Results of R&D: BLaRK for Dutch Helmer Strik Dept. of Linguistics Centre for Language and Speech...

Results of R&D: BLaRK for Dutch

Helmer StrikDept. of LinguisticsCentre for Language and Speech Technology (CLST)Radboud University Nijmegen, the Netherlands

Radboud University Nijmegen

Radboud University NijmegenCape Town, 24-11-2008 2

Introduction

Terminology:BLaRK: Basic Language Resources KitBaTaVo: Basis Taal-VoorzieningenPlatform-BC: see this presentation

Period 2000 – : plans – 2002 : results, future


NTU & Dutch HLT Platform

NTU - Nederlandse Taalunie(Dutch Language Union)Mission: Strengthening the position of the Dutch Language

Dutch HLT PlatformAim: To contribute to the further development of an adequate language and speech technology infrastructure for Dutch


HLT platform Participants

Flanders:Ministry of the Flemish CommunityIWT (Flemish Institute for the Promotion of Scientific-technological Research in Industry)FWO (Fund for Scientific Research - Flanders)

Netherlands:Dutch Ministry of Education, Culture and SciencesDutch Ministry of Economic AffairsSenter (agency of Dutch Ministry of Economic Affairs)NWO (Netherlands Organisation for Scientific Research)


Objectives

Strengthening the position of Dutch in HLTEstablishing the proper conditions for a successful management and maintenance of basic HLT resources developed through governmental fundingStimulating co-operation between academia and industry in the field of HLTContributing to the realisation of European co-operation in HLT-relevant areasEstablishing a network that brings together supply and demand for knowledge, products, and services


Action plan

‘Action plan for Dutch in language and speech technology’ was defined to achieve objectives

Activities organised in four action lines (A, B, C, and D)


Dutch HLT PlatformFour action lines

A. Performing a market place functionB. Strengthening the HLT infrastructureC. Working out standards and evaluation criteriaD. Developing a management, maintenance, and

distribution plan


Action line A

Encourage co-operation between industry, academia and policy institutionsRaise awareness and give publicity to the results of HLT research

“Performing a market place function”


Action line B

Defining the BLaRK (Basic Language Resources Kit) for DutchCarrying out a survey to determine what is needed to complete the BLaRK: field surveyDrawing up a priority list with cost estimates serving as policy guidelines

“Strengthening the digital language infrastructure”


Action line C

Drawing up standards and criteria for evaluation of basic materials in BLaRK and for assessment of project results

“Working out standards and evaluation criteria”


Action line D

Defining a Blueprint for management including intellectual property rights, maintenance, and distribution of HLT resources

“Developing a management, maintenance, and distribution plan”


Actions carried out

Conducted mailings to contacts (about 1000)

Contacted and visited companies with HLT related needs, to:

Demonstrate benefits of HLTGet clear picture of company’s knowledge status and future plansProvide information on cross-linking services

Organised seminars and workshops


Platform BC

A. Performing a market place functionB. Strengthening the HLT infrastructureC. Working out standards and evaluation criteriaD. Developing a management, maintenance, and

distribution plan

B+C Platform BC


Platform BCWho?

Steering committee:8 HLT expertsNTUNWO (funding body)

Field survey, 4 researchers2 language technology2 speech technology


Platform BCWho?

Steering committee: 8 HLT experts

Lang. Tech. Speech Tech.

Flanders 1. WD2. FvE

1. JPM2. DvC

Netherlands 1. GB2. AN/DH/FdJ

1. HS2. RV / AD


Platform BCHow?

Three stages:1. Defining the BLaRK for Dutch2. Making inventory of HLT resources3. Establishing priority list


BLaRK: Basic Language Resources Kit

Components:Data: sets of language data and descriptions in machine readable formModules (or semi-products): the basic software components of HLT applicationsApplications: classes of applications rather than specific applications or products

2 matrices:1. Modules x Data2. Applications x Modules

BLaRK


Data Applications

Modules

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Language Technology

Grapheme-phonemeconv.

