readable texts in
> Ethiopic (Ge`ez, not modern Amharic)? Specifically, I need to contact
> someone with a digitized version of the Ethiopic Bible (taken from
> medieval manuscripts). Any hints, even the barest hints, in the right
> direction will be deeply appreciated. Reports from visitors to Ethiopia
> tell of the destruction of monasteries (with valuable manuscripts) even
> as you read this posting.

> Robin Cover [...]

Dear Robin,

Two things come to mind. First, a gentleman wrote an article in TUGboat
about a year ago about an Ethiopic font that he had developed using
Metafont. That suggests some texts somewhere, although I don't
recall any explicit mention of any.

More importantly, given the tragic destruction of Ethiopia's culture
that you so rightly draw attention to (like Tibet's), the Hill Monastic
Manuscripts Library, based at St John's University, Collegevill,
Minnesota, has a long standing program of microfilming Ethiopic MSS in
Ethiopia. I don't know if they are still filming, but they have been at
it for at least a decade, and a great deal of the film at HMML has been
catalogued. They have excellent facilities for study there.

Dominik

(3) --------------------------------------------------------------46----
Date: Wed, 28 Nov 90 21:09:05 +0000
From: Dominik Wujastyk <ucgadkw@ucl.ac.uk>
Subject: Re: 4.0753 Rs: Hyphenation; Machine Xlation (2/27)

> Humanist Discussion Group, Vol. 4, No. 0753. Monday, 26 Nov 1990.
> Date: Sat, 24 Nov 90 14:50 EST
> From: MORGAN TAMPLIN <TAMPLIN@TrentU.CA>

[...]
> Wouldn't it be more efficient to use a program based on a hyphenation
> algorithm? Admittedly these are not perfect, but they can be tailored
> to the language/style of the corpus to be hyphenated.
[...]
> Trent University
> TAMPLIN@TRENTU.CA

Precisely. What I actually want to do is to build a hyphenation table
for British English, for use with TeX, using Frank Liang's program
PATGEN. The hyphenation that TeX does (and most other "English"
hyphenators) is specifically for American English, which hyphenates
slightly but noticeably differently from British English.

Dominik

(4) --------------------------------------------------------------143---
Date: Tue, 27 Nov 90 17:48 PST
From: "Vicky A. Walsh" <IMD7VAW@UCLAMVS.BITNET>
Subject: Re: 4.0766 Qs: Computing Related (4/166)

A parsing project that may not be well known was done by Thomas
Rindflesch, U of Minnesota Ph.D. dissertation, I'm not sure of the year
or title but must be 1988 or 89.
Vicky Walsh, UCLA

(5) --------------------------------------------------------------28----
Date: Fri, 30 Nov 90 18:02:14 EST
From: Germaine Warkentin <WARKENT@vm.epas.utoronto.ca>
Subject: Grammar checkers

A colleague I am tempting to join Humanist sends the following:
----------------------

Thanks for sending along the stuff from Humanist. I have something to
contribute to the person who originally asked about reviews of grammar
checkers. A colleague of mine here, a student and I did a fairly compre-
hensive review of several commercially available software packages. The
resultant paper was recently presented by my colleague and will
eventually appear in <<Behavior Research Instruments, Methods, and
Computers>>. An advance copy of the paper is available upon request
from William Hayes, Professor of Psychology, Albion College, Albion MI
49224, USA <Hayes@Albion>. Hayes had the original idea, I designed the
experiment, the student ran it, Hayes and I collaborated on interpreting
the results, I drafted the paper, Hayes edited and presented it recently
in New Orleans.

James W. Cook, Professor of English, Albion College
<JCook@Albion>.

(6) --------------------------------------------------------------36----
Date: Wed, 28 Nov 90 09:29:28 MST
From: koontz@alpha.bldr.nist.gov (John E. Koontz)
Subject: Re: 4.0767 Qs: General (6/97)

[...]
In response to Joel Elliott's request for a discussion group dedicated to
Native American interests, I recommend:

NativeNet: nn.general@gnosys.svle.ma.us
Gary S. Trujillo, Editor: gst@gnosys.svle.ma.us

(7) --------------------------------------------------------------28----
Date: Thu, 29 Nov 90 11:29:32 PST
From: Joseph Jones <USERLJOE@UBCMTSL.BITNET>
Subject: Rs: Twain quotation

There may be no answer. An entry exists in one of the most
authoritative reference sources (Respectfully quoted : a dictionary of
quotations requested from the Congressional Research Service /
Washington : Library of Congress, 1989. Item 2003):

"When I was a boy of 14, my father was so ignorant I could hardly stand
to have the old man around. But when I got to be 21, I was astonished
at how much the old man had learned in seven years."

Attributed to Mark Twain ... Reader's Digest, September 1939,
p. 22. Unverified.

This has been widely reprinted and attributed to Twain, but
has never been found in his works, though various Twain groups
and the Twain Papers staff have searched for it.

That's the entry.
Joseph Jones, Reference Librarian