From CCNET-L@uga.cc.uga.edu Sun Dec 15 23:11:08 1991
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Sender: Chinese Computing Network <CCNET-L@uga.cc.uga.edu>
From: Yolin H u a n g <yih%BRL.MIL@uga.cc.uga.edu>
Subject:      simplification; PinYin; GB
Comments: To: ccnet-l@uga.cc.uga.edu
To: Multiple recipients of list CCNET-L <CCNET-L@UGA>
Status: RO

Re:------------------------------------------------------------------
: "Minghui Yao, Dept of Physics, ASU"
: <YAOM%ASUCP1.LA.ASU.EDU@uga.cc.uga.edu> 25 Nov 1991
: ... The evolution of Chinese Characters is a nature simplifying process,
: from complex to simplicity. If a language is unchanged, it is dead.  ...
--------------------------------------------------------------------------

among these dead scripts?: 1) the modern generations of the European
North Sea and Baltic Sea countries can not understand the old Runic
oracle script (Hellenistic/Cyrillic remnants?) after it was replaced by
the Roman script.  2) the modern generations of the Middle East can not
understand the old Egyptian, Philistian, Phoenician, Aramaic, Syriac,
Akkadian, Babylonian, Chaldean, Sumerian, Old Persian, some Turkic, ...
etc scripts; after those scripts evolved and merged into the modern
Arabic, the new lingua franca.  3) new generations of Tannu Tuva (Dr
Feynman's hobby), the Buryat and the Rep Mongol have difficulties to
understand the traditional Mongolian texts, after the Cyrillic alphabet
was enforced.  4) new generations of VietNam can no longer understand the
bulk of historical archives in Han script, after the French style
spelling was enforced. Many people don't even know of their existence
(probably stored mostly in France as archaeological and anthropological
novelty or vanity?)  5) new generations of Korea have difficulties to
understand the bulk of historical archives in Han script (many highly
achieved scholarship), after the phonetic system set in by decree, so as
to refrain from the Han script implied Chinese chauvinism.

Today, after centuries of evolution, English and French spellings have
lost some of their original phonetic purpose, and have become more or
less ideographical ('ped xing'.)  Maybe one day, after Han Solo and Luke
Skywalker graduated into nirvana, the ASCII script would merge with other
ideographical into an yet unknown new script.:)  But right now, both
groups are cautious to take any measure so as not to deliver the Oxford
and Larousse dictionaries into reincarnation.

Contrary to the assertion, the same Han script has been in use, and
stabilized for almost two milleniums without much change.  Different
fancy writing styles have been artfully painted.  But, there was no
significant gradual simplification of this script in the past as
asserted, other than in the hand-writing routine for convenience.  The
Beijing simplification regulation in the 60's, fueled along the craze of
the Cultural Revolution, can probably better be called an 'experiment'
among other 'social experiments'.

Furthermore, the simplification regulation was not a Beijing innovation
either.  The similar regulation in Japan (same idea, not copyrighted)
predated the Beijing regulation by a couple of years, under the post-war
General McArthur Administration.  At that time, the simplification rule
did have some edge over the slower traditional style, in hand-writing
(saved some brain-hemorrhage cases on desk scribe work.)  But with the
advance of PC, this edge dimishes.  For the electronic text processing,
it poses probably more problem than advantage.

Three decades passed.  It is now probably high time to sit down, and
ponder about its worth, run a decent re-evaluation, and learn from the
experience.  I think, for the pupils learning the traditional style
first, and then (say after the elementary school build-up stage) allowed
to use simplified shorthand (as supplement) in taking notes, writing
reports or exams would be better off as a whole; than learning the
simplified style first, and later randomly picking up the traditional
style in the real life (in unscathed family memorabilia, libraries,
museums, parks, exhibitions, memorials, movies, karaoke clubs, etc.)
Doesn't have to go back to the old Confucian-style rigid perfectionism
(in hand-writing tedium), if you will.  In English dominions, Gregg's
shorthand system is widely used to speed up the hand-writing.  But it is
usually not a part of the regular education, as I understand.  And many
people, even secretaries, don't write with calligraphical excellence,
some just stay at the grade school level I guess.  When typed up, not
even the boss would notice.

