Copilots for Linguists - Ai, Constructions, and Frames

AI can assist the linguist in doing research on the structure of language. This Element illustrates this possibility by showing how a conversational AI based on a Large Language Model (AI LLM chatbot) can assist the Construction Grammarian, and especially the Frame Semanticist. An AI LLM chatbot is a text-generation system trained on vast amounts of text. To generate text, it must be able to find patterns in the data and mimic some linguistic capacity, at least in the eyes of a cooperative human user. The authors do not focus on whether AIs ¿understand¿ language. Rather, they investigate whether AI LLM chatbots are useful tools for linguists. They reframe the discussion from what AI LLM chatbots can do with language to what they can do for linguists. They find that a chatty LLM can labor usefully as an eliciting interlocutor, and present precise, scripted routines for prompting conversational LLMs.

List of contents

Introduction; 1. Safety Instructions: Risks and Limitations of LLMs and Generative AI; 2. Constructions; 3. Using an AI to Help Study Constructions; 4. Limitations of LLMs for Constructional Analysis; 5. Cognitive Frames and FrameNet; 6. Prompt Engineering for Building FrameNet; 7. Final safety instructions: Risks and limitations revisited; 8. Imagining the Future of Copilots for Linguists.

Summary

AI can assist the linguist in doing research on the structure of language. This Element illustrates this possibility by showing how a conversational AI based on a Large Language Model can assist the Construction Grammarian, and especially the Frame Semanticist.

Product details

• Authors: Arthur Lorenzi Almeida, Thomas Hoffmann, Hoffmann Thomas, Tiago Timponi Torrent, Tiago Timponi (Federal University of Juiz Torrent, Mark Turner
• Publisher: Cambridge University Press ELT
• Languages: English
• Product format: Hardback
• Released: 01.02.2024
• EAN: 9781009475907
• ISBN: 978-1-0-0947590-7
• No. of pages: 122
• Series: Elements in Construction Grammar
• Subjects: Humanities, art, music > Linguistics and literary studies > General and comparative linguistics; Artificial Intelligence, LANGUAGE ARTS & DISCIPLINES / General, Psycholinguistics, Grammar, syntax & morphology, Grammar, syntax and morphology, Semantics, discourse analysis, stylistics, Psycholinguistics and cognitive linguistics, Semantics, discourse analysis, etc