Examples of expansion and contraction

Simple expansions and contractions:

It's = It is/has (is/has ambiguity to be resolved by checking for the presence of participial forms after It's)
There's = There is/has (is/has ambiguity to be resolved by checking for the presence of participial forms after There's)
I'd = I would/had (would/had ambiguity to be resolved by checking for the presence of participial forms after I'd)

These are all syntactic expansions/contractions.

More involved expansions and contractions:

1> Expansion Ambiguity

A: Tell me something about CO2.
B: Oh...it's the carbon thing again!

Here, A and B are having a conversation and the "carbon thing" is most certainly a colloquial expression. This, when interpreted (we can say "expanded semantically") with contextual help, boils down to CO2, our familiar word in chemistry! But again, "carbon thing" may actually imply something totally different. For example, if B is bored with A's rantings, he'll probably say the same thing! Here, the ambiguity might be resolved the following way. If it's "the carbon thing", then we can reasonably guess that B is bored, and he's refering to anything and everything related to carbon. On the other hand, if it were "that carbon thing", we could have been sure that B was actually talking about CO2.

There are other examples:

2> Placeholders and Figuratives

A: D'you think we are going to estimate the solubility of this mixture.
B: Well, I think we do.

Here also, what B says is basically "We are going to estimate the solubility of this mixture.", and "well" is merely a placeholder, or we can say, a figurative. So in expanding B's words, we have to discard "well", and then we have to interpret the rest of the sentence in conjunction with whatever A had uttered previously.

So there are 2 tasks:

1> Identify the placeholders and figuratives, and remove all of them.
2> Interpret the rest with contextual help. The context may either precede the text, or succeed it. [In the above two cases, context preceded text]

One example where text precedes context:

3> Context succeeds text

A: Hmmm, great job!
B: The isolation part?

B's question is in colloquial form. When expanded, it'll be "Are you talking about the isolation part?" A's remark "great job" (colloq) tentatively (because we know nothing about the great job, and B's answer to the remark is merely another question!) refers to the isolation part, and "hmmm" is nothing but a placeholder. But that may not be true everywhere. For example,

4> Placeholders, or something else?

A: CO2 reacts with water to yield H2CO3. Take it for granted.
B: Hmmm.

Here, "hmmm" is more than a placeholder. It actually means that B is reserving his judgement about A's remark. So, when expanded, it'll be something like "Yes, I take it for granted that CO2 reacts with water to yield H2CO3.", or "No, I do not take it for granted that CO2 reacts with water to yield H2CO3.", or even "It may be that CO2 reacts with water to yield H2CO3, of which I am not sure yet."

Like expansion, contraction is also an important and difficult issue. Not only should we be concerned about the context, but at the same time we should have at our disposal all possible colloquial forms that are appropriate. The most appropriate (and probably the pithiest) one will replace our formal, expansive jargon. For example,

5> A formal dialog

A: CO2 reacts with water to yield H2CO3. Take it for granted.
B: Yes, I take it for granted that CO2 reacts with water to yield H2CO3.

To convert this example to the previous one, would require us to know about all possible colloquial expressions that COULD HAVE replaced the second sentence, and then to select "hmmm" (it might be "Yup!" as well) as the fittest among them. Here, some information about B's mental state may be extremely valuable, for as we understand, colloquial forms vary considerably with changes in a person's mental state. As an example, the following could be a perfect contraction:

6> Colloquial expressions vary with mental state

A: CO2 reacts with water to yield H2CO3. Take it for granted.
B: Bingo!

Definitely, there are fine distinctions between these two cases. When B says "hmmm", we understand that he is very attentive and heeding. On the other hand, a "bingo!" tells us that B had been thoroughly involved, and overjoyed with this new finding. Important thing is that one "bingo!" from B tells us that he had been overjoyed and this finding was NEW to him!

Finally, it must be admitted that colloquial forms are not very easy to obtain in general (digitized) literature. They are obtained either from chats or blogs (like this one... [:-D]), or from memos chemists use to exchange ideas and data. These sources will form our corpora.

More about corpora in the next post.