	-------------------- <o> --------------------

The 'PinYin' system (Beijing, 1950's) is better than 'bopomofo'
(Nanking/Nanjing, 1910's) in that it is readily adaptable to the QWERTY
keyboard everywhere on Earth/Space.  (And also better than the Wade-Giles
system [Cambridge UK, 1850's/1910's], because of a better phonetic
representation, and the abstinence from the excessive apostrophe, ...
among other things.)  But it is not without its pitfalls.  Since 'PinYin'
was romanized from 'bopomofo', it retains some syllabic nature as that in
the bopomofo, and kana.  Despite of the alphabetical appearance, it
doesn't have all the phonetic resolution of an ideal alphabetical
system.  Such as in 'x', 's', and 'q', 'c', (each has a corresponding
symbol in bopomofo), which are usually quite a hurdle to the
uninitiated.  I suppose, it would make better sense for 'x', and 's' to
use the same openning consonant followed by different vowels (for
instance, one sharp (sii) one muted (si)).  Same for the 'q' and 'c' (for
instance, one sharp (cii) one muted (ci); suppose there is probably no
better choice than 'c' other than 'ts').  (And in combinations, some of
the 'sii' can be reduced to 'si' without causing confusions; same for
'tsii', and 'tsi'.  Isn't SiaoPing as clear as SiiaoPing, even though not
as short.)  (QuYuan isn't really that royal as Queen.  Isn't 'Tsisii'
easier for the uninitiated than 'Cixi'?  Not Tootsie; 'Tsaotsao' easier
than 'Caocao'?  No cacao today; 'Siishi' better than 'Xishi'?  Not
exactly Sushi bar. :-) ) In so doing, the 'c', 'q', and 'x' could be
replaced by the less offending 'ts', and 's'; and easier acceptable to
the commoners, ignorant mass, and innocents abroad.

I think the Beijing tongue of Han pronunciation (Portugese mistakingly
called Mandarim) probably have seven vowels ( (x)i, (s)i, e, a, o, u, and
umlaut u), not counting diphtongs.)  For the umlaut u sound, some write
'u" (Umlaut)', some people use 'uu'. ('uu' probably better.  Probably
'ui', 'u:', 'u^' can also be considered.  But it seems there is no easier
solution with the popular QWERTY keyboard.  The current use of 'ui' would
probably be more accurately represented by 'uei'.)

Furthermore, the 'an' in the following (mostly diphtongs)
(group 1:)
bian, dian, jian, juan, lian, mian, nian, pian, qian, quan, tian, xian,
xuan, yan, yuan
\
is pronounced differently from the 'an' in the following
(group 2:)
chuan, chuang, cuan, duan, guan, guang, huan, huang, jiang, kan, kang,
kuan, kuang, liang, luan, nan, nang, niang, nuan, pan, pang, qiang, ruan,
san, sang, shan, shang, tuan, yang, ShaanXi, XiAn
\
but closer to the 'en' in the following
(group 3:)
feng, gen, geng, hen, heng, ken, keng, leng, men, meng, nen, neng, pen,
peng, ren, reng, sen, seng

Does the emperor have a new dress on?  This pattern again betrays its
root in the syllabic bopomofo system, where 'an' has a (phonetic)
symbol.  Probably the 'an' in the group 1 could be modified, and further
evolve to 'en' as in group 3.  (The rest of PinYin is probably as good as
new?  What do you think?)  After that, the 'an' will be consistent
throught out, and easier to teach to kids.  And the PinYin system will be
closer to a full-fledged alphabetical system.  One flintstone two birds.

Responsible administrators (of all ideological pre-destinations) probably
should please look closer into this, and try out in some language labs,
experimental schools, or better educated townships, (HongKong, TaiWan?)
for a few years.  A short pain (in making improvements) would be better
than chronic pain (in accomodating the flaws for the next ?? years?)

