In desperate help for someone to help me understand a test.....can send it ASAP ...need it done asap Thread poster: Helene Olsen Richards
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I have been given a text....a test....it is grammatical in nature but a made up language and some rules...I am drawing a complete blank....can someone take a look and see if they understand and can help me get this done ASAP`? If you see it , understand it...and can help...I am happy to pay something...
| | | | Helene Olsen Richards 
United States
Local time: 19:05
Member (2006)
English to Norwegian
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TOPIC STARTER
I am absolutely clueless..hope you can help...of course I needed it yesterday so to speak...any help is appreciated...
QUESTION 1.
Let's imagine a made-up language which exhibits patterns common to various languages. Let's assume that this language has no grammatical cases (nominative, accusative, etc.) and no grammatical gender (masculine, feminine, etc.), but that it does have number (singular, plural, etc.).
Based on a corpus of texts in this language, w... See more I am absolutely clueless..hope you can help...of course I needed it yesterday so to speak...any help is appreciated...
QUESTION 1.
Let's imagine a made-up language which exhibits patterns common to various languages. Let's assume that this language has no grammatical cases (nominative, accusative, etc.) and no grammatical gender (masculine, feminine, etc.), but that it does have number (singular, plural, etc.).
Based on a corpus of texts in this language, we have derived the following observations about noun pluralization.
obs id singular plural # occ
1 ***al ***aux 100
2 ***al ***als 10
3 *wug *wugen 3
4 ***g ***ggen 400
5 ***t ***ten 900
6 ***f ***ven 500
7 ***t ***tten 10000
8 **rie **rieën 200
9 ***ie ***ien 3000
10 ***a ***a's 700
11 ***i ***i's 600
12 ***u ***u's 600
13 ***ou ***ous 200
14 ***e ***es 10000
15 ***ou ***ou's 30
16 **sie **sieën 200
17 **rie **ries 10
18 **sie **sies 5
The table should be read as follows:
- * = any letter
- obs id = observation identifier (line number)
- singular = singular form
- plural = corresponding plural form
- # occ = number of occurrences found in corpus for this case
For example, line 1 tells us that the corpus contains 100 nouns whose singular ends in -al and whose plural ends in -aux.
A. Please use this data to formulate a series of rules to construct the plural form when given the singular. Ignore the nouns whose singular form ends with a consonant: only focus on the ones ending in a vowel.
1. aim aims
2. bat bats
3. pluralizer pluralization
4. fez fezzes
5. potato potatoes
6. halo halos
7. cactus cacti
Condense your answer into as few rules as possible. Note that the table provided may not fully describe the language. Likewise, you may not be able to cover all of the cases present in the table. You should make sure your rules cover as much as possible. When needed, use the statistics to support your deductions. As much as possible, spell out the rules using simple logic operators (if x, then y, otherwise z; x and y, x or y, x but not y).
B. When the statistics do not provide enough information, how else do you suggest we might be able to cover all cases reported in the table?
QUESTION 2.
The following is a grammatical sentence in English:
I want her to speak at the conference.
A. Translate the sentence into your language.
B. How is the structure of the sentence in English different from the structure in your language? What is special about the word "her" in this sentence with regard to case marking?
A. Jeg vil at hun skal tale på konferansen
A verb must be the second element in a Norwegian main clause. ‘Her’ has to come before speak.
In a narrative clause the finite verb is the second element.
QUESTION 3.
The following two sentences are grammatical in English:
Lucy sent John a letter. John was sent a letter by Lucy.
A. How are these two sentences related?
They both consist of the word letter and sent. Singular form. The both refer to sending a letter to a person.
B. Translate these two sentences into your language. Is the structure of the relationship between these sentences different from your language? How?
Lucy sendte et brev til John.
John fikk et brev sendt fra Lucy.
QUESTION 4.
In English, the plural ending may take three forms: voiced (dogs), unvoiced (cats) and with the addition of a vowel (watches).
A. How many different regular plural endings does English likely have?
Plural forms of nouns have the ending -(e)s.
B. How is it possible to determine which ending to use?
If a word already has the ending "-e", the plural is formed by adding an "-s" ▲ Collapse
| | | | Tom in London
United Kingdom
Local time: 03:05
Member (2008)
Italian to English
| Don't do the test | Feb 5, 2019 |
This whole test (so called) does not seem like a translation test at all.
My suggestion: don't do it. Just move on.
| | | | Mats Wiman
Sweden
Local time: 04:05
Member (2000)
German to Swedish
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In memoriam | I agree with Tom | Feb 5, 2019 |
Tom is right
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Helene Olsen Richards
United States
Local time: 19:05
Member (2006)
English to Norwegian
+ ...
TOPIC STARTER
Yes it is very strange, I know the company is legit etc but the clarification/explanation of what to do is not clear...whether I am to make up fictive words based on the table or what....very strange.
| | | | | Linguistics test | Feb 5, 2019 |
Tom in London wrote:
This whole test (so called) does not seem like a translation test at all.
