Book
Язык и семиотика тела. Т. 1. Тело и телесность в естественном языке и языке жестов
The paper describes the structure and possible applications of the theory of K-representations (knowledge representations) in bioinformatics and in the development of a Semantic Web of a new generation. It is an original theory of designing semantic-syntactic analyzers of natural language (NL) texts with the broad use of formal means for representing input, intermediary, and output data. The current version of the theory is set forth in a monograph by V. Fomichov (Springer, 2010). The first part of the theory is a formal model describing a system consisting of ten operations on conceptual structures. This model defines a new class of formal languages – the class of SK-languages. The broad possibilities of constructing semantic representations of complex discourses pertaining to biology are shown. A new formal approach to developing multilingual algorithms of semantic-syntactic analysis of NL-texts is outlined. This approach is realized by means of a program in the language PYTHON.
The chapter explores the semantics and pragmatics of the Russian temporal syntactic phraseme ‘X to X,’ (a construction characterized by a semantically restricted set of lexical items able to fill in its syntactic variables) which expresses either the speaker’s surprise at the fact that events go as planned (surprising punctuality interpretation) or the speaker’s surprise at the fact that unplanned events go as if they had been pre-planned (surprising fateful coincidence interpretation). While the construction is not unique, and occurs in other languages, its preferred interpretations are language-specific. The chapter demonstrates differences between Russian and English outlooks on time, based on their fundamental differences in linguistic worldviews. According to one of the central key ideas of the Russian linguistic worldview, events are difficult for human subjects to control, as they are commonly controlled by outside forces, such as fate, and therefore surprising punctuality interpretation prevails in Russian. English, which does not view punctuality as something out of the ordinary, favours the surprising fateful coincidence interpretation of this syntactic phraseme. The idea of fate in relation to temporality is also found in other languages, as demonstrated by Bernard Charlier’s research on Mongolian temporality in his chapter in the current volume.
It is highlighted in the paper that intercultural communication is the transmission of “verbal messages across a cultural linguistic border” (Jakobson) .To cover the entire field of intercultural relationship and sufficient conditions for translation one should specify the variables that constitute the invariant for translation and necessary condition to satisfy the classification of a certain message as a translation in relation to another message. Close analyses of some lexical units of secondary nomination on sociolinguistic and cultural axes make us believe that they are real examples (prototypes) of integral elements of intercultural discourse and they represent some mental maps or frames of norms and values of this or that culture. As different languages classify the world and the human experience differently it is pointed out that the dividing lines do not exist in reality but only in the language. The last is linked to reality through conceptual representation. It reflects the problem and relativity of transformation of realities into conceptual classification. The mental object is precise. But the difficulties begin when we have to apply our mental objects to realities that do not correspond exactly to our mental schema. To compile lexical entries of culturally specified units it is necessary to show how languages encode a particular experience of the world or how extra linguistic reality is interpreted. Language and culture may produce differences in cognitive processes which affect conceptualization. The existence of some ambiguity and misunderstanding makes interlocutors look up into dictionaries or reference books to see and comprehend the difference between source and target cultural items. The forthcoming analysis is based on some theoretical principles that provide a frame of reference for it. Among them cognitive approach should be mentioned first of all.
The paper shows an incompleteness of theoretical foundations of the Computational Semantics branches called Semantic Role Labeling and Frame-Semantic Parsing. This situation is a consequence of a seeming lack of a semantic formalism allowing to describe semantic structures of complex sentences and discourses pertaining to arbitrary application domains. It is concluded that the theory of K-representations (knowledge representations) provides a formalism of the kind, determining a new class of formal languages — the class of SK-languages (standard knowledge languages). Some new expressive mechanisms of SK-languages are illustrated. The central ideas of a method of semantic parsing of natural language (NL) texts proposed by the theory of K-representations are set forth. The method employs the class of SK-languages for constructing semantic representations of texts. The final part of the paper considers the application of the method to designing NL-interfaces for software management. A file manager with a NL-interface NLC-1 (Natural Language Commander — Version One) has been developed, the system is implemented with the help of the functional programming language Haskell.
This article touches upon some problems in building up a lexicon for the part of universal ontology which accounts for force interactions. We have chosen certain semantic features in the lexical description as dominant ones and conducted a small survey among native speakers of Russian to prove the results.
The paper is focused on the study of reaction of italian literature critics on the publication of the Boris Pasternak's novel "Doctor Jivago". The analysys of the book ""Doctor Jivago", Pasternak, 1958, Italy" (published in Russian language in "Reka vremen", 2012, in Moscow) is given. The papers of italian writers, critics and historians of literature, who reacted immediately upon the publication of the novel (A. Moravia, I. Calvino, F.Fortini, C. Cassola, C. Salinari ecc.) are studied and analised.
In the article the patterns of the realization of emotional utterances in dialogic and monologic speech are described. The author pays special attention to the characteristic features of the speech of a speaker feeling psychic tension and to the compositional-pragmatic peculiarities of dialogic and monologic text.