There is another practice in mainland I couldn't understand: many
merchandise and signs use the 'PinYin' stand-alone, as-is; as if people
could understand them.  I suspect most tourists would first have to
struggle for a good pronunciation, let alone its meaning.  The native
speakers probably won't even bother to look at them, simply don't give a
damn.  I think 'PinYin' is better used only as a pronunciation aid:
small print next to the Han script, like with 'kana'.  But after all,
'PinYin' is probably lesser a problem than the simplication regulation.

	-------------------- <o> --------------------

ygz%CS.PURDUE.EDU@uga.cc.uga.edu (27 Nov 1991) (cxterm, great job) gave
an impressive report about the status quo of the GB scheme, with
revelatory discussions about problems with GL, GR planes in Big5.  The
problem described with the Big5 is probably related to the present 7-bit
environment, which was originally designed only to handle the ASCII
characters.  (The Europeans complain about the ASCII as well, even though
got more out of it.)  But, according to Jianxun Ding (jding@CS.TAMU.EDU,
14 Feb 91) GB 0-3 also use the high bit; so the full-blown GB scheme
(like the one in LianXian Han Ka system used by AG02005@MVS.UNI-C.DK, 28
Nov 1991) might have the same problem?

Now, with the maturing in the technology (and in the humanity, such as
the New Age), and the necessity to handle texts other than Latin
derivatives, the hardware and software developers are expanding their
horizon.  I guess that the OS is moving toward 8-bit and beyond.  So, the
mission impossible today with the old 7-bit ISO 2022, will probably become
possible with the new ISO standards.  It was said that in a Confucian
style top-down bureaucracy, obedience|revolution is usually the norm;
whereas in democracy the rules will respond to the need of the
constituents, ... in theory anyway.  The expanded bandwidth can also
treat other problems in communication, not just Han scripts.

In the current GB 0-5 arrangement, simplified and traditional characters
seem to have different code numbers.  So, the programmers have to build a
conversion procedure into the software, and exercise contextual analysis
to sort out the 1:n mapping pain with a sufficient phrase database
(Dorothy Day DAY@IUBACS.BITNET, 24 Nov 1991; AG02005@MVS.UNI-C.DK, 28 Nov
1991.)  The overhead is expensive.  I think it is probably not a good
arrangement.  Why should a proper name, printed differently in mainland,
ChoSun, HanKuk, HongKong, JaPan, TaiWan, and elsewhere, have different
pointers?  Don't they in fact mean the same, whether it is in Time-Roman,
Helvetica, or Gothic|Fraktur?  Too complicated.  It is here, I suppose,
that some decent simplification will be helpful.  (Improved efficiency
can improve the economy, i.e. money.)  Therefore, the current GB is
probably not much better than Big5, and is probably a flaky foundation to
build upon for long-term textual database effort.  (Notwithstanding,
cxterm, byx, cwp, njstar, cedit ...  are respectful endeavors.)

IMHO, it would make much better sense to start off with a larger, more
complete generic character set ('logic OR' of all styles; no matter how
written), with considerations to regional sets (JaPan, HongKong etc.),
and then lay out the simplified character set over it (with hundred some
holes), statistically sorted into subsets, and make sure to use the same
code number for the same character for all styles, (in PinYin first,
radical second, stroke count third sequence.)  And then use a background
selector to select fonts (like in DOS Word Perfect, or other Window
softwares.)  In Mcintosh I remember there is even a 'blackmail ASCII
font' for the reckless types.

Then, the user can write many different styles of Han script in the same
text.  For instance, the reporters can write a text, and use the mouse to
mark those personal and locality names into Kanji style in five seconds.
The users (cadre, non bourgeois?) have the freedom to choose the
simplified style (as for 1:n simplified characters, there will be fewer
listed for PinYin choice.)  For some (learned dons, nouveau riche?)
aspiring to stay ahead of the vulgarity, they should have the freedom,
without coercion or harassment, to use other styles.  (The 'blackmail
font' is not suggested.:)

And it can readily be expanded to cover classical script styles, such as
the JiaGuWen (Shell|Bone Oracle script?), ZongDingWen (Bronze Vessel
script?), XiaoZuan, DaZuan, LiShu, etc., and hundreds other brush writing
styles, with minimal effort.  (probably with a lot of holes in the
arrays/subsets as well.)  And it can be readily expanded to handle
different bitmap fonts and Postscript fonts in the future.  Other
languages as well.

