Multiword Expressions in NLP

2013 ◽  
pp. 1-21 ◽  
Author(s):  
Alexander Gelbukh ◽  
Olga Kolesnikova
Keyword(s):  
Supervised Learning ◽  
Language Processing ◽  
Automatic Detection ◽  
Research Problem ◽  
Learning Methods ◽  
Multiword Expressions ◽  
Lexical Function

This chapter presents a survey of contemporary NLP research on Multiword Expressions (MWEs). MWEs pose a huge problem to precise language processing due to their idiosyncratic nature and diversity of their semantic, lexical, and syntactical properties. The chapter begins by considering MWEs definitions, describes some MWEs classes, indicates problems MWEs generate in language applications and their possible solutions, presents methods of MWE encoding in dictionaries and their automatic detection in corpora. The chapter goes into more detail on a particular MWE class called Verb-Noun Constructions (VNCs). Due to their frequency in corpus and unique characteristics, VNCs present a research problem in their own right. Having outlined several approaches to VNC representation in lexicons, the chapter explains the formalism of Lexical Function as a possible VNC representation. Such representation may serve as a tool for VNCs automatic detection in a corpus. The latter is illustrated on Spanish material applying some supervised learning methods commonly used for NLP tasks.

Conversion Syntaxique

1994 ◽  
Vol 18 (1) ◽  
pp. 1-26 ◽  
Author(s):  
Philippe E. Barbaud
Keyword(s):  
Empirical Data ◽  
Word Formation ◽  
Compound Word ◽  
Romance Languages ◽  
Compound Words ◽  
Syntactic Structures ◽  
High Productivity ◽  
Structure Level ◽  
Lexical Function ◽  
Verb Raising

In this study, it is shown that the "category changing" property of morphological rules of conversion is unable to account for compound words, for formal and semantic reasons. Several convergent facts demonstrate that the compounding process is syntactic in nature. Consequently, it is argued that X-bar theory must be involved in compound word formation because of the "lexical function" of the syntax. Empirical data are mainly focused on French Noms Composés à base Verbale, or NCV, as tire-bouchon (cork screw),porte-parole (spoke person), gagne-pain (job), etc., which are analyzed as base generated "quasi-VPs" embedded in a NP. Thus, the NPWP exocentric dominance instantiates a "syntactic conversion" at the D-structure level. Such a categorial hierarchy is based on the "distribution changing" property of X-bar theory rather than on the "category changing" property of structuring morphological rules. Therefore, the high productivity of NCVs in French and other Romance languages is due to their morphology, which allows SPEC\HEAD agreement and VERB RAISING movement. The licensing of exocentric X-bar structures in grammar depends on several semantic principles of lexical interpretation, which are relevant to hyperonymy, hyponymy, meronymy, etc.. Thus, the model is dispensed with a superfluous component of "peripheral" rules of compounding. In conclusion, exocentricity of syntactic structures leads the author to claim that X-bar schema is primitive in grammar and that a given phrase is not the necessary projection of its head.

scholarly journals Vers un dictionnaire bilingue d’adjectifs qualificatifs du FLE

2016 ◽  
Vol 63 ◽  
pp. 113-128
Author(s):  
Xinxia Wang
Keyword(s):  
Foreign Language ◽  
Support Tool ◽  
Bilingual Dictionary ◽  
Lexical Function

TOWARDS A BILINGUAL DICTIONARY OF QUALIFICATIVE ADJECTIVES FOR TEACHING FRENCH AS A FOREIGN LANGUAGE The paper aims to think about developing a dictionary of the usual adjectives of French. This support tool for expression in French as a foreign language will focus on the semantic, syntactic, actantial and combinatorial information which usually causes the most problems in the use of adjectives. All this information will be provided in a systematic way by using some concepts of Meaning-Text Theory: lexical function, semantic derivation, semantic actant and syntactic actant, plan scheme, and so on.

scholarly journals Corpus-based methods in stylistic studies: reshitel’nyi/reshitel’no in Fedor Dostoevskii’s individual style

2021 ◽  
Vol 18 (2) ◽  
pp. 400-416
Author(s):  
Ekaterina V. Sharapova ◽  
Keyword(s):  
19Th Century ◽  
Lexical Item ◽  
Russian Language ◽  
Literary Texts ◽  
Semantic Structure ◽  
Writing Style ◽  
Lexical Function ◽  
The 19Th Century ◽  
Individual Style ◽  
National Corpus