++ ++ + ++ ++ + +

Token detection ++ + ++ + + + + + +Sent boundary detection + ++ ++ + ++ ++ + ++ ++ ++Name recognition + + + ++ ++ ++ + ++ ++ + ++ ++ ++Spelling correction +Lemmatising ++ ++ + + + + + + + +Morphological analysis ++ ++ + + + ++ + ++ ++ ++Morphological synthesis ++ ++ + + ++ + ++ ++Word sort disambig. ++ ++ + + ++ + ++ ++ ++ ++Parsers and grammars ++ ++ + ++ ++ ++ ++ ++ ++Shallow parsing ++ ++ ++ + ++ ++ ++ ++ ++ ++Constituent recognition ++ ++ + + ++ ++ ++ ++ ++ ++Semantic analysis ++ ++ ++ ++ ++ + ++ ++ ++ ++ ++Referent resolution + ++ ++ + + ++ ++ ++ ++ ++Word meaning disambig. + ++ ++ + + ++ + + + ++ ++Pragmatic analysis + + ++ ++ ++ + ++ ++ ++ + ++Text generation ++ ++ ++ ++ ++ + ++ ++ ++ ++Lang. dep. translation ++ ++ ++ ++ + ++ ++

Speech Technology

Complete speech recog. ++ + ++ + ++ + ++ ++ ++ ++ ++ ++ ++ ++ ++Acoustic models ++ + ++ + ++ + + + ++ + ++ ++ + + +Language models + ++ + + + + + ++ + ++ ++ ++ ++ ++Pronunciation lexicon ++ + + ++ + + + ++ + ++ + ++ + ++ ++Robust speechrecognition

+ + + + + + ++ + + ++ ++ + + +

Non-native speech recog. + ++ + ++ ++ + + ++ + + + + +Speaker adaptation + + + ++ + + ++ + + ++ + + ++ +Lexicon adaptation ++ + + ++ + + + ++ + ++ + ++ + ++ ++Prosody recognition + + ++ + ++ + + + ++ + ++ ++ ++ ++ ++Complete speech synth. ++ + + + + + ++ ++ + + ++Allophone synthesis + + + + + + + + + +Di-phone synthesis ++ + + + + + ++ ++ + + +Unit selection ++ + + + + + ++ ++ + + +Prosody prediction forText-to-Speech

++ + + + + + ++ ++ ++ + ++

Aut. phon. transcription ++ ++ + + ++ + + + ++ + + + + + + +Aut. phon. segmentation ++ ++ + + ++ + + + ++ + + + + + + +Phoneme alignment + + + ++ + + + ++ + + + +Distance calc. phonemes + + + ++ + + + ++ + + + +Speaker identification + ++ ++ ++ + ++ + + ++ + + + +Speaker verification + ++ ++ ++ + ++ + ++ + + + +Speaker tracking + ++ ++ ++ + ++ + + + + +Language identification + ++ + + ++ ++ + + + + + + + +Dialect identification + ++ + + ++ ++ + + + + + + + +Confidence measures + + + ++ + ++ + ++ ++ ++ ++ + + +Utterance verification + + + ++ + + + + + ++ ++ + + +

DatDataa

ApplicationApplicationssModulesModules

LanguageLanguage

TechnologTechnologyy

SpeechSpeech

TechnologTechnologyy

Quantify:Quantify:

0, 1, or 20, 1, or 2

(+’s)(+’s)

Field surveyField survey

&&

Expert Expert opinionsopinions


BLaRKLanguage technology

• Modules• Robust modular text preprocessing• Morphological analysis and morphosyntactic disambiguation• Robust syntactic analysis• Aspects of semantic analysis (word meaning and reference)

• Data• Monolingual lexicon• Annotated corpus of written Dutch• Benchmarks for evaluation


BLaRKSpeech technology

• Modules• Automatic speech recognition• Speech synthesis system• Tools for annotation of speech corpora• Confidence measures and utterance verification• Identification (speaker, language, dialect)

• Data• Monolingual speech corpora for specific applications• Multilingual speech corpora • Multimodal/medial speech corpora • Benchmarks for evaluation


From BLaRK to priority lists

1. BLaRK: Basic Language Resources Kit2. Inventory & Evaluation3. Priority lists

BLaRK inventory

priority


2. Inventory & Evaluation

Inventory:Which components in BLaRK are available?

