CP4E: Programming for Fun => Python for Journalists and Couch Poatatoes?
"The only decision that's been taken at this stage is that inaction is not an option" -- Tony Blair Anyone care to translating that in Python? When I was at school, we had lots of parsing exercises, in both English class and then Latin. Sometimes torture, sometimes fun, depending on the teacher, the content and our ability to use it. I hope that as computational literacy works it way into the hearts and minds of schools everywhere [optimistic inevitability], there will be great value in developing descriptive algorithms, such as parsing [literature] texts. - To understand points of literature, grammar, content, structure - To teach and develop programming skills. It would require teachers who are really fluent and adept in a language such as Python. Just as Kirby and others have been developing their math-oriented Python curriculum, what do you think the potential is for programming natural language and literature for fun. I may be crazy, but just imagine... Python for Journalists - In this class we take newspaper and TV news and [try to] translate them into Python. Python's Fables - Aesop's Fables Python for Lawyers - Standard contracts as Python scripts [employment contract, loans, rental leases, and of course licenses] Python for Historians - take an episode/chapter of history and translate Python for Travelers - Directions for making journeys [home->school->back, a holiday] Python for Cooks - from cookies to wedding banquets, you get the idea Python for Poets - How would you express the style, quality, form and message of poems and poets? [Shakespeare sonnet, Rumi, T.S.Eliot, ... ] Python for Singers - as above but breaking down popular songs.. Several layers to this: song structure, style and lyric. Singer style, Musical arrangement. Music Video structure... Python for Couch Potatoes 1. - 24hrs of TV programming -> start with TV Guide http://www.tvguide.com/listings/ 2. - then pick any program or genre of program [soaps, sitcom, TV news {how DO they manage to all broadcast the same story at almost the same moment?}, reality TV, game show, dating shows, Police Drama, Talk show, and ... advertising] I am sure you can imagine myriad problems with this as well, as many more fun and inspiring possibilities. ./Jason
On Sat, Sep 07, 2002 at 03:31:12PM -0400, Jason Cunliffe wrote:
Just as Kirby and others have been developing their math-oriented Python curriculum, what do you think the potential is for programming natural language and literature for fun. I may be crazy, but just imagine...
Python for Journalists - In this class we take newspaper and TV news and [try to] translate them into Python.
I don't know about translating into Python, but I'd love to have an application that would parse arbitrary English sentences and produce a corresponding sentence diagram. Another interesting possibility is to translate English text into Contextual Graphs (per Sowa). What is the (noncommercial) state of the art in automated parsing of natural language text? Is a project like this feasible, or does it need a Cyc-like knowledge base to disambiguate words based on context? -- Fred Yankowski fred@ontosys.com tel: +1.630.879.1312 OntoSys, Inc PGP keyID: 7B449345 fax: +1.630.879.1370 www.ontosys.com 38W242 Deerpath Rd, Batavia, IL 60510-9461, USA
What is the (noncommercial) state of the art in automated parsing of natural language text? Is a project like this feasible, or does it need a Cyc-like knowledge base to disambiguate words based on context?
Hi Fred Here are some I am aware of. There's LOTS more including Java toolkits which can be used with Jython, and all the cool stuff on the edges of sequencing and visualization work. BioIT is generating all sorts of tools which can be used for other disciplines. POVTalk, which is a Natural Language based 3D scene generator http://homepages.ihug.co.nz/~synopsis/computing/ Proposal: A Natural Language Programming Toolkit for Python Edward Loper, Steven Bird July 6, 2002 http://nltk.sourceforge.net/tech/proposal.pdf The NL Toolkit (NLTK) is a Python package intended to simplify the task of programming natural language processing systems. Its primary audience is graduate and undergraduate students studying computational linguistics http://nltk.sourceforge.net/ PyWordNet is a Python interface to the WordNet database of word meanings and lexical relationships. (A lexical relationship is a relationship between words, such as synonym, antonym, hypernym ("poodle" -> "dog"), and hyponym ("poodle" -> "dog"). http://pywordnet.sourceforge.net/ ./Jason
At 03:31 PM 9/7/02 -0400, "Jason Cunliffe" <jasonic@nomadics.org> wrote:
"The only decision that's been taken at this stage is that inaction is not an option" -- Tony Blair
Anyone care to translating that in Python?
When I was at school, we had lots of parsing exercises, in both English class and then Latin. Sometimes torture, sometimes fun, depending on the teacher, the content and our ability to use it.
I hope that as computational literacy works it way into the hearts and minds of schools everywhere [optimistic inevitability], there will be great value in developing descriptive algorithms, such as parsing [literature] texts. - To understand points of literature, grammar, content, structure - To teach and develop programming skills.
It would require teachers who are really fluent and adept in a language such as Python. Just as Kirby and others have been developing their math-oriented Python curriculum, what do you think the potential is for programming natural language and literature for fun. I may be crazy, but just imagine...
Python for Journalists - In this class we take newspaper and TV news and [try to] translate them into Python. ...........................
Sounds good to me! There is some precedent for this that I know of: "Exploring Language with Logo", Goldenberg and Feurzeig, MIT Press 1987. I never used the book for teaching anybody, but I think it has some very nice ideas (also in the structure of the text, which the authors call "multiple voices" as a way of guiding the student in different ways at different times), and the code should translate very easily into Python. I think it's also the case that some school classes in English (in the UK at least) are using commercial textual analysis software. - Phillip ++++++ Dr Phillip Kent, London, UK mathematics education technology research p.kent@mail.com mobile: 07950 952034 ++++++
participants (3)
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fred＠ontosys.com -
Jason Cunliffe -
Phillip Kent