With the present demographical distribution, the (Imperium) Han culture
probably better be considered a common heritage to CJK countries plus
Japanese produce growers, Korean grocers, and Chinese carry-outs here and
there, plus Sino philos, enthusiasts.  Anyhow, it's a minority culture on
Earth, with a size less than the Latin derivatives.  As long as the
stability and the self-esteem are not compromised, less chauvinism/
feudalism is probably more constructive.  (Actually, 'Chinese' is more
geographical than ethnic.)

Furthermore, for a mutli-cultural society, supposedly the GB space should
be used, IMHO, to cover other 50+ scripts under the mainland
administration, such as Korean, Manzu, Mongol, Uigur, Tibetan, Yi,
Zhuang, Dai, ... etc.  (some extra-territorial negotiations needed) So
one day, major cultural archives can all be digitized, cross referenced,
and index searched, not only over the time (historical correlations), but
over the space (inter-communal correlations) as well; and start to
demonstrate the usefulness, in solving mystries (what is Li Bai's
original Turkic name?), clearing myths (Shangrila where?), finding
origins of words or expressions (many of foggy regional, peripheral, or
external origin), studying the evolution and migration of dialect groups,
...  etc.  (I wonder how Bernhard Karlgren did this without PC; kicked
off by Sven Hedin?)

The electronic Han text processing is still immature and evolving.  But,
the June Fourth has passed only two years.  I am not sure whether the
present climate is ready for this quibble yet.  However, long hesitation
is probably not good either.  Some people are not as patient.  I like to
see discussions (from linguistic perspective), so that it can evolve
further for the better.

Probably I blow a different tune in this open forum.  But, no blasphemy
or counter-revolution was intended.  Only like to see that the mainland
language policy, as a whole, would move in a better direction, and be more
efficient for every endusers (kind of the copylefted GNU spirit); for
everybody has to survive the ISO.  So then, there is a better foundation
toward the next century.  A good foundation is very important, as I was
told.  It is not an easy job; but probably not much harder than moving
the American measure toward decimal, I guess.  After five hundred years,
Cristoforo Colombo has barely reached Cathay.  I appreciate the progress
the ASCII has brought to the Han text processing.

Happy Holidays.  Now, your turn, please.
(step down the soap box, go get some drink)

============================================================================
Mao: (straight, right arm half raised, stern) Rebel with Cause!
James Dean:             ..... (casual, smile) ..... hn? ..........
Lin Yutang: ... Chinese ... is R4D1H3S3.
Chewbacca: (hoarse) ... R2D2 !! ... hhhrrrrr ... hhhrrr .....
(by the distant Valhalla commune,
a Maitreya/MiLeFo type:) ..... HoHoHo! ..... HoHoHo! .....



Appendix:
-----------------------------------------------------------------------------
From: henstock@ec.ecn.purdue.edu (Peter V Henstock)
Newsgroups: sci.lang.japan
Subject: JIS <-> Guo Bao Cross referencing
Date: 8 Dec 91 19:48:32 GMT

I have been following the threads of Japanese kanji and Chinese hanzi
comparisons.  Does anyone know of a list which cross references the
kanji and hanzi?  There are several standards of codes for both the
kanji and hanzi and many of the characters are used in both languages
though some simplifications have occurred in both languages.  I realize
that there may not be a 1:1 correspondence for all characters, but has
such a correspondence been made?

