Alexis M.
Palmer
PhD candidate, Computational
Linguistics
Department of
Linguistics
UT
Austin
office: Calhoun
400
contact: alexispalmer [this is not here] @ mail.utexas.edu
Latest
news
May 2008
Hard at work on the dissertation. See EARL.
Research
Very generally, my dissertation work involves
use of machine learning and NLP techniques, including active learning,
in the context of the documentation and description of endangered
languages. With my supervisors Jason Baldridge
and Katrin Erk and
fellow graduate student Taesun
Moon, I am
currently working on methods for decreasing the time and effort needed
to produce interlinearized glossed text (IGT) from transcribed texts in
language documentation projects.
The name of our project is EARL
(Efficient Annotation of Resources by Learning). EARL is funded by a
grant from the National Science Foundation's
Documenting
Endangered Languages program (abstract).
I have also done work over the past 5 years on the automatic
classification of situation entities in text. This, along with
fledgling work on temporal classification of events and temporal
progression in texts, forms the core of a project with Carlota Smith, Elias Ponvert, and Jason Baldridge
focused on such classification as a step toward better machine handling
of discourse-related information.
Other areas of interest are syntax and semantics of Ojibwe (an
Algonquian language), grammar engineering (see the OpenCCG project),
machine learning and active learning, structure of discourse and the
discourse-syntax interface, indigenous languages of the americas, and
relationships between language and music.
Publications,
presentations, other activities
2007
* Alexis Palmer, Elias Ponvert, Jason
Baldridge, and Carlota Smith
A Sequence Model
for Situation
Entity Classification, ACL 2007, Prague
* Alexis
Palmer and Katrin Erk
IGT-XML: An XML
format for
interlinearized glossed text, ACL 2007 Linguistic Annotation Workshop,
Prague
* (pre-print) Jason
Baldridge, Sudipta Chatterjee, Alexis Palmer, and Ben Wing
'DotCCG and VisCCG: Wiki and
Programming Paradigms for Improved Grammar Engineering with OpenCCG',
Grammar
Engineering Across Frameworks, workshop at LSA 2007
Summer Institute, Stanford
*
Invited working group participant, Toward Interoperability of
Language Resources,
workshop at LSA 2007 Summer
Institute, Stanford
2006 * Pascal Denis, Eric
McCready, Alexis Palmer, and Brian Reese, eds.
Proceedings of TLS8: Issues at the Semantics-Pragmatics Interface,
Cascadilla Press
* Co-chair, TLSX conference --
Computational linguistics for less-studied languages
* Invited working group participant, EMELD
2006: Tools and
Standards: The State of the Art
* Invited working group participant, Digital
Tools Summit in Linguistics
* Coordinator, 4th Workshop on
Discourse Structure
2004 * Alexis Palmer, Jonas
Kuhn, and Carlota Smith
'Utilization of Multiple Language
Resources for Robust Grammar-Based
Tense and
Aspect Classification', LREC 2004, Lisbon
* 'Grammatical Inverse, Pragmatic Inverse', WAIL
2004, Santa Barbara, CA
* Co-organizer, TLS8 conference -- Issues at the
semantics-pragmatics interface
2003 * 'Inverse Agreement,
Argument Structure, and Hierarchy-Driven Phenomena in Ojibwe', WAIL
2003, Santa Barbara, CA
Other
stuff
Teaching
In addition to many semesters as a TA, I have taught
LIN306 'Introduction to the Study of Language' and
a course of my own
design, LIN312 'Language and Music'.
Music
Austin Symphonic Band
A local adult community wind ensemble -- I play
French horn
Austin Handbell Ensemble
Semi-pro community handbell ensemble -- unlike anything you've ever
heard or seen before!
In memoriam
A tribute
to my dear professor, mentor, and
friend Carlota Smith, who passed away May 24, 2007.
last modified: February 28, 2008