Since recently I’ve been diggging deeper into natural language processing (NLP), natural language understanding, parsing, grammar, etc., none of which is really AI-related, I was wondering if another subject tab for this site for language would be useful, at the “AI Zone” tab level, like maybe called “NLP Zone”. That would be a place to post questions, thoughts, and ideas about language. I don’t know if other forum users would find it useful, though. It’s just an idea.

Actually, Mark, several members here, past and present, either work with/in, or actively discuss, language; from grammar parsing/analysis, to NLP, to other areas that involve how we (used to, at least) primarily communicate, you’ll find a large number of threads here that deal with the subject. Plus, there are several members here who would, I’m sure, be more than happy to engage in a conversation on the matter.

Thanks, Dave. Mostly I was wondering where would be the best place to post such questions, if they aren’t related to AI or to specific projects.

Well, there’s always the “general” category.

I’ll talk to Erwin about adding a new category, rather than a new tab. Given the number of people who have discussed NLP, grammar parsing and/or analysis, and other subjects related to language (including the non-English ones), I think that a new category would be a good idea.

I think it is a good idea Mark. I went through Coursera’s NLP, Machine Learning, and Neural Networks courses. It would be nice to find a home for some of the follow-up discussions.
https://www.coursera.org/category/cs-ai

I currently think about NLP in 2 sub-categories; Natural Language Understanding, and Natural Language Generation.

hi Mark, great to meet you over here!

Very generic postings about the website, performance, features, etc can always be posted in our admin forum: http://www.chatbots.org/admin

For new tabs, i.e. a real new forum board with own name and logo, we have the policy it should be ‘totally new’, and address a new potentially vibrant subcommunity. For example academics, or avatar designer, of speech technologist. It could also contain language specific forums, for example in German or Italian, for those who prefer these languages (or only speak those languages). Here’s the general policy: http://www.chatbots.org/forums

In this case, I believe we could start with a separate category for NLP. Could you please collect 20 threads which typically should go in that category which are now placed somewhere else? When the NLP category seems to be very popular we can split it even further.

Following these guidelines, we hope to avoid empty, dead forums…

Does this work for you?
Cheers! Erwin

This is a great idea! I can help collect threads later tonight. I know I haven’t been around much lately (“real life” has gotten quite busy), but I would definitely contribute to an NLP ‘category’ if it were created.

Erwin Van Lun - Dec 12, 2012:

In this case, I believe we could start with a separate category for NLP. Could you please collect 20 threads which typically should go in that category which are now placed somewhere else? When the NLP category seems to be very popular we can split it even further.
...
Does this work for you?

That more than works for me, thanks. It was just an idea that I wasn’t sure had any merit.

Here’s a quick candidate list of 20 applicable threads. CR’s list will probably be better, though, since she should know this forum better than I.

(1)
Writing rules to human conversation
http://www.chatbots.org/ai_zone/viewthread/949/
(2)
algorithm for natural language processing
http://www.chatbots.org/ai_zone/viewthread/843/
(3)
A Mathematical Model of Meaning
http://www.chatbots.org/ai_zone/viewthread/644/
(4)
Singular and Plural form detection?
http://www.chatbots.org/ai_zone/viewthread/472/
(5)
Grammar, Language, Knowledge & Thought
http://www.chatbots.org/ai_zone/viewthread/416/
(6)
Systemic-Functional Linguistics
http://www.chatbots.org/ai_zone/viewthread/399/
(7)
Anaphoric (backward reference)
http://www.chatbots.org/ai_zone/viewthread/363/
(8)
Are definitions of words inherently weak?
http://www.chatbots.org/ai_zone/viewthread/181/
(9)
biolinguistics???
http://www.chatbots.org/ai_zone/viewthread/115/
(10)
Natural language decomposition
http://www.chatbots.org/ai_zone/viewthread/986/
(11)
Disambiguation
http://www.chatbots.org/ai_zone/viewthread/1146/
(12)
Need help with voice recognition
http://www.chatbots.org/ai_zone/viewthread/1053/
(13)
systemic funtional linguistics
http://www.chatbots.org/ai_zone/viewthread/1036/
(14)
Chatscript BNF
http://www.chatbots.org/ai_zone/viewthread/847/
(15)
NLP related thing that can add to enhance ALICE base chat bot
http://www.chatbots.org/ai_zone/viewthread/452/
(16)
Is there a need for a new AI/Chatbot language
http://www.chatbots.org/ai_zone/viewthread/481/
(17)
Why AIML?; We need a understanding oriented knowledge model.
http://www.chatbots.org/ai_zone/viewthread/248/
(18)
Does the chatbot you are developing use sophisticated parsing?
http://www.chatbots.org/ai_zone/viewthread/1150/
(19)
Python English-parsing bot with semantic capabilities
http://www.chatbots.org/ai_zone/viewthread/851/
(20)
English verbs
http://www.chatbots.org/ai_zone/viewthread/725/

