Special Issue: Contest, Fun dDrive Friday, Win Prizes, New LL Project!

Fri Apr 3 15:05:14 UTC 2009

To: linglite at listserv.linguistlist.org
Subject: Special Issue: Contest, Fun dDrive Friday, Win Prizes, New LL Project!

-------------------------Message 1 ----------------------------------
Date: Wed, 03 Apr 2009 08:03:00
From:  linguist [[log in to unmask]]
Subject: Win a Copy of "Tongue's Palette"

Dear Subscribers,

LINGUIST is bringing you a new contest today to spice
up your Friday. We will give a special prize to the
next 6 people who donate $100 or more.

Donate at:
https://linguistlist.org/donation/donate/donate1.cfm

We have 6 copies of "Tongue's Palette" by Andrew
Sunshine and Donna Jo Napoli to give away! We want to
give them to you! If you are one of the next 6 donors
to contribute $100 or more, you will be rewarded a
copy of this book and one of our incredibly irresistible
premiums!

Do not wait and donate now to be able to receive
one of these titles!

https://linguistlist.org/donation/donate/donate1.cfm

We will feature you on our Fun dDrive Friday page
as one of the winners!

Help Linguist now and get double the prizes!

The LINGUIST Crew

-------------------------Message 2 ----------------------------------
Date: Wed, 03 Apr 2009 08:33:10
From:  linguist [[log in to unmask]]
Subject: Win a Prize While Playing the MultiTree Game

Dear Subscribers,

We are welcoming the new Fun dDrive Friday with the
release of a new game! We are launching a MultiTree
game. Play this game, enjoy a ride in our new
interface and win a prize!

Come to the Fun dDrive Friday site to see what other
things we have for you today!
http://linguistlist.org

We are rather short in our donations so far and even
though we do not want to grey out a Friday with
requests, please come and donate now so that LINGUIST
can continue to bring you the services that we
provide each day to you for FREE!

Donate now at:
https://linguistlist.org/donation/donate/donate1.cfm

We have a new Chef of the day! Marianne Mithun has
kindly shared her path into linguistics. It is a nice
story that we know you will enjoy for sure!
Read it at:
http://linguistlist.org/fund-drive/2009/linguist-of-the-day/

You can also see the LINGUIST Fans around the world!
We have added new pictures of users who are supporting
LINGUIST in different areas in the world. See these at
http://linguistlist.org/fund-drive/2009/User-pics/

If you enjoy all these things that you find in the
Fun dDrive Friday site, please consider donating now!
The main reason you will donate is to help us continue
to provide the services we provide to you every day.
During Fund Drive, we go out of our way to bring you
even more things to entertain you and help us raise
the money that we need to support our grad students.
We can only do this if you donate.

https://linguistlist.org/donation/donate/donate1.cfm

We need your help! We are behind on our way to the
much needed goal. Help us catch up!

The LINGUIST List Crew

-------------------------Message 3 ----------------------------------
Date: Wed, 03 Apr 2009 10:03:32
From:  linguist [[log in to unmask]]
Subject: Grad School Challenge Update - Is Your School at the Top?

Dear Subscribers,

Congratulations to the University of Toronto! The
University of Toronto has been in the lead of the
overall Grad School Challenge for the past week!
The University of Toronto is not only leading the
overall challenge, it is also at the head of the
Americas region, with a total donation of $1035.
Do you want your school to be at the top? Donate
now:
https://linguistlist.org/donation/donate/donate1.cfm

The current leaders of the overall Challenge are:

1. University of Toronto
2. University of Michigan
3. University of Washington
4. University of Wisconsin-Madison
5. University of Texas at Austin
6. University of California, Berkeley
7. University of Kansas         
8. Georgetown University        
9. Ohio State University         
10.Arizona State University

The University of Michigan, the University of Washington
and the University of Wisconsin-Madison are close together
and ready to push each other down to race to the top!
However, we always get surprises from those schools that
come from the back and jump to the top whithin a day
or two. Is that your school? Can you show the world
the power of your faculty and student body?

In the regional challenges, the current leaders are:

Africa: University of Botswana, Botswana
Americas: University of Toronto, Canada
Asia: Tohoku University, Japan
Europe: Universitat de Barcelona, Spain
Middle East: Bar-Ilan University, Israel
Pacific: University of Melbourne, Australia
US East: University of Michigan
US West: University of Washington

Will some of the other schools be able to make these
step down from their first place and take the lead?
Can you help YOUR school be at the top?

