Central Kentucky Linguistics Conference (CKLiC)
For more info, go to: https://linguistics.as.uky.edu/graduate-conference.
Canceled: Halloween Lab Crawl
This event has been canceled.
Linguistics Reading Group
Contact Dr. Cramer or Katia for the readings and/or Zoom link.
Thesis Defense
Title: "A Computational Investigation of English Spelling"
Zoom link: https://uky.zoom.us/j/89775469548
Abstract:
This thesis examines English orthography's predictability and regularity using computational methods, primarily n-gram models to predict missing letters in words. It evaluates how dataset size, word length, letter position, and vowel presence affect predictive accuracy, using diverse datasets and focusing on distinct word types to minimize frequency biases.
The findings reveal consistent orthographic predictability across genres and corpus sizes, with n-gram models performing well even with limited training data. Word length, letter position, and vowel presence significantly influence accuracy, with second and penultimate letters being most accurately predicted. The study demonstrates that English spelling follows systematic patterns capturable by computational models.