Specifications

You are responsible for a term paper that counts something of linguistic interest using a non-trivial amount of Python features.

If you are not sure whether your project satisfies the above specifications, email a brief description to Spencer before proceeding.

A brief list of ideas:

  1. Count and extract instances of embedded past tense verbs occuring in a child-directed speech corpus
  2. Count the number of words ending in various derivational suffixes in a digital dictionary (as a bonus you could see how this might be evaluated under the Tolerance Principle
  3. Count the number of words ending in syllabic sonorants in a pronunciation dictionary
  4. Count the frequencies of the different pronunciations of the word live using a tagger (n.b.: this works because one pronunciation is used when it's a noun, and another when it's a verb)

What to submit

Your submission should include:

  1. Your code (though, unlike the HW assignments, this is open-ended so I will be primarily interested in the output; only minimally reviewing code quality in my grading)
  2. Data used (or instructions or code to obtain it, if it's more than 20 MB or so)
  3. A write-up of 3-4 pages describing:
    1. the data you used
    2. what you counted
    3. general details about the design of your program
    4. what the counts were (please make a nicely formatted table, don't just dump Python output here)
    5. why this might be a linguistically interesting thing to count
    6. how the project might be extended if you had more time or more experience programming

(Note: Your paper must be a PDF file that has been compiled in LaTeX. Proficiancy in LaTeX is an important skill you'll need to graduate school and beyond, and online tools such as Overleaf make this much easier to get started with compared to when I was a young graduate student!)

In order to submit, simply push the paper/code/data to this repo ahead of the semester deadline and also send me (Spencer) an email once you've done so and you're ready for me to grade your submission.

Rubric

The term paper will be graded on the degree to submission satisfies the above specification.

The term paper is officially due 12/22 (the final day of the semester), but I will grade submissions up to the point where I am required to submit grades to the registrar's office; this is usually a week or so after the end of the semester. If I have not received a term paper by then, you will receive an "I" (incomplete) grade until you submit the term paper.

Hints

  1. While it's technically possible to work with audio data for this project, it's a lot harder than working with something that's already discrete (e.g., text, etc.) data unless you've also studied acoustic phonetics and/or signal processing.
  2. It's okay (good, even) if this harmonizes with some other projects you're doing for credit (e.g., qualifying papers), so long as you make it clear in your write-up what part of the project is unique to the term paper.