Soumya Sankar Ghosh
VIT University, Dept of English, Faculty Member
- Jadavpur University, Kolkata, India, School of Languages and Linguistics, Department Memberadd
- Assistant Professor (II)edit
Research Interests:
Research Interests:
We present DiMLex-Bangla, a newly developed lexicon of discourse connectives in Bangla. The lexicon, upon completion of its first version, contains 123 Bangla connective entries, which are primarily compiled from the linguistic literature... more
We present DiMLex-Bangla, a newly developed lexicon of discourse connectives in Bangla. The lexicon, upon completion of its first version, contains 123 Bangla connective entries, which are primarily compiled from the linguistic literature and translation of English discourse connectives. The lexicon compilation is later augmented by adding more connectives from a currently developed corpus, called the Bangla RST Discourse Treebank (Das and Stede, 2018). DiMLex-Bangla provides information on syntactic categories of Bangla connectives, their discourse semantics and non-connective uses (if any). It uses the format of the German connective lexicon DiMLex (Stede and Umbach, 1998), which provides a cross-linguistically applicable XML schema. The resource is the first of its kind in Bangla, and is freely available for use in studies on discourse structure and computational applications.
Research Interests:
Due to the conversation's dynamic, emergent nature is frequently thought of as the most challenging topic of formal linguistics. Comparatively to classical sentential analysis, the level of complexity is likewise considerable. The... more
Due to the conversation's dynamic, emergent nature is frequently thought of as the most
challenging topic of formal linguistics. Comparatively to classical sentential analysis, the
level of complexity is likewise considerable. The difficulty in creating a formal account for
conversational analysis is two - dimensional: Since the utterance is the smallest structural
unit at the level of conversational analysis, it is necessary to develop the current theoretical
framework in a way that it can account for the utterance. The linkages between the
utterances in a discussion should also be explained using a system that should be
established. Keeping this thing in mind, the current research work tries to develop a
theoretical account of conversational implicature with a special focus on the Bengali Eat
predicate, khaoa
challenging topic of formal linguistics. Comparatively to classical sentential analysis, the
level of complexity is likewise considerable. The difficulty in creating a formal account for
conversational analysis is two - dimensional: Since the utterance is the smallest structural
unit at the level of conversational analysis, it is necessary to develop the current theoretical
framework in a way that it can account for the utterance. The linkages between the
utterances in a discussion should also be explained using a system that should be
established. Keeping this thing in mind, the current research work tries to develop a
theoretical account of conversational implicature with a special focus on the Bengali Eat
predicate, khaoa
Research Interests:
In contrast to the practice of feature-based modelling of the lexical expression, the context-based interpretation of any expression is more efficient, since the former fails in several respects. However, a theory of meaning construction... more
In contrast to the practice of feature-based modelling of the lexical expression, the context-based interpretation of any expression is more efficient, since the former fails in several respects. However, a theory of meaning construction purely based on contextual information is often considered a goal that is never attainable. By keeping this view in mind the paper concentrates on the Bangla discourse particle abar in a conversational context. This, in turn, helps the study to conceptualize how the occurrences of abar motivate conversational discourse. Moreover, the multiple interpretations noted by this study call for a challenge in both the semantic and pragmatic fields which finds its solution through phonological contexts. Having done that, the paper particularly focuses on particle-like behaviour and discusses its clause type dependency, syntacto-semantic behaviour, etc. This ultimately leads the paper to identify the illocutionary force that particle abar generates in conversational discourse.
Cultural legacy, according to UNESCO, includes not only monuments and collections of artefacts, but also traditions and living expressions inherited from our forefathers and passed down to our successors. Folk literature, in the form of... more
Cultural legacy, according to UNESCO, includes not only monuments and collections of artefacts, but also traditions and living expressions inherited from our forefathers and passed down to our successors. Folk literature, in the form of poems, lines, and melodies, is a part of cultural legacy, and its preservation for future generations appears to be crucial. The advent of technology in the post-covid era gave rise to a new perspective on the educational system. Folk education, which has never been regarded as a separate discipline in the sphere of primary education, is now in jeopardy as it is losing its cultural heritage in this digital age. It can only be preserved if it can be linked to newly developed technologies. The current research proposes the Socio-Digital Knowledge System, or SDKS, in light of this. This model deals with the detour of transition from the ‘as is’ to the ‘as ought to be’ reality, which can be considered the main grounds of folk education. The status ‘as it...
Research Interests:
Cultural legacy, according to UNESCO, includes not only monuments and collections of artefacts, but also traditions and living expressions inherited from our forefathers and passed down to our successors. Folk literature, in the form of... more
Cultural legacy, according to UNESCO, includes not only monuments and collections of artefacts, but also traditions and living expressions inherited from our forefathers and passed down to our successors. Folk literature, in the form of poems, lines, and melodies, is a part of cultural legacy, and its preservation for future generations appears to be crucial. The advent of technology in the post-covid era gave rise to a new perspective on the educational system. Folk education, which has never been regarded as a separate discipline in the sphere of primary education, is now in jeopardy as it is losing its cultural heritage in this digital age. It can only be preserved if it can be linked to newly developed technologies. The current research proposes the Socio-Digital Knowledge System, or SDKS, in light of this. This model deals with the detour of transition from the 'as is' to the 'as ought to be' reality, which can be considered the main grounds of folk education. The status 'as it is' of folk society represents the remaining varieties, not yet to be accounted for by any other educational developmental agencies. There may not be such instances of 'remaining varieties' in real. On the other hand, the 'as ought to be' educational system remains under development determined by surrounding political and socio-cultural parameters. This effort focuses on the nature of the psychology of the monolingual speakers' collective self when they are obliged to maintain a tumultuous social environment with two poles, 'as it is' and 'as it ought to be.' In Indian communities, our model focuses on the ambiguous interpretation of social mobilization and hierarchy principles, as well as the imprecise term 'class.' To comprehend the mentioned bipolar possibility in terms of educational growth, we employ semiotic devices as a methodology.