Thanks in advance,

--Peter
.
-----------------------------------------------------------------------------

From CCNET-L@uga.cc.uga.edu Mon Sep 21 00:54:45 1992
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Date:         Mon, 21 Sep 1992 12:51:46 WST
Reply-To: WU JIANHUA <scip2012@NUSUNIX1.NUS.SG>
Sender: Chinese Computing Network <CCNET-L@uga.cc.uga.edu>
From: WU JIANHUA <scip2012@NUSUNIX1.NUS.SG>
Subject:      QUERY: Chiese Syntactic Rules
Comments: To: ccnet-l@uga.cc.uga.edu
To: Multiple recipients of list CCNET-L <CCNET-L@uga.cc.uga.edu>
Status: R

Dear netters,

I am now doing some research on Chinese Natural Language parsing. What I
want is the syntactic rules of Chinese, just like CFG (Context Free Grammar)
for English. Because of some unique characteristics of Chinese Language, I
think we should develop a set of rules suitable for Chinese.

Any references or opinions are welcomed. Also thank you for your reading.

********************************************************************************
        **   **            Wu, Jianhua
       **   ** **  **   ** Dept. of Infomation Systems & Computer Science
      **   *** ** ** * **  National University of Singapore
 **  **   **  ** ** * **   Singapore 0511
**  **   **  ** *******    E-Mail: WuJianHu@ISCS.NUS.SG, Scip2012@NUSUNIX.NUS.SG
****   ***  **  ** **      Phone : +65 7726136       Fax: +65 7794580

From CCNET-L@uga.cc.uga.edu Thu Oct  8 07:16:04 1992
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Date:         Thu, 8 Oct 1992 19:06:04 EST
Reply-To: Carlos McEvilly <UNIT566%TWNMOE10.BITNET@uga.cc.uga.edu>
Sender: Chinese Computing Network <CCNET-L@uga.cc.uga.edu>
From: Carlos McEvilly <UNIT566%TWNMOE10.BITNET@uga.cc.uga.edu>
Subject:      Comparative tables of romanization
To: Multiple recipients of list CCNET-L <CCNET-L@uga.cc.uga.edu>
Status: R

Someone asked about tables comparing pinyin and other schemes
of romanization.  I have several lists I can merge, but it might
take a couple of days to get to it.  The resulting list will
have to be posted in binary format, since it will include big-5
characters for bopomofo.

Just letting you know in advance so you don't go rushing off to
type in an entire dictionary.  I created these tables by starting
with a table of bopomofo, then using find/replace to convert the
bopomofo prefixes to pinyin prefixes, yale prefixes, wade-giles
prefixes, etc.  The result required some fixing up and may still
have imperfections, but I haven't found them so far.  Sending it
on to the net may elicit some corrections :-)

- Carlos

From CCNET-L@uga.cc.uga.edu Thu Oct  8 11:42:58 1992
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Date:         Thu, 8 Oct 1992 10:39:36 EST
Reply-To: Huijie <CHENH@UCS.INDIANA.EDU>
Sender: Chinese Computing Network <CCNET-L@uga.cc.uga.edu>
From: Huijie <CHENH@UCS.INDIANA.EDU>
Subject:      RE: Comparative tables of romanization
Comments: To: ccnet-l@uga.bitnet
To: Multiple recipients of list CCNET-L <CCNET-L@uga.cc.uga.edu>
Status: R

Hi, Carlos,

]Someone asked about tables comparing pinyin and other schemes
]of romanization.  I have several lists I can merge, but it might
]take a couple of days to get to it.  The resulting list will
]have to be posted in binary format, since it will include big-5
]characters for bopomofo.

Well, the standard GB table also contains Bopomofo characters.  I don't
have a copy of this table at hand.  But I think it is in the Section 8 or
somewhere about.

Some Chinese softwares use condensed version of GB table, which removes a
several sections, including those Russian, Greek, and Japanese Kana.
NJStar 2.1 got some of them back now.  NJStar 2.1 registered users get this
table as a part of Chinese document.

Good luck.

