Hermann Moisl research

Research

My undergraduate and postgraduate training in the late 1960s and the 1970s was in Old and Middle English, history of the English Language, and Old and Middle Irish, and both my research output and my teaching at the earliest stage of my academic career reflects this. In the mid-1980s the IT revolution was taking hold, and I became interested in applying computational methods to linguistic research. I did an MSc in Computer Science 1985-7 to gain the requisite competence, and since then my research has been in the general area of computational and quantitative linguistics; most recently, the focus has been on language corpus design and on cluster analysis of data derived from language corpora. I retain an interest in medieval English and Irish language and history, however, and still occasionally publish in those fields.

Now that I'm retired, there is time to develop a long-term interest properly: the hypothesis that natural language word and sentence meaning are implemented by, and scientifically best understood as, attractor trajectories in a high-dimensional nonlinear dynamical system, the brain. That's what I'm working on at present.

Computational and quantitative linguistics

Moisl, H. (2023) Intrinsic Lexical Intentionality and the Mathematics of Homomorphism, OBM Neurobiology 2023;7(1):18; doi:10.21926/obm.neurobiol.2301152. Preprint: IntentionalityHomomorphism2023Preprint. Journal online access: https://www.lidsen.com/journals/neurobiology/neurobiology-07-01-152.
Moisl, H. (2022) Topological mapping for visualisation of high-dimensional historical linguistic data, in: Language and Text. Data, models, information and applications, by Pawlowski, Adam, Jan Macutek, Sheila Embleton and George Mikros (eds.) John Benjamins
Moisl, H. (2022) Dynamical systems implementation of intrinsic sentence meaning, Minds and Machines 32 (2022). DOI: 10.1007/s11023-022-09590-1. Preprints at Research Square, Academia.edu, and ResearchGate.
Moisl, H. (2021) Implementation of intrinsic natural language lexical intentionality, Academia Letters 2021
Moisl, H. (2020) Cluster analysis. In: A practical handbook of corpus linguistics, ed. Magali Paquot & Stefan Th. Gries, Springer, 401-434.
Moisl, H. (2020) How to visualize high-dimensional data: a roadmap, Journal of Data Mining & Digital Humanities, Special issue on Visualisations in Historical Linguistics, jdmdh.episciences.org/7021
Moisl, H. (2020) Intrinsic Intentionality and Linguistic Meaning: An Historical Outline. In: Words and Numbers. In Memory of Peter Grzybek (1957-2019), ed. Emmerich Kelih & Reinhard Köhler, RAM-Verlag, 148-166.
Moisl, H. & Kehlih, E. (2020) The Peter Grzybek Memorial Archive of Slavic Studies Publications . In: Words and Numbers. In Memory of Peter Grzybek (1957-2019), ed. Emmerich Kelih & Reinhard Köhler, RAM-Verlag, 216-218.
(2015) Moisl, H. Cluster Analysis for Corpus Linguistics, de Gruyter
(2014) Moisl, H., Corrigan, K., Mearns, A. Feature-based versus aggregate analyses of the DECTE corpus: Phonological and morphological variability in Tyneside English, Aggregating Dialectology, Typology, and Register Analysis, ed. Szmrecsanyi, Benedikt and Wälchli, Bernhard, De Gruyter
(2013) Moisl, H., Measurement of nonlinear distance in data derived from linguistic corpora, Methods and Applications of Quantitative Linguistics. Selected Papers of the 8th International Conference on Quantitative Linguistics (Qualico 2012), Belgrade, Serbia, 172-83
(2012) Moisl, H., Mapping phonetic variation in the Newcastle Electronic Corpus of Tyneside English, Synergetic Linguistics. Text and Language as Dynamic Systems. To Reinhard Köhler on the Occasion of his 60th Birthday, Praesens, 135-48
(2011) Moisl, H., Finding the minimum document length for reliable clustering of multi-document natural language corpora, Journal of Quantitative Linguistics 18, 23-52
(2011) Moisl, H. Hypothesis Generation, In: Analysing Variation in English: What we know, what we don't, and why it matters, ed. A. McMahon & W. Maguire, Cambridge University Press
(2011) Corrigan, K., Moisl, H., Buchstaller, I. The Diachronic Electronic Corpus of Tyneside English, Newcastle University
(2010) Moisl, H., Statistical Corpus Exploitation. In: Durand, J., Gut, U., Kristofferson, G., ed. Handbook of Corpus Phonology, Oxford: Oxford University Press
(2010) Moisl. H.,Variable scaling in cluster analysis of linguistic data, Corpus Linguistics and Linguistic Theory 6, 75-103
(2010) Moisl H., Beal J., Corrigan K. The Newcastle Electronic Corpus of Tyneside English: Annotation Practices and Dissemination Strategies. In: Durand, J., Gut, U. & Kristofferson, G., (ed.) Handbook of Corpus Phonology, Oxford: Oxford University Press
(2009) Moisl, H. Using electronic corpora in historical dialectology research: the problem of document length variation, In: M. Dossena & R. Lass, (ed.) Studies in English and European Historical Dialectology, Bern:Peter Lang
