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<DIV>Dear Chris and Angelo</DIV>
<DIV><U>To query 1:</U></DIV>
<DIV>Assuming you are interested in constructing tools for
the analysis of modern language, I would refer you to the publication
details and demos of diachronic tools on the web-site of the Research
and Development Unit for English Studies, University of Central England in
Birmingham, at <A href="http://rdues.uce.ac.uk/">http://rdues.uce.ac.uk/</A>.
Our tools analyse change across time (15 years) in terminology, word
meaning and use, morphology, the structure of the lexicon, sense relations and
topic/aboutness. </DIV>
<DIV><U>To query 2:</U></DIV>
<DIV>You can use your tools to monitor change in an unbroken stretch of
electronic text (e.g. 15 years), and/or contrast the language
use in sequential finite comparable corpora at a given timespan
apart, (e.g. 30 years, as with the LOB/FLOB; Brown/Frown corpora -
contact Chris Mair at</DIV>
<DIV> <A
href="mailto:christian.mair@anglistik.uni-freiburg.de">christian.<B>mair</B>@anglistik.uni-<B>freiburg</B>.de</A>)</DIV>
<DIV>If you are also interested in historical diachronic study, there are
several major centres of expertise - </DIV>
<DIV>you could approach the creators of the HELSINKI and ARCHER
corpora for guidance. Modern and historical diachronic study are actually
in the process of overlapping somewhere in the 20th century.<BR>There
are many theoretical and practical choices, and linguistic, statistical and
computational issues, <BR>involved in your proposed initiative. You are
welcome to contact us in the R&D Unit if you need advice at the
next stage.</DIV>
<DIV>-------------------------</DIV>
<DIV>Antoinette Renouf<BR>Professor of English Language and
Linguistics<BR>School of English<BR>University of Central England in
Birmingham<BR>Birmingham B42
2SU<BR> <BR>tel: +44 (0)121 331
7230<BR>fax: +44 (0)121 331 6622<BR>mob: +44 (0)7980 750037</DIV>
<DIV>email: ajrenouf@uce.ac.uk<BR>url: <A href="http://rdues.uce.ac.uk"
target=_BLANK>http://rdues.uce.ac.uk</A><BR></DIV>
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<DIV><FONT size=2>-----Original Message----- <BR><B>From:</B>
owner-corpora@lists.uib.no on behalf of Christopher Brewster
<BR><B>Sent:</B> Sun 07/11/2004 21:13 <BR><B>To:</B> corpora@uib.no
<BR><B>Cc:</B> angelo@maltalinks.com <BR><B>Subject:</B> [Corpora-List]
diachronic corpus tool<BR><BR></FONT></DIV>
<P><FONT size=2>We are in the process of constructing a tool for the analysis
of diachronic<BR>corpora.<BR><BR>I would be grateful for:<BR>1. Pointers to
previous research on diachronic corpora, especially<BR>concerning vocabulary
development, terminological innovation etc. rather<BR>than style.<BR><BR>2.
Any suggestions as to the kind of questions that would be of interest to<BR>be
able to put to such a tool.<BR> By this I mean, what are the abstract
questions one would like to answer.<BR>This is in order to design the query
facility more effectively.<BR><BR>I have my own research questions but we do
not want to make the tool very<BR>narrow.<BR><BR>Thanks in
advance,<BR><BR>Christopher Brewster<BR>Angelo
Dalli<BR><BR><BR>*****************************************************<BR>Natural
Language Processing Group,<BR>Department of Computer Science, University of
Sheffield<BR>Tel: +44(0)114-22.21967 Fax: +44 (0)114-22.21810<BR>Regent
Court, 211 Portobello Street <BR>Sheffield S1 4DP
UNITED KINGDOM<BR>Web: <A
href="http://www.dcs.shef.ac.uk/~kiffer/">http://www.dcs.shef.ac.uk/~kiffer/</A><BR>*****************************************************<BR>A
definition is the enclosing a wilderness of an<BR>idea within a wall of
words.--- Samuel
Butler<BR><BR><BR><BR><BR><BR><BR><BR><BR></FONT></P></BLOCKQUOTE>
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