If you had to be stuck in a room with one person of your choosing for the rest of your life, who would you choose?

Jeremy, you know, and I know, anyone you’re stuck with in a room for a lifetime, however cute, however intriguing, however chill, you’re going to want to kill them after a year, never mind a lifetime.

So you’re off the list.

And what would drive you insane is being stuck with the same soul day after day; but I’ll take a shapeshifter, so at least I’ll get some visual novelty. Proteus, for instance?

What? No deities?

The question said I could raise the dead; bring a deity along shouldn’t be that much more of a stretch.

Answered 2017-01-07

[Originally posted on http://quora.com/If-you-had-to-be-stuck-in-a-room-with-one-person-of-your-choosing-for-the-rest-of-your-life-who-would-you-choose/answer/Nick-Nicholas-5]

How different is the syntax of English (in the last three centuries) from those of ancient Greek or katharevousa?

The “last three centuries” gives me pause.

Syntactically, there have been changes from Ancient Greek to Modern Greek, and in fact Katharevousa is closer to Modern than Ancient Greek, though it did pick up nesting articles inside articles (“the of the meeting chairperson”). But in the big picture typologically, they’re all pretty similar:

free (pragmatically determined) word order, unlike English
head–modifier, like English (although Ancient Greek is SOV, Modern is SVO)
subordinating and clause-chaining, to an even greater extent than English (more parataxis in Demotic)

There was a lot of calquing of expressions into Katharevousa, but it wasn’t from English, it was from French. There is some translationese from English now entering the language of the press. Otherwise, there has not been significant syntactic influence.

Answered 2017-01-07

[Originally posted on http://quora.com/How-different-is-the-syntax-of-English-in-the-last-three-centuries-from-those-of-ancient-Greek-or-katharevousa/answer/Nick-Nicholas-5]

How can a software engineer get into computational linguistics?

You need programming chops, though nothing too flash and algorithmic.
You need to be across regexes.
You need to pick up some linguistics, but honestly, not as much as you might think. You certainly don’t need formal syntax or phonology. You will need to know what morphology is, especially if you’ll be working on languages other than English.
You will inevitably end up getting into some stats and stochastic work. The NLP that works best is statistical, not rule-based.
You can pick up a lot from Natural Language Toolkit. Python these days is the premier language for NLP, and the NLTK is the major reason why.
Look for patterns; don’t be too prescriptive; know when close enough is good enough.

Answered 2017-01-07 · Upvoted by

Steve Rapaport

[Originally posted on http://quora.com/How-can-a-software-engineer-get-into-computational-linguistics/answer/Nick-Nicholas-5]

How can I contact Quora if I have a problem? How can I give feedback?

Originally Answered:

I need help from Quora moderation. How can I find a contact?

Marc Bodnick’s answer to Is moderation@quora.com a reliable way to get attention from Quora moderators?

We have phased out moderation@quora.com. The best way to get attention from Quora’s moderators is to report policy violations using the Report flow. For more information, see this blog post: Simplifying Reporting on Quora. You can also contact us using our contact form.

Answered 2017-01-07

[Originally posted on http://quora.com/How-can-I-contact-Quora-if-I-have-a-problem-How-can-I-give-feedback/answer/Nick-Nicholas-5]