Invited Lecture
Smart vs. Solid Solutions in Computational Linguistics
Roland Hausser
Computational Linguistics
University of Erlangen-Nuremberg
Germany
A smart solution tries to solve a particular problem with a minimum of
effort and a maximum of effect by avoiding the difficult aspects of
the task at hand. There are many applications in which smart solutions
provide the user with a partial, yet highly welcome improvement.
However, when turning to a slightly different application, the smart
solution usually cannot be reused, leading to a multiplication of
effort. Furthermore, it is difficult if not impossible to increase
accuracy.
A solid solution, in contrast, is based on ready-mady off-the-shelve
components such as complete on-line dictionaries, morphological,
syntactic, and semantic parsers and generators for different
languages, annotated reference and monitor corpora for different
domains, etc. These components are developed and maintained in the
context of basic research, but made available to the full range of
practical applications.
Given that linguistics, like any science, is confronted with problems
which are still theoretically unsolved, both smart and solid solutions
have their place. This talk will describe their possible interaction
in different applications in order to simultaneously reduce long-term
cost, raise overall quality, and support theoretical development.