The article discusses the idiolectic features of the adjective reshitel’nyi and the adverb reshitel’no in Fedor Dostoevskii’s writing style. Conceived as one lexical item, reshitel’nyi and reshitel’no have a semantic structure that includes three blocks of meanings: quality/mode of action; discursive meaning; intensity (corresponding to the lexical function Magn). The dictionary definitions suggest that all of them were common to reshitel’nyi/reshitel’no in Russian language of the 19th century. Ноwever, a corpus-based study shows that reshitel’nyi/reshitel’no in discursive or intensifying use is one of Dostoevskii’s idiolectic patterns. The study comprises 1219 contexts from Dostoevskii’s five great novels and from Leo Tolstoy’s, Mikhail Saltykov Shchedrin’s, Ivan Turgenev’s and Ivan Goncharov’s literary texts accessible in the Russian National Corpus. The analysis reveals the closeness of intensification tо discursive meanings up to nondistinction. Almost half of the contexts extracted from Dostoevsky’s texts are discursive or intensifying uses of reshitel’nyi/reshitel’no. This share is much smaller for the texts of other authors (12%, 22%, 15% and 14% respectively). The article considers some types of contexts and constructions that refer to discursive or intensifying uses of reshitel’nyi/reshitel’no in Dostoesvskii’s literary texts.

scholarly journals The active dictionary of lexical combinatorics as a means of optimizing language learning

2021 ◽  
pp. 50-60
Author(s):  
Volodymyr Trub ◽  
Keyword(s):  
Second Language ◽  
Language Learning ◽  
Corpus Linguistics ◽  
First Language ◽  
Language Competence ◽  
Word Combination ◽  
Translation Equivalent ◽  
Russian Noun ◽  
Lexical Function

An important element of language competence is the knowledge of different features of lexical combinatorics. This article describes the structure of an Active Russian-Ukrainian Combinatory Dictionary of Nouns. The main goal of the Dictionary lies within the systematic representation of lexical combinatorics of a particular entry keyword along with its translation equivalent. A keyword is a Russian noun which designates such situations as an action, activity, process, pro-perty, state, or an event. Each lexeme which denotes a situation usually relates to a number of other lexemes that denote correlation between the participants of a situation, its variable signs, typical impacts, e.g., beginning or terminating a particular situation, its creation or ending, and other impacts constrained by its specifics. It is essential that different names of situations relate to different sets of lexemes attached to them. A combination of words with the name of a situa-tion and a lexeme that this name relates to is called collocation. In corpus linguistics, colloca-tions are described by means of apparatus of lexical functions (LF). Thus, the accompanying lexeme of the word combination conveys the meaning of LF for which the name of situation serves as an argument. In the Dictionary, eасh entry involves not only a Russian noun naming situation and its Ukrainian translation but also a set of collocations that correlate with the noun. Each Russian collocation is accompanied by its Ukrainian equivalent. The use of such a dic-tionary furthers the knowledge of the user’s native (first) language (Russian or Ukrainian). The Dictionary is especially important for learners of Ukrainian as a second language. It contains information about “paradigmatic syntagmatics” in Ukrainian yet not fully represented in bilin-gual dictionaries. Keywords: dictionary, noun, combinatorics, collocation, lexical function, predicate, actant.

scholarly journals Lexical function of pitch in the first language shapes cross-linguistic perception of Thai tones

2014 ◽  
Vol 5 (4) ◽  
Author(s):  
Vance Schaefer ◽  
Isabelle Darcy
Keyword(s):  
First Language ◽  
Pitch Accent ◽  
Lexical Tone ◽  
Tonal Language ◽  
Learner Perception ◽  
Lexical Items ◽  
Pitch Patterns ◽  
Lexical Function ◽  
Pitch System ◽  
Contour Tones

AbstractDetermining the factors involved in the non-native perception of the pitch patterns of tones is complicated by the fact that all languages use pitch to various extents, whether linguistic (e.g., intonation) or non-linguistic (e.g., singing). Moreover, many languages use pitch to distinguish lexical items with varying degrees of functional load and differences in inventory of such pitch patterns. The current study attempts to understand what factors determine accurate naïve (= non-learner) perception of non-native tones, in order to establish the baseline for acquisition of a tonal L2. We examine the perception of Thai tones (i.e., three level tones, two contour tones) by speakers of languages on a spectrum of lexically contrastive pitch usage: Mandarin (lexical tone), Japanese (lexical pitch accent), English (lexical stress), and Korean (no lexically contrastive pitch). Results suggest that the importance of lexically contrastive pitch in the L1 influences non-native tone perception so that not all non-tonal language speakers possess the same level of tonal sensitivity, resulting in a hierarchy of perceptual accuracy. Referencing the Feature Hypothesis (McAllister et al. 2002), we propose the Functional Pitch Hypothesis to model our findings: the degree to which linguistic pitch differentiates lexical items in the L1 shapes the naïve perception of a non-native lexically contrastive pitch system, e.g., tones.

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