Research Interests:
The paper is an investigation into the graph theoretic interpretation of the Bangla traditional grammar to understand the way grammatical information is structurally encoded in language. The hierarchical and the linear structural... more
The paper is an investigation into the graph theoretic interpretation of the Bangla traditional grammar to understand the way grammatical information is structurally encoded in language. The hierarchical and the linear structural principles of grammatical compositionality is discussed in terms of certain graph theoretic concepts like tree, subtree, inverse tree etc. Translating linguistic structure into the tree structure is not new. In fact, the Transformational-Generative grammar, Tree adjoining grammar etc. have shown quite successfully how syntacto-semantic principles can be talked about in terms of tree structures. The present work differs in certain respects from the assumptions of TG grammarians, primarily because of the type of grammar and language it is dealing with.
Research Interests:
Conversation is often considered as the most problematic area in the field of formal linguistics, primarily because of its dynamic emerging nature. The degree of complexity is also high in comparison to traditional sentential analysis.... more
Conversation is often considered as the most problematic area in the field of formal linguistics, primarily because of its dynamic emerging nature. The degree of complexity is also high in comparison to traditional sentential analysis. The challenge for developing a formal account for conversational analysis is bipartite: Since the smallest structural unit at the level of conversational analysis is utterance, existing theoretical framework has to be developed in such a manner so that it can take an account of the utterance. In addition to this, a system should be developed to explain the interconnections of the utterances in a conversation. This paper tries to address these two tasks within the transformational and generative framework of Minimalism, proposed by Chomsky, with an emphasis on the Bengali particle to – traditionally classified as indeclinable.
Research Interests:
Construction of meaning at the level of discourse involves complex procedures. Exploring this process reveals the hidden complexities of linguistic cognition. This paper mainly tries to unpack one such complexity in this paper. It... more
Construction of meaning at the level of discourse involves complex procedures. Exploring this process reveals the hidden complexities of linguistic cognition. This paper mainly tries to unpack one such complexity in this paper. It attempts to answer the way complex and often metaphorical usages are construed in language with a special reference to the language data drawn from Bangla emphasizing the way nominals behave in language. In doing so, we have adopted a model proposed by Karmakar and Kasturirangan (2011) to explain the process of conceptual blending. We have also tried to push the boundary a little behind by incorporating few mathematical assumptions.
Research Interests:
This paper deals with Bangla indeclinable ar to explore its role in conversational discourse. In doing so, the paper provides a detail study about ar in the Bangla language. This, in turn, helps to conceptualize how the occurrences of ar... more
This paper deals with Bangla indeclinable ar to explore its role in conversational discourse. In doing so, the paper provides a detail study about ar in the Bangla language. This, in turn, helps to conceptualize how the occurrences of ar motivate a conversation in a pragmatic domain, in particular. More specifically, multiple interpretations of ar pose a particular challenge to semantics and pragmatics, which can be taken care of through the incorporation of phonological context. Phonological context contains information about speaker’s intention and speaker’s approach to their utterance. The paper discusses several criteria, namely the traditional and polysemous nature, intonational pattern, evidentiality etc., which are crucial in determining its role in structuring a conversation.
Research Interests:
Research Interests:
Negative Polarity Items or NPIs are an important means to signal the kind of coherence relation holding between adjacent text spans. Research on NPIs has been mainly concerned only with its nature of dependency with negation or negative... more
Negative Polarity Items or NPIs are an important means to signal the kind of coherence relation holding between adjacent text spans. Research on NPIs has been mainly concerned only with its nature of dependency with negation or negative like environments whereas the other dependencies, such as with the presupposition or aspectual that some of NPIs share, have not received much attention. In this paper, we identify semantic and pragmatic features that are required to support a motivated choice of NPI in a conversational situation. The paper tries to address this issue with an emphasis on Bangla NPI ar. In due course the current work will illustrate how Bangla NPI ar can be used to produce alternative verbalizations of the temporal relationship holding between two events.
Research Interests:
Saadat Hasan Manto, a literary luminary of his time, left an indelible mark on the literary landscape with his thought-provoking narratives. In particular, his works "Thanda Gosht" and "The Dog of Tithwal" serve as captivating... more
Saadat Hasan Manto, a literary luminary of his time, left an indelible mark on the literary landscape with his thought-provoking narratives. In particular, his works "Thanda Gosht" and "The Dog of Tithwal" serve as captivating explorations of the profound influence of language and its conspicuous absence in effectively articulating intricate emotions and socio-political complexities. Manto's mastery lies in his adept utilization of auditory elements and moments of stillness as semiotic instruments that unveil the intricacies of human behavior, societal interactions, and the enduring consequences of division. As Nandita Das, portraying Manto in a courtroom scene, passionately contends, the very essence of literature revolves around the human experience, bridging any ostensible chasm between mere reportage and profound literature. Within this literary realm, the line flanked by reality and the real becomes blurred, beckoning readers to transcend the mundane and embrace the real as reality, an abstract and all-encompassing idea.