My suggestion: don't do it. Just move on.
Tom, I think she means that the text she has to translate is a test. She does not need to answer the questions, just translate them.
Helene, this is a Linguistics test, but the structure is pretty confusing, as some questions contain the answers. Are you sure that you have to translate it all? Does the client want to translate the test to Norwegian, or maybe he/she just wants you to translate the little Norwegian in the text (I think those are the student's answers) to English (so they can check if they are correct)? I mean:
Jeg vil at hun skal tale på konferansen.
Lucy sendte et brev til John.
John fikk et brev sendt fra Lucy.
Cheers,
Narcis
[Edited at 2019-02-05 14:54 GMT]
| | | | Kevin Fulton
United States
Local time: 22:05
German to English
Many decades ago I toyed with the idea of studying law. The Law School Application Test at that time had a section with an artificial language in which the test taker had to formulate rules for the "language" presented in that section.
I did well enough on the exam to be accepted by several universities. I decided not to study law, and the rest is history.
| | | | | This is familiar | Feb 6, 2019 |
I did some Masters' level computational linguistics classes and this looks like some of the homework/test questions from the very beginning of Syntax for computational linguistics.
Here are a few books that can help you get started if you're really interested in that kind of research : ... See more I did some Masters' level computational linguistics classes and this looks like some of the homework/test questions from the very beginning of Syntax for computational linguistics.
Here are a few books that can help you get started if you're really interested in that kind of research :
https://www.amazon.com/s/ref=nb_sb_noss_2?url=search-alias=aps&field-keywords=syntax%20for%20computational%20linguistics
It's to help you try to understand syntax the way a computer would, so that you can learn to create and feed in rules into a Natural language processing engine. ▲ Collapse
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Helene Olsen Richards
United States
Local time: 19:05
Member (2006)
English to Norwegian
+ ...
TOPIC STARTER
I just don’t have any time to get anything from Amazon.. so no time to prepare etc. are you able to assist if I’m given another go at it? They did not explain this beforehand so there was no way of knowing what they were after. Thanks.
| | | | | A Morphology test? | Feb 6, 2019 |
Helene Olsen Richards wrote:
QUESTION 1.
Let's imagine a made-up language which exhibits patterns common to various languages. Let's assume that this language has no grammatical cases (nominative, accusative, etc.) and no grammatical gender (masculine, feminine, etc.), but that it does have number (singular, plural, etc.).
This looks very much like a Morphology test and not a translation test. This would be the type of questions I would ask students of a Morphology course. Certainly not a translation test, and I would not do it.
| | | | Thomas Pfann
United Kingdom
Local time: 03:05
Member (2006)
English to German
+ ...
| What is the test for? | Feb 6, 2019 |
Helene, what do you need to do? Do you need to translate the text or do you need to answer the questions?
If you need to answer the questions, what role are you being tested for? If you are a computational linguist and if this is what this test is for, then you should be able to do the test on your own. If you are a translator and you expected a translation test then chances are they either sent you the wrong test or they are not looking for a translator.
[Edit... See more Helene, what do you need to do? Do you need to translate the text or do you need to answer the questions?
If you need to answer the questions, what role are you being tested for? If you are a computational linguist and if this is what this test is for, then you should be able to do the test on your own. If you are a translator and you expected a translation test then chances are they either sent you the wrong test or they are not looking for a translator.
[Edited at 2019-02-06 17:09 GMT] ▲ Collapse
| | | | | What is this?? | Feb 7, 2019 |
In my five years of profession I have not yet seen this kind of work offered by some
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Samuel Murray
Netherlands
Local time: 04:05
Member (2006)
English to Afrikaans
+ ...
Helene Olsen Richards wrote:
I just don’t have any time to get anything from Amazon...
This is not a translation test, but a test in some other field of linguistics. They're not looking for a translator, but for a linguist who had studied in that particular field. So, this is not for you. Just explain to the client that you are a translator and that you can only do a translation test.
| | | | Helene Olsen Richards
United States
Local time: 19:05
Member (2006)
English to Norwegian
+ ...
TOPIC STARTER
The problem lies in the fact that they have not provided enough information/explanation as to what it is they want. I’ve done plenty of linguistics type work over the last decade or more, but this is not feasible without further explanation. That’s where I’m stuck. They don’t clearing whether they seek actual examples of real words or fictive words based on the fictive language etc. I’ve asked them to clarify better so we will see. I was just wanting to see if there is someone out ther... See more The problem lies in the fact that they have not provided enough information/explanation as to what it is they want. I’ve done plenty of linguistics type work over the last decade or more, but this is not feasible without further explanation. That’s where I’m stuck. They don’t clearing whether they seek actual examples of real words or fictive words based on the fictive language etc. I’ve asked them to clarify better so we will see. I was just wanting to see if there is someone out there who can help clarify better if they have done something similar to I can prepare better. Thanks. ▲ Collapse
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