science wire

How did verbs such as "to go," which were originally reserved for describing specific actions, come to take on the more abstract grammatical role of signifying the future (for example, "voy a cantar"

Confused scientist: LLMs are currently treated as knowledge-bases, and used to generate information in response to questions.

Dr Alexander Howard, Senior Lecturer in English, reviews a riotous new stage adaptation of Mikhail Bulgakov's novel The Master and Margarita, known for its supernatural satire.

After a two-year project, the Bibliography of Scottish Literature in Translation (BOSLIT), which records Scottish literature in translation, has been revitalised and given a new digital home that can be accessed from across the globe.

Can AI grasp related concepts after learning only one? Can AI grasp related concepts after learning only one? Research shows new promise for "compositional generalization" in a recent article disseminated by Nature, whose authors are from New York University and Pompeu Fabra University (UPF). Humans have the ability to learn a new concept and then immediately use it to understand related uses of that concept-once children know how to "skip," they understand what it means to "skip twice around the room" or "skip with your hands up." But are machines capable of this type of thinking?

This estate gift, entrusted to McGill by Professor Peter Lambert-David Southam, includes handwritten documents written by Voltaire himself The McGill University Library is now home to a rare collection of materials related to the prolific Enlightenment period philosopher, Voltaire (1694-1778).

Dina Birman always has been interested in how immigrant children acculturate to a new country and language. As a 12-year-old immigrant herself, she had to learn English in Silver Spring, Maryland, and adapt to school in the United States after she and her parents left the Soviet Union during the height of the Cold War.

We now have 105 brand new study spaces in the Main Library, that you don't need to book! Most of these are on Blue 1, but you will also find some new study booths and desks across the Library.

An MIT student and linguistics professor spot an emerging English phrase and examine what it tells us about syntax - but questions remain. Back in the spring of 2022, professor of linguistics David Pesetsky was talking to an undergraduate class about relative clauses, which add information to sentences.

These days, people are hard at work in the University Library, and the books are neatly organised and categorised for everyone who wants to use them.

What is on the minds of people fleeing the war in Ukraine? An interdisciplinary study by the University of Würzburg provides new perspectives.

In new research, MIT linguists explore how human language handles leaps from the here and now. What's the winning number for next week's Mega Millions? If Julie knew the number, Leah would know the number. But you know that neither person holds this precious secret - and not just because Mega Millions hasn't been drawn yet.

Project leaders at the MIT Language Acquisition Lab say their research could shed new light on the nature of language learning.

In the cluster of excellence Eurasian Transformations, led by Claudia Rapp (expert on Byzantine studies, Austrian Academy of Sciences and University of Vienna), an international team of 31 academics i

Associate Professor Huw Griffiths, in English Literature, reviews On The Beach, a new Australian play by Tommy Murphy adapted from Nevil Shute's classic end-of-the-world novel.

Magical texts of the Ancient Near East, Egypt and neighbouring regions are the focus of a new research group at the University of Würzburg.

A new £2.4 million project at the University of Glasgow exploring manuscripts and knowledge in multiple religions in partnership with world experts in their field.

This year, the Carnegie Mellon University Libraries presents two  exhibitions  to mark the quatercentenary (1623-2023) of Shakespeare's First Folio, a copy of which is held in the Libraries'  Special Collections.