27.2223, Featured Linguist: Adam Przepiórkowski

[The LINGUIST List via LINGUIST]

LINGUIST List: Vol-27-2223. Mon May 16 2016. ISSN: 1069 - 4875.

Subject: 27.2223, Featured Linguist: Adam Przepiórkowski

Moderators: linguist at linguistlist.org (Damir Cavar, Malgorzata E. Cavar)
Reviews: reviews at linguistlist.org (Anthony Aristar, Helen Aristar-Dry, Robert Coté, Sara Couture)
Homepage: http://linguistlist.org

*****************    LINGUIST List Support    *****************
                       Fund Drive 2016
                   25 years of LINGUIST List!
Please support the LL editors and operation with a donation at:
           http://funddrive.linguistlist.org/donate/

Editor for this issue: Anna White <awhite at linguistlist.org>
================================================================


Date: Mon, 16 May 2016 14:59:01
From: LINGUIST List [linguist at linguistlist.org]
Subject: Featured Linguist: Adam Przepiórkowski

 
Dear LINGUIST List Readers,

We are pleased to present you our next featured linguist, Adam Przepiórkowski,
for Fund Drive 2016.

Please support the LINGUIST List editors and activities with a donation:

http://funddrive.linguistlist.org/

----------------------------------------------

Grammar sucks: it is complex and it makes no sense. That's what I learned at
school. One day you are told that each Polish noun has a grammatical gender,
and the next day – that it actually has a different gender in the singular and
in the plural. One day you are told that transitive verbs always combine with
accusative objects, and the next day you see the direct object in the
genitive, just because some negation is floating around. One day you are told
that complements are obligatory participants and adjuncts are optional
circumstances expressing manner, location, etc., and the next day you notice
verbs like BEHAVE or RESIDE, with obligatory circumstantials. So you can't be
blamed for deciding that mathematics and programming make much more sense.
Having said farewell to grammar, I went to an experimental university level
maths high school, and got far enough in the national maths olympics to be
accepted as an MSc student to the Mathematics and Computer Science department
of the University of Warsaw.

These were late 1980s and early 1990s, the communism fell down – first in
Poland, then in Berlin, Czechoslovakia and other places – and suddenly
exchange programs became available, of which I immediately took advantage,
spending a year in Edinburgh twice: first at Heriot-Watt, and then at the
Centre for Cognitive Science of the University of Edinburgh. There, with
teachers like Elisabet Engdahl and Robin Cooper, grammar not only started
making sense, but became great fun – like a bottomless box of toys and
puzzles. One game was called “Principles and Parameters”: how to set
parameters (and how to tweak supposedly universal principles) to get Polish? I
must have set a couple of parameters right, as I got an A+ for the final
syntactic assignment and an offer to publish it, PUBLISH IT (gasp), as a
research report of the Centre for Cognitive Science (EUCCS/RP-62). Another
game was: how to make a computer produce all and only grammatical sentences of
Polish? Computational linguistics courses were fun also for reasons not really
intended by the lecturers. I remember a particularly enjoyable class at 2
Buccleuch Place, Edinburgh, about the implementation of some kind of focus
calculus in some form of dynamic semantics, when – as the teacher was trying
to explain the intricate workings of perhaps a little unwisely named
parameters FOC-IN and FOC-OUT – the colour of his face was becoming
increasingly purple… Edinburgh was certainly a forming experience for me, and
the solid broad exposure to syntax (Chomskyan and HPSG), formal semantics,
logic and computational linguistics set me on the path of becoming a formal /
computational / corpus linguist.

(...)

Read more:

http://blog.linguistlist.org/fund-drive/featured-linguist-adam-przepiorkowski






------------------------------------------------------------------------------

*****************    LINGUIST List Support    *****************
                       Fund Drive 2016
Please support the LL editors and operation with a donation at:
            http://funddrive.linguistlist.org/donate/

This year the LINGUIST List hopes to raise $79,000. This money 
will go to help keep the List running by supporting all of our 
Student Editors for the coming year.

Don't forget to check out Fund Drive 2016 site!

http://funddrive.linguistlist.org/

For all information on donating, including information on how to 
donate by check, money order, PayPal or wire transfer, please visit:
http://funddrive.linguistlist.org/donate/

The LINGUIST List is under the umbrella of Indiana University and
as such can receive donations through Indiana University Foundation. We
also collect donations via eLinguistics Foundation, a registered 501(c)
Non Profit organization with the federal tax number 45-4211155. Either
way, the donations can be offset against your federal and sometimes your
state tax return (U.S. tax payers only). For more information visit the
IRS Web-Site, or contact your financial advisor.

Many companies also offer a gift matching program, such that
they will match any gift you make to a non-profit organization.
Normally this entails your contacting your human resources department
and sending us a form that the Indiana University Foundation fills in
and returns to your employer. This is generally a simple administrative
procedure that doubles the value of your gift to LINGUIST, without
costing you an extra penny. Please take a moment to check if
your company operates such a program.


Thank you very much for your support of LINGUIST!
 


----------------------------------------------------------
LINGUIST List: Vol-27-2223	
----------------------------------------------------------