(2009) Moisl H., Exploratory Multivariate Analysis, In: Lüdeling A., Kytö M., (ed.) Corpus Linguistics. An International Handbook, Berlin: Mouton de Gruyter, 874-99
(2009) Moisl, H., Sura length and lexical probability estimation in cluster analysis of the Qur'an, Association for Computing Machinery Transactions on Asian Language Information Processing 8, article 19
(2008) Moisl, H., Data Normalization for Variation in Document Length in Exploratory Multivariate Analysis of Text Corpora, Proceedings of INFOS2008: 6th International Conference on Informatics and Systems, Cairo University, 27-29 March 2008
(2008) Moisl, H., Using electronic corpora to study language variation: the problem of data sparsity, In: Tsiplakou, S., Karyolemu, M., Pavlou, P. (ed.) Language Variation. European Perspectives, Amsterdam: John Benjamins, 169-178
(2008) Moisl H., Maguire W., Identifying the Main Determinants of Phonetic Variation in the Newcastle Electronic Corpus of Tyneside English, Journal of Quantitative Linguistics 15, 46-69
(2007) Moisl H., Beal J., Corrigan K., Taming Digital Voices and Texts: models and methods for handling unconventional synchronic corpora, In: Beal, J., Corrigan, K., Moisl, H., (ed.) Creating and Digitizing Language Corpora: Synchronic Databases, Palgrave Macmillan, 1-16
(2007) Moisl H., Beal J., Corrigan K., Taming Digital Voices and Texts: models and methods for handling unconventional diachronic corpora, In: Beal, J., Corrigan, K., Moisl, H., (ed.) Creating and Digitizing Language Corpora: Diachronic Databases, Palgrave Macmillan, 1-15
(2007) Moisl H., Allen W., Beal J., Corrigan K., Maguire W., A linguistic 'time capsule': The Newcastle Electronic Corpus of Tyneside English: Moisl H., Beal J., Corrigan K., (ed.) Creating and Digitizing Language Corpora: Diachronic Databases, Palgrave Macmillan, 16-48
(2007) Beal, J., Corrigan, K., Moisl, H. (eds.) Creating and Digitizing Language Corpora: Synchronic Databases, Palgrave Macmillan
(2007) Beal, J., Corrigan, K., Moisl, H. (eds.) Creating and Digitizing Language Corpora: Diachronic Databases, Palgrave Macmillan
(2007) Moisl H., Data nonlinearity in exploratory multivariate analysis of language corpora, In: J. Nerbonne, T. Ellison, G. Kondrak, (ed.) Computing and Historical Phonology : Proceedings of the Ninth Meeting of the ACL Special Interest Group in Computational Morphology and Phonology, Association for Computational Linguistics, 93-100
(2006) Moisl, H., Maguire W., Allen W., Phonetic variation in Tyneside: exploratory multivariate analysis of the Newcastle Electronic Corpus of Tyneside English, In: F. Hinskens (ed.) Language Variation. European Perspectives, Amsterdam: Meertens Institute
(2005) Moisl, H., Jones, V., Cluster analysis of the Newcastle Electronic Corpus of Tyneside English: a comparison of methods, Literary and Linguistic Computing 20, 125-46
(2005) Moisl H. & Jones, V., Cluster analysis of the Newcastle electronic corpus of Tyneside English: a comparison of methods, Centre for Telematics and Information Technology [CTIT], TR 2005/65) {A-53328}, University of Twente
(2003) Moisl, H., Artificial neural networks and natural language processing, Encyclopedia of Library and Information Science, ed. M. Drake, Marcel Dekker
(2001) Moisl, H., Linguistic computation with state space trajectories, In: Emergent Neural Computational Architectures based on Neuroscience, ed. S. Wermter, J. Austin, D. Willshaw, Springer
(2001) Moisl, H., Corpus analysis and results visualization using self-organizing maps, Proceedings of Corpus Linguistics 2001, University Centre for Computer Corpus Research on Language, Technical Papers 13, University of Lancaster
(2000) Dale, R., Moisl, H., Somers, H. Handbook of Natural Language Processing, Marcel Dekker
(2000) Moisl, H., NLP Based on Artificial Neural Networks: Introduction, In: Handbook of Natural Language Processing, ed. R. Dale, H.Moisl & H. Somers, Marcel Dekker, 655-713
(1997) Moisl, H., Recurrent neural networks and natural language processing, In: New Methods in Language Processing, ed. D. Jones & H. Somers, UCL Press, 69-82
(1997) Moisl, H., Implementation of natural language semantics in an ANN-based natural language processing system, Newcastle and Durham Working Papers in Linguistics 4, 36-49
(1994) Moisl, H., Artificial Neural Networks and Natural Language Processing, In: Encyclopedia of Library and Information Science, Vol. 55, ed. A. Kent, Marcel Dekker, 1-41
(1994) Moisl H., Recurrent artificial neural networks and finite state natural language processing, Newcastle and Durham Working Papers in Linguistics 2, 9-16
(1993) Moisl H., Implementation of Natural Language Processing Automata in Artificial Neural Networks, Newcastle and Durham Working Papers in Linguistics 1, 206-229
(1992) Moisl, H., Connectionist finite state natural language processing, Connection Science 4, 67 - 91