The topics involved are more numerous than I expected. My quick list of apparently applicable topics is:

natural language processing (NLP)
natural language understanding
natural language, linguistics, biolinguistics
natural language generation
parsing, parse tree
grammar, syntax, morphology, morphemes
the ten sentence patterns of English
word clustering
AI languages, chatbot languages, Sanskrit
epistemology, understanding, meaning, knowledge representation, semantics, definition
dictionaries, lexicons, dictionary content
voice recognition, speech recognition, phonetics, phonology, pronunciation
phonetic alphabet, International Phonetic Alphabet (IPA), Speech Assessment Methods Phonetic Alphabet (SAMPA),  Extended Speech Assessment Methods Phonetic Alphabet (X-SAMPA)
coherence, implicature, anaphoric, disambiguation, ambiguous reference
Backus–Naur Form (BNF), Extended Backus–Naur Form (EBNF), abstract syntax tree (AST)
Chomsky hierarchy, context-free language (CFL), context-free grammar (CFG)
sentence diagrams, constituency, dependency
semantic web, RDF, OWL, common logic (CL), description logics (DL), attribute language (AL)
semantic net
conceptual dependency (CD), scripts, frames
human language, language translation

Some of the threads that deal with language, in whatever form, won’t be suitable for moving, as they outline progress/status reports for various members’ projects, and belong in the forum category that they currently reside in, but the rest should be a good fit for moving.

Was the idea to come up with threads to move or for examples to warrant creating a new category?

Excellent job, Mark! I’ll glance around and see if I can’t dig up a few more, but these certainly show there is an active interest in NLP topics.

I think it was a bit of both, actually. While I can’t create the new forum category (I lack the skills, is all), I’ll probably be the one moving the threads, once the new category ~IS~ created.

Ah, I see.

Well, it turns out the Designing and coding section is full of good NLP-related topics. (I may need to resurrect a few of these—interesting stuff!) Here are my contributions:

(21) Language use is simpler than previously thought
http://www.chatbots.org/ai_zone/viewthread/1033/

(22) looking for built-in english dictionary
http://www.chatbots.org/ai_zone/viewthread/1107/

(23) Some issues
http://www.chatbots.org/ai_zone/viewthread/1057/

(24) Simple Knowledge Base Interface
http://www.chatbots.org/ai_zone/viewthread/1055/

(25) Natural Language Generation
http://www.chatbots.org/ai_zone/viewthread/952/

(26) wordnet synonym order
http://www.chatbots.org/ai_zone/viewthread/858/

(27) Improving wordnet?
http://www.chatbots.org/ai_zone/viewthread/845/

(28) about algorithm for nlp in chatbots
http://www.chatbots.org/ai_zone/viewthread/842/

(29) Chatbot Design: Assigning/Detecting Gender
http://www.chatbots.org/ai_zone/viewthread/810/

(30) English Grammar References
http://www.chatbots.org/ai_zone/viewthread/738/

Decided to stop with 10; it’s a nice round number.

CR, I may need to see about making you a forum mod, just out of the need for revenge, for all your “help” here. then you can help me move all this stuff!

Whoops. Just trying to be “helpful”, Dave. No need to take drastic measures!

Just kidding, Luv. But the idea of having you as a moderator for a language forum does have a certain merit, if you would be willing to think about it. Of course, I’d have to clear it with Erwin first.

I’d be up for moderating the NLP category. I’m not always the voice of reason that you are, Dave but I’m definitely interested. (Did I just get roped into moving all these threads over? )