Corpora: programming languages for statistical language learning

[John Colby]

My dissertation involves the statistical induction of phrase-structure
grammars.  I had planned to use C++ for the implementation.  However,
several professors at my university are concerned about using C++.
One reccommended PROLOG, even though I plan to use existing parsers.
Another warned me that using C++ would be a nightmare and few people
in my computer science depatment use it, mot preferring C instead.
ANy comments researchers in statistical language learning have for me
would be greatly appreciated.

-John Colby
University of California at Santa Cruz