Dr. Andrea Nini

Abstract

Traditionally the mathematical modelling of grammar in Linguistics has relied on formal languages. For example, a Phrase Structure Grammar conceptualises grammar as a collection of terminal words combined through a set of rules. While this model is effective at high levels of abstraction, it presents some problems when trying to account for some real-world linguistic phenomena. To address these limitations, Cognitive Linguistics and Usage-Based Frameworks suggest that grammar exists on a continuum that begins with the lexicon, the lexicogrammar. This theoretical proposal, however, lacks a formal mathematical framework comparable to formal languages for Phrase Structure Grammars. In this presentation, I will argue that a Language Model, as a mathematical object, can serve as this formal framework for the lexicogrammar as proposed in Cognitive Linguistics. I will present indirect empirical evidence supporting this claim from an authorship verification study employing a method called LambdaG, which is inspired by this model.

Biography

Dr. Andrea Nini is a Senior Lecturer (Associate Professor) in Linguistics and English language at the University of Manchester, UK, where he teaches courses in forensic linguistics, stylistics, and quantitative methods. His specialisation is the analysis of linguistic data using computational methods, more specifically for the study of linguistic individuality and authorship analysis. He has published on authorship attribution of historical texts such as the Bixby letter and the Jack the Ripper letters and his PhD thesis was on the authorship profiling of malicious texts in forensic contexts. Andrea has also carried out research and published in other areas of linguistics, such as computational sociolinguistics and register variation. In addition to his academic work, Andrea offers consultancy as a forensic linguist to law firms and law enforcement agencies, predominantly in cases of documents of disputed authorship.