Huijie
======

From CCNET-L@uga.cc.uga.edu Thu Nov 12 21:19:19 1992
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Date:         Fri, 13 Nov 1992 10:15:15 +0800
Reply-To: guojin@ISS.NUS.SG
Sender: Chinese Computing Network <CCNET-L@uga.cc.uga.edu>
Comments:     <Parser> W: CC field duplicated. Last occurence was retained.
From: guojin@ISS.NUS.SG
Subject:      Re: Machine readable data about Chinese Script/Text?
Comments: To: CCNET-L@uga.cc.uga.edu
To: Multiple recipients of list CCNET-L <CCNET-L@uga.cc.uga.edu>
In-Reply-To:  Your message of "Thu,
              12 Nov 92 11:37:18 EST." <9211130051.AB00597@iss.nus.sg>
Status: R

> As I plan to do quantitative analyses of various aspects of
> Chinese script and language, I wonder whether there is some
> machine readable data on Chinese available from somewhere.
>
> I am looking for the following data:
>
> - Word lists with their frequency.
>
> - Modern Chinese text in GB code (I know about and have access to
>   Huaxia Wenzhai), preferably segmented into words.
> 		   -------------------------------
> Does anybody have such data and is willing to share?
>


I have a preprocessed and segmented corpus called PH of about
4 million Chinese characters and symbols.  It's a selection of
news from China's official Xinhua News Agency during 1990
to 1991.  It's coded in GB.  Please note that the PH corpus
is never my personal property and can only be used strictly
for pure academic purpose with signed notes and publishing
acknowledgements.  Anyone interested, please let me know.
It's free.

BTW, Bohn, any related info., pls also share with me.

guojin@iss.nus.sg

From @UGA.CC.UGA.EDU:owner-ccnet-l@UGA.CC.UGA.EDU Wed Aug 25 12:17:41 1993
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Date:         Wed, 25 Aug 1993 12:13:38 -600
Reply-To: Stanley G Goertzen <goertzen@BADLANDS.NODAK.EDU>
Sender: Chinese Computing Network <CCNET-L@uga.cc.uga.edu>
From: Stanley G Goertzen <goertzen@BADLANDS.NODAK.EDU>
Subject:      26,000 rhyme words
Comments: To: CCNET-L@uga.cc.uga.edu
To: Multiple recipients of list CCNET-L <CCNET-L@uga.cc.uga.edu>
Status: R

Stuart  Aque <aquestu@u.washington.edu>,  Subject: Re:  26,000 characters
(That's all???), dated Tue, 24 Aug 1993 19:05, wrote:

> Funny that you should mention Guangyun, which by  the way was completed
> in 1011 under the direction of Chen Pengnian. I have a copy on my shelf
> next to my copy of the Jiyun with its 53,525 characters...

26,194 characters is the correct number of Guangyun  *rhyme words*.  Look
at your preface: there are "26,194 words" (yan2) and "191,692 characters"
(zi4) used  to annotate and  define those words.   An unannotated version
was circulated in 1007 A.D.

> Any serious work on  historical phonology or orthography that  we would
> want to  make available in electronic form to  folks interested in such
> things would require a lot of forethought and labor.

I'm afraid  that's a rather limited  academic audience, and  I'm sure our
CCNET friends are not all that interested, but I have chosen the Guangyun
for just that  reason.  It is a serious  work in the study  of historical
phonology.  The  Guangyun "expands" (zengguang) on the 12,158  rime words
of Lu Fayan's Qieyun rhyme dictionary of 601 A.D., but the Qieyun was not
available  (except  in  indirectly  in  fragmentary  quotes)  to  Chinese
phonologists until only  very recently.  Therefore many of  China's great
phonologists  and lexicographers,  such as  Duan Yucai  in his  annotated
Shuowen  Jiezi, relied  on and  often cite  the rhymes  and words  of the
Guangyun (which he  called "current rhymes" as opposed to  the much older
rhymes of the  Shijing).  Modern  linguists may prefer the  Qieyun rhymes
which  they  consider to  be  a  more reliable  guide  for  the study  of
historical phonology, but if you want  to understand and follow the works
of China's eminent  philologists, the Guangyun is essential.   Funny that
you  should mention the Jiyun, which may  have lots of characters, but is
generally  regarded as  a compilation  which indiscriminately  draws from
heterogenous sources, and is therefore of little use to phonologists.

> My suggestion would be that you focus on currently available technology
> and define how to best work within its limitations.

