Slavic Languages and the Internet

[Danko Sipka]

I have been working on a project intended to enhance the
utilization of the Internet resources in learning/teaching
of Slavic languages. The idea is to create a sort of
decision based search engine and connect it to the local
tools.

The resources I am interested in are normally classified
according to their content or form. However, my feeling is
that it might be useful to classify it according to the
needs of their users.

Let us say that I am a student of Russian and that I want
to check the distribution of the -y and -a endings in
Nominative Plural of masculine nouns in contemporary
newspaper texts. What I need is to collect a sample of
available newspaper texts, create a reversed list of the
forms, extract from it the portions ending in -a and -y,
and then either clear it from the non-nominal forms
manually or use a program for this purpose if I have it.

The way it works now requires all this has to be done
manually, one by one, and it often takes enormous amount
of time to find what you need. Using the search engines
would also not help in this case.

Yes, it is rather difficult to predict one's needs,
but the idea is that all this can be automatized, at
least to some extent. People working in the same
area normally have similar needs.

For example, the following decision structure might
be helpful:

Level 1

I am interested in the following language(s)

                  a. Russian,
                  b....

Level 2

I need the answer: a. now,
                   b. in one week,
                   c. in one month

Level 3

My question concerns: a. language,
                      b. literature,
                      c. other

Level 4

My task is ...

At the last level all Web pages, ftp archives, newsgroups,
etc. which might contain information relevant to the query
are consulted. Some of the levels can be dealt with
simultaniously using check-boxes.

I have the following questions:

1. Are there any projects around trying to do the same thing?
2. Do you know about any papers dealing with the use of the Internet
resources in learning/teaching Slavic languages?
3. Do you have any ideas about the best way to model
the needs in the decision trees?

Please answer off-list to: sipkadan at hum.amu.edu.pl


Danko Sipka
Slavic Department
Adam Mickiewicz University, Poznan, Poland
sipkadan at hum.amu.edu.pl
http://www.amu.edu.pl/~sipkadan/ja.htm