Digital resources

Medieval English and Irish language and literature

(2017) Moisl, H., Flodibor rex Francorum, in: Crossing Boundaries. Interdisciplinary approaches to art, material culture, language, and literature of the early medieval world, ed. Cambridge, E., and Hawkes, J., Oxbow Books
(2006) Moisl, H., Language, literacy, and cultural development in early medieval England and Ireland, In: Bremer, E., Jarnut, J., Richter, M., Wasserstein, D. (ed.) Language of Religion - Language of the People: Medieval Judaism, Christianity and Islam, Munich: Wilhelm Fink Verlag
(2002) Moisl, H., A Frankish aristocrat at the battle of Mag Rath, In: Ogma. Essays in Celtic Studies in honour of Proinsias Ni Chathain, Four Courts Press, 36-47
(2001) Moisl, H., Celtic Religion, In: Concise Encyclopedia of Language and Religion, ed. J. Simpson & J. Sawyer, Elsevier
(1999) Moisl, H. Lordship and Tradition in Barbarian Europe, Edwin Mellen
(1993) Moisl, H., Celtic Religion, In: Encyclopedia of Language and Linguistics, ed. R. Asher, Pergamon
(1991) Moisl, H., Early Irish Grammarians, In: Language: usage and description, ed. I. Tieken-Boon & J. Frankis, Amsterdam, 27 - 36
(1987) Moisl, H., The Church and the native tradition of learning in early medieval Ireland, In: Irland und die Christenheit, ed. M. Richter & P. Ni Chathain, Stuttgart, 258 - 271
(1986) Moisl, H., Kingship and law in early Ireland, Proceedings of the Seventh International Congress of Celtic Studies, 293 - 296
(1985) Moisl, H., Das Kloster Iona und seine Verbindungen mit dem Kontinent im siebenten und achten Jahrhundert, In: Virgil von Salzburg, ed. H. Dopsch & R. Juffinger, Salzburg, 27 - 37
(1985) Moisl, H., Kingship and orally transmitted Stammestradition among the Lombards and Franks, In:Die Bayern und ihre Nachbarn, ed. H. Wolfram & A. Schwarcz, Oesterreichische Akademie der Wissenschaften, Denkschriften 179, 111 - 120,
(1983) Moisl, H., The Bernician royal dynasty and the Irish in the seventh century, Peritia 2, 103 - 126
(1981) Moisl, H., Anglo-Saxon royal genealogies and Germanic oral tradition, Journal of Medieval History 7, 215 - 248
(1981) Moisl, H., A sixth-century reference to the British bardd, The Bulletin of the Board of Celtic Studies 29, 269 - 273
(1980) Moisl, H., Celto-Germanic *watu- / *wotu- and early Germanic poetry, Notes and Queries 27, 98-9