Interdisciplinary studies

I am interested in interdisciplinary studies of language-related phenomena and interdisciplinarity per se as a research framework. With the background in Linguistics, I tend to view this field as the basic platform on which other research paradigms can build. As the current state of academic literature demonstrates, designing a functional and productive interdisciplinary approach is both challenging and elusive because it takes a profound knowlege of all theories being amalgamated, and the foundations of these theories are not always fully clear to the scholar, which disrupts core elements of the theories and makes external assessment of the whole approach impossible. I have published several papers focused on one phenomenon (humor) but employing different theories (Pragmatics, Linguistics, Computational Linguistics) and have fully realized the importance of developing a unified framework which would allow a non-contradictory intergration of disciplines.

My major interests areas are Semantics, Computational Linguistics and Humor studies

   Semantics

My interest in Semantics it two-fold. First, I support the Semantics prerequisite in Linguistic research. Semantics in turn should be inderstood as the meaning-based study of language, which explains what language units mean and how their meaning is constructed, conveyed and understood. Formalism should be resorted to as a supplementary tool providing a non-ambiguous description of linguistic data and bringing clarity across theories. The history of Linguistics developed from method-based neglecting/skirting to the full realization of meaning-based theories, and the functionality of Semantics has itself evolved from traditional models and componential analysis-based theories to script, and frame-based theories of meaning, including those that are implementable computationally.

Computational Linguistics

Second, I support the Semantics prerequisite in Computational Linguistics. Semantics-based Natural Language Processing models have proven to be adequate in modeling human linguistic competence because the only way to build a scalable system matching the human level of of language processing is to construct a knowledge model with the possibility of dynamic internal computations. The theory of Ontological Semantics fulfils this prerequisite by featuring a 10,000 concept-large ontology, which emulates the world knowledge in the system of interrelated concepts. Lexicons and dynamic parsing modules deliver a high-end system which is both linguistically realistic and computationally functional. A draft of "Ontological Semantics" by Sergei Nirenburg and Victor Raskin (MIT, 2004) can be found here.

I have been working within the framework of Ontological Semantics and plan to pursue this line of research. More specifically, I am focusing on inference-based human processing and ways if its modeling within Ontological Semantics. I have written several publications on how abduction as a meaning-based on goal-oriented processing mechanism is emulated by Ontological Semantics-based parsing module.

   Humor studies

My interest in humor is concentrated around "the essential" facet, i.e. what features constitute humor as opposed to non-humorous phenomena. Specifically, my focus is the generation and comprehension of forms of verbal humor (and jokes as the most easy-to-access subset). Based on the leading theories of verbal humor the Semantic Script-based Theory of Humor intrduced in 1985 and its most recent incarnation, the Geneal Theory of Verbal Humor introduced in 1992, I tried to describe how narrative jokes can be generated in an algorithmic way. I tried to describe how the knowledge resources introduced in SSTH-GTVH "form" and "inform" the joke as a conceptual structure and determine relevant language parameters of the joke as a text. This resulted in the Ph.D. dissertation in 2008.

I am currently working on strengthening the algorithmic element in my approach in order to design a full-fledged joke-generation model, ideally computationally tractable. I plan to employ Ontological Semantics resources (Ontology and Lexicon) to show how humorous oppositions can be modeled by establishing oppositions between concepts, properties or values in the OnSe knowledge base.

Another avenue of humor studies is tracing how abductive forms of reasoning are manifested in producing and understanding humor. A presentation, "Abductive forms of reasoning in Russian humor" will be delivered at the Annual conference of the Americal Association of Teachers of Slavic and East European Languages in Philadelphia on December 27-31, 2009.