According  to  Mr.  HU  Bo  <hubo@IFT.FHG.D400.DE>, Subject:  Re:  26,000
characters, dated  Wed, 25  Aug 1993, it  appears that the  technology is
already at hand.  It seems that he has proposed a solution to the problem
you described as a "parallel character  set" which shares the same  codes
as  the Big-5 set or Unicode, [the problem being one of] coordinating the
input system for the parallel character set  or sets with the font set so
that the desired character would appear in both the input box and  on the
screen and in print.

It is  not my intention to  advocate new standards or  make proposals for
others  to  follow; I'm  simply  interested in  finding a  solution  to a
particular  problem: a computer database with a  set or sets of fonts for
the  Guangyun  rhyme  words.    For  those  who  are  happy  with  16-bit
codepoints,  and I suspect many are, Unicode is great.  For those waiting
for  32-bit codepoints  to solve  their problems;  well, don't  hold your
breath, and if you  follow Mr. Stuart  Aque's advice you  may not find  a
solution at all.

> If you get to Wall Drug, have a glass of ice water for me.

Drats!  Just  my luck.   We don't have Wall  Drug out this  way.  But  no
matter, the ice  water at U of Washington is  much colder.  I just  got a
splash of it through the internet!

Best of all,

Stan
goertzen@badlands.NoDak.edu

From MORIMOTS@uiamvs.bitnet Wed Sep 29 22:04:10 1993
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Date:    Wed, 29 Sep 93 21:46 CDT
To: eastlib@mento.oit.unc.edu
From: Hideyuki Morimoto 319-335-5886       <MORIMOTS@uiamvs.bitnet>
Subject: _JASIS_, vol. 44, no. 9, pp. 532-542
Status: R

I have just received my copy of _JASIS_, vol. 44, no. 9 and saw the
following article contained in it.

   Wu, Zimin, and Gwyneth Tseng.  "Chinese Text Segmentization for
      Text Retrieval:  Achievements and Problems."  _JASIS_ 44 (9):
      532-542 (October 1993)

This article reviews literature on Chinese text segmentization and
discusses problems invovled in such an approach to Chinese information
processing.  I thought that this might be of some interest to Eastlib
subscribers.

Hideyuki Morimoto

From nie@IRO.UMontreal.CA Thu Apr  4 15:08:16 1996
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From: nie@IRO.UMontreal.CA (Jian-Yun Nie)
Date: Thu, 4 Apr 1996 15:01:44 -0500
In-Reply-To: Yuan Jiang's message as of Mar  2,  8:32
X-Mailer: Mail User's Shell (7.2.5 10/14/92)
To: Yuan Jiang <yjj@IFCSS.ORG>
Subject: Re: Your language on Ingrid.....
Cc: CCNET-L@UGA.CC.UGA.EDU
Status: R

> I don't have any source on this.  I'm forwarding this
> message to Chinese Computing Net to see anyone has any
> clue.  A list Chinese stop words will help to port the
> Ingrid text search software to support Chinese.
> 
> Yuan

I work on Chinese Information retrieval too. To my knowledge, there is
not such stop list for Chinese. For my onw experiments, I had to set
up a stop list myself. I selected about 300 highly frequent and not meaningful
words to be included in this list. For example, ~{°Ñ~}, ~{±»~}, ~{²¢ÇÒ~}, etc.
Jian-Yun

> ========
> >From: francis@cactus.slab.ntt.jp (Paul Francis)
> >To: yjj@ifcss.org
> >Subject: Re:  Your language on Ingrid.....
> >
> >>
> >>  What are stop words?
> >
> >Stop words are those words that are virtually useless as
> >search terms.  They also tend to be fairly common words.
> >The are called "stop words" because information retrieval
> >systems typically ignore these words altogether.
> >
> >Typical stop words for English, for instance, are "the", "a",
> >"is", "but", "one", "two", "three", etc.
> >
> >Ingrid uses these not just for rejection as possible high-
> >weight terms, but also to identify language.  If we find a
> >high frequency of stop words in a given text, then we can
> >assume it is the same language as those of the stop words.
> >
> >In the case of Chinese, we can probably just use character
> >set for language identification, however....
> >
> >Do you have any idea where I might get a list of stop words
> >for written Chinese?