BoughtFreely obtainableReusableOf sufficient quality

Evaluation:And of sufficient quality?Checklist approach (vs. formal evaluation)


Modules Availability

Grapheme-phoneme conversion 8

Token detection 9

Sentence boundary detection 3

Name recognition 4

Spelling correction 3

Lemmatising 9

Morphological analysis 7Morphological synthesis 9Word sort disambiguation 7

Parsers and grammars 3

Shallow parsing 2

Constituent recognition 5

Semantic analysis 3

Referent resolution 2

Word meaning disambiguation 2

Pragmatic analysis 1

Text generation 3

Language dependent translation 3

Complete speech recognition 4

Acoustic models 8

Language models 3

Pronunciation lexicon 5

Robust speech recognition 2

Non-native speech recognition 2

Speaker adaptation 2

Lexicon adaptation 2

Prosody recognition 2

Complete speech synthesis 6

Allophone synthesis 7

Di-phone synthesis 6

Unit selection 1

Prosody prediction for Text-to-Speech 3

Autom. phonetic transcription 3

Autom. phonetic segmentation 5

Phoneme alignment 8

Distance calculation of phonemes 8

Speaker identification 2

Speaker verification 2

Speaker tracking 2

Language identification 2

Dialect identification 2

Confidence measures 2

Utterance verification 2

Data

Unannotated corpora 9

Annotated corpora 5

Speech corpora 4

Multi lingual corpora 3

Multi modal corpora 1

Multi media corpora 1

Test corpora 1

Monolingual lexicons 8

Multilingual lexicons 6

Thesaurus 4

AvailabiliAvailabilityty

Quantify:Quantify:

1-101-10

Field surveyField survey

&&

Expert Expert opinionsopinions

ModulesModules

DatDataa


3. Priority lists

The prioritisation was based on the following requirements:

The components should currently be unavailable, inaccessible, or of insufficient quality.

The components should be relevant for a large number of applications.

Developing the components should be possible in the short term.


Consensus, broad support

Report version 1Feedback Academia & industry

Sent to the Dutch-Flemish HLT field (1000 sites)Workshop 15/11/2001

Report version 2, final version


From BLaRK to priority lists

1. BLaRK2. Inventory & Eval.3. Priority listsReport Report

11

Feedback:Feedback:•HLT FieldHLT Field

•WorkshopWorkshop

1. BLaRK2. Inventory & Eval.3. Priority lists

Report Report 22


Report

Version 1:

Version 2, final version:W. Daelemans & H. Strik (eds.) (2002)Het Nederlands in taal- en spraaktechnologie:prioriteiten voor basisvoorzieningen


Recommendations (1)

Met betrekking tot de BaTaVo:Verzamelen van bestaande onderdelenVervolledigen (stimulering, fondsen)Beheer & onderhoud (actielijn D)Aanbieden, ‘open’ licentieEvaluatie: testcorpora & methodologie


Recommendations (2)

Algemeen:Meer Taal & Spraak-technologen(opleiding, scholing, projecten)Meer samenwerkingNaast middelen voor toepassingsgericht onderzoek, ook middelen voor fundamenteel onderzoek


Priority listLanguage technology

1. Annotated corpus of written Dutch2. Syntactic analysis3. Robust text pre-processing4. Semantic annotations for treebank in 15. Translation equivalents6. Benchmarks for evaluation


Priority listSpeech technology

1. Automatic speech recognition2. Speech corpora3. Multi-media speech corpora4. Tools for (semi-) automatic transcription of speech

data5. Speech synthesis6. Benchmarks for evaluation


Future prospects [2002]

Action line A: • Stimulate HLT in The Netherlands and Flanders• Cooperation: industry, academia, etc.

Action line B & C:• Collect existing resources• Ensure priorities are realized

Action line D:• Implementation of recommendations in the

Blueprint


When BLaRK is established...

Intellectual rights by NTUActual management and maintenance of resources by HLT agency, to be foundedMaintenance of expertise by

Dutch-Flemish steering committees and HLT management committee, both to be founded


General conclusions [2002]

Goals have been achieved so that the proper prior conditions for development of materials in BLaRK are created

This work, carried out in the Dutch speaking area, can be profitable for others when starting similar activities

Part of the report is translated into English Presentations & publications

Other domains Other countrie

http://lands.let.kun.nl/~strik/BLaRK.html


Questions?

Results of R&D: BLaRK for Dutch Helmer Strik Dept. of Linguistics Centre for Language and Speech...

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