Just published

  • Igor A. Mel’?uk (2013) Semantics. From meaning to text. Volume 2. Amsterdam/Philadelphia: John Benjamins. 416 pp. [Studies in Language Companion Series, 135] ISBN: 9027206023

This book presents an innovative approach to linguistic semantics, starting from the idea that language is a mechanism for the expression of linguistic meanings as particular surface forms (texts). Semantics is that system of rules that ensures a transition from a Semantic Representation of the meaning of a family of synonymous sentences to the Deep-Syntactic Representation of a particular sentence. Framed in terms of Meaning-Text linguistics, this volume discusses the Deep-Syntactic Representation and the transition from Semantics to Deep-Syntax via Semantic paraphrasing (the equivalence amongst Semantic Representations), Deep-Syntactic paraphrasing (the equivalence amongst Deep-Syntactic Representations), and the passage between the two. A chapter is dedicated to the Explanatory Combinatorial Dictionary, a semantically based and co-occurrence-centered lexicon. Reflecting the author’s life-long dedication to semantics and syntax, this book is a paradigm-shifting contribution to language studies whose originality and daring will make it essential reading for linguists, anthropologists, semioticians, and computational linguists.

  • Apresjan, J. et al. (eds.) 2012. Meaning, Text, and other Exciting Things. A Festschrift to Commemorate the 80th Anniversary of Professor Igor Alexandrovic Mel’cuk, In Languages of Slavic Culture, Moscow: RCK.

A new publication in linguistics. This book contains more than 50 contributions written by friends and colleagues in honour of Igor Mel’?uk

  • Igor A. Mel’?uk (2012) Semantics. From meaning to text. Amsterdam/Philadelphia: John Benjamins. xxii + 436 pp. [Studies in Language Companion Series, 129]

This book presents an innovative and novel approach to linguistic semantics, beginning with the idea that language can be described as a system for the expression of linguistic Meanings as particular surface forms or Texts. Semantics is specifically that system of rules that ensures a correct transition from a Semantic Representation of the Meaning of a family of synonymous sentences to the Deep Syntactic Representation of a particular sentence. Framed in the terms of Meaning-Text linguistics, this volume discusses in detail the problems of Semantic Representation —including the semantic structure of utterances, the semantics of Causation in English, and communicative, or information, structure. Based on the author’s life-long dedication to the study of the semantics and syntax of natural language, this book is a paradigm-shifting contribution to the language sciences whose originality and daring will make it essential reading for linguists, anthropologists, semioticians, and computational linguists.

A special issue of the Canadian Journal of Information Science and Library Science has just been published on the topic of text mining. This issue was prepared under the direction of two faculty members of EBSI also regular members at OLST:

  • Anctil, Dominic (2011) L’erreur lexicale au secondaire  analyse d’erreurs lexicales d’élèves de 3e secondaire et description du rapport à l’erreur lexicale d’enseignants de français, Thèse de doctorat, Département de didactique de la Faculté des sciences de l’éducation, Université de Montréal. [PDF (5.4Mo)]
  • Hadouche, Fadila (2011) Annotation syntaxico-sémantique des actants en corpus spécialisé, Thèse de doctorat, Département d’informatique et de recherche opérationnelle, Université de Montréal. [PDF (1.8Mo)]
  • Mel’?uk I. (à paraître) Tout ce que nous voulions savoir sur les phrasèmes, mais … In “Cahiers de lexicologie, revue internationale de lexicologie et de lexicographie”. Paris : Classiques Garnier [PDF (358KB)]

Le sujet de phrasèmes est devenu, depuis une vingtaine d’années, un des plus populaires en linguistique. [Ils] représentent un défi incontournable pour toutes les théories « purement » formalistes : syntaxiquement réguliers, ils ne peuvent pourtant pas être « générés » ; par conséquent, on doit chercher une bonne façon de les décrire. […] Dans cet article, je vais proposer une définition de la notion de phrasème et une typologie des phrasèmes, en me basant sur un raisonnement déductif, de sorte que chaque pas logique que je fais peut être vérifié indépendamment.

This thesis addresses the question of diachrony in specialized languages by defining a method for identifying the linguistic evolution of knowledge corpus. To do this, the author proposes a method to detect changes through the description of four linguistic indicators identifiable semi-automatic corpus to observe the evolution: the frequency, contexts of change, variants and syntactic dependencies . This context can suggest ways theoretical and methodological terminology to identify, investigate and characterize trends in specialty areas, especially over very short time intervals. The approach also helps fuel the question of the interpretation of the data in corpus: firstly through the combination of these indices, and secondly through the role and place of experts in the analysis.