The following list shows the countries that have
donated to LINGUIST so far:

USA ($9124)
Canada ($2030)
Germany ($726)
United Kingdom ($677)
Netherlands ($571)
Spain ($550)
Australia ($355)
Israel ($310)
Austria ($250)
Belgium ($250)
Switzerland ($250)
Japan ($180)
France ($135)
Italy ($100)
Cyprus ($60)
Hong Kong ($60)
Poland ($60)
United Arab Emirates ($60)
China ($50)
Denmark ($50)
New Zealand ($50)
Kuwait ($40)
Thailand ($35)
Trinidad and Tobago ($35)
Finland ($30)
Botswana ($25)
Sweden ($25)
Georgia ($20)

Are you in a school in a country that has not
donated yet? Do you want your country to climb
up the list and reach the top? Organize your
faculty, staff and students to donate as a group
and make sure to select the name of your school!

Donate now at

https://linguistlist.org/donation/donate/donate1.cfm

Do you need help organizing your school donations?
Visit the grad school coordinator page at:
http://linguistlist.org/fund-drive/2009/gradschools/group.cfm

Make your school the leader!

The LINGUIST Crew

-------------------------Message 4 ----------------------------------
Date: Wed, 03 Apr 2009 10:23:32
From:  linguist [[log in to unmask]]
Subject: Each day is full of new challenges

Dear Subscribers,

I've been at LINGUIST List for six months now - and what
a ride it's been! I often feel that for big parts of our
linguistics community, The LINGUIST List is an important
intersection, a crossroad or a hub. Everyone comes here
for one reason or other - to tell others about new books,
to look for interesting articles for their journals, to
discuss their latest thoughts on the many mailing lists,
to manage their conferences, to look for a new job or to
search our immense databases for language information. To
be at the center of all is exhilarating.

Each day is full of new challenges - the LINGUIST site and
all our different services to the linguistic community are
very complex and require a lot of attention, and I interact
daily with many linguists from across the globe. On top of
that, we have several projects that are all at the cutting
edge of applied computational linguistics. I get to be part
of a dynamic multicultural team of experienced as well as
beginner researchers that sets out to tackle such problems
as accurate language mapping with GIS, the future
interoperability of all language lexicons or how different
hypotheses of language relationships can best be compared
and evaluated using new technology.

I post journal Calls for Papers, information on new,
interesting journals, and am responsible for continuously
updating our growing list of freely available corpuses on a
multitude of languages, speech analysis software, automatic
text taggers, automatic document summary applications and
many other exciting tools. I can see every week how the
Computational Linguistics field is growing, and get to talk
with many innovative researchers.

None of this would be possible without your economic support.
All the services The LINGUIST List provide are dependent on
the international group of graduate students gathered here.
We need money for tuition and rent, and every once in a while
we have to eat something too. Please consider donating today:

https://linguistlist.org/donation/donate/donate1.cfm

Thanks again, for your continued support and donations,

Susanne Vejdemo

-------------------------Message 5 ----------------------------------
Date: Wed, 03 Apr 2009 10:53:02
From:  linguist [[log in to unmask]]
Subject: LEGO: Lexicon Enhancement Through the GOLD Ontology

Dear Subscribers,

We'd like to take this opportunity to introduce you to one of our
newest research projects, called LEGO (Lexicon Enhancement
through the GOLD Ontology). This project is taking a number of
lexicons, which are being provided by their creators, and digitizing
them. After being put online, they will be tagged with terms from
GOLD, the General Ontology for Linguistic Description. Because the
data will be linked to GOLD, the lexicons will be interoperable, so
users will be able to construct linguistically interesting queries,
and because the lexicons which have been generously made available
to us come from 16 different projects and cover over 300 languages,
this will be a significant resource for typologists, semanticists,
lexicographers, translators and other researchers.

Currently, we are working on evaluating all the different types
and formats of lexicons we have to work with, and figuring out
an XML framework which will, beyond simply accommodating all of
this data, make the most of the wealth of information which the	
lexicons contain. We will then be designing a search interface
and working with our collaborators to digitize their lexicons.
In the future, the process we establish for digitizing these
lexicons will be available to be applied to other lexicons as
well, so that the network of information can continue to grow.

We look forward to bringing you more news about this project
as it progresses.

To make this and other projects a reality, we need your support.
Please donate now at:

https://linguistlist.org/donation/donate/donate1.cfm

Best,
Susan Smith & Hunter Lockwood
Team Leaders, LEGO Project