A Generative Lexicon Account of Bangla Complex Predicates

By Sanjukta Ghosh

This book is an attempt to provide a corpus based account of Bangla complex predicates and represent them in a structured lexicon suitable for further information processing useful in any Natural Language Processing (NLP) works. The framework which is adopted in the book for representation of the complex predicate is Generative Lexicon proposed by James Pustejovsky. Bangla has mainly three kinds of complex predicates which are extensively used in the language, viz., Adjective-Verb conjunct predicates, Noun-Verb conjunct predicates and Verb-Verb predicates known as compound verbs in the literature.
There are three very important outcomes of this research work, none of them has ever been attempted for any Indian languages and all of them are crucial from both theoretical as well as applicational point of view. First, it provides a classification of adjectives of Bangla based on their behavior when attached in a conjunct verb. This classification is based on the semantic properties of the adjectives. However, it also provides information about their syntactic behavior, viz., which semantic class goes with which verb in a conjunct verb frame in the syntax. Secondly, it also attempts to classify the nouns of Bangla used in Noun-Verb conjuncts. This classification is based on the syntactic frames in which they appear when used in a Conjunct Verb construction. Thirdly, the work creates verb frames for the complex predicates of Bangla. Verb frames are syntactic frames or environment where these verbs occur. They are able to provide important information about their argument structure both types and kinds of arguments. The book will be useful for researchers working in theoretical linguistic issues like argument structure, semantics of complex predicates etc in general. The book uses a powerful knowledge representation framework Generative Lexicon for the representation of the complex predicates and can be used in the area of applied Artificial Intelligence and Natural Language Processing.

• Language: English
• Publisher: Partridge Publishing India
• Release date: Mar 28, 2015
• ISBN: 9781482847284

Sanjukta Ghosh

Sanjukta Ghosh is an Assistant Professor in Linguistics at Banaras Hindu University, Varanasi, India. She has studied Linguistics at Sanskrit College, Kolkata and at University of Hyderabad specializing in Syntax-Semantics-Pragmatics Interface.

Book preview

Copyright © 2015 by Sanjukta Ghosh.

ISBN:      Softcover      978-1-4828-4729-1

                eBook         978-1-4828-4728-4

All rights reserved. No part of this book may be used or reproduced by any means, graphic, electronic, or mechanical, including photocopying, recording, taping or by any information storage retrieval system without the written permission of the publisher except in the case of brief quotations embodied in critical articles and reviews.

Because of the dynamic nature of the Internet, any web addresses or links contained in this book may have changed since publication and may no longer be valid. The views expressed in this work are solely those of the author and do not necessarily reflect the views of the publisher, and the publisher hereby disclaims any responsibility for them.

Partridge India

000 800 10062 62

www.partridgepublishing.com/india

CONTENTS

Preface

List Of Symbols

List Of Abbreviations

Abstract

Chapter One Introduction

1.1 Objective Of The Work

1.2 Significance Of The Work

1.3 Methodology Of The Work

1.4 Theoretical Framework Of The Work

1.5 Organization Of The Book

Chapter Two N-V Conjunct Verbs

2.1. NV Conjunct Verbs: An Introduction

2.2 An Account Of Verbs In NV Predicates

2.2.1 /Kora/ ‘To Do/Cause’

2.2.2 /Paoa/ ‘To Feel’

2.2.3 /Deoa/ ‘To Give’

2.4 Some Debatable Cases: Khaoa And Hoa

2.5 Some Syntactic Tests To Identify An Nv Conjunct

2.6 A Note On Noun Incorporation

2.7 Verb Frames For N-V Conjunct Verbs

2.7.1 Verb Frames For N-V With Kora

2.7.2 Verb Frames For The N-V With Deoa

2.7.3 Verb Frames For N-V Conjunct Verb With Paoa

2.7.4 Verb Frames For N-V With Hoa

2.8 Classification Of Nouns From The Verb Frames Of N-V Conjunct Verbs

2.9 Conclusion

Chapter Three A-V Conjunct Verbs

3.1 Introduction To Av Conjunct Verbs

3.2 Verbs Of A-V Construction

3.3 Adjectives Of Av Construction

3.4 Feature Compatibility Of The Classes

3.5 Making Verb Frames For A-V Predicates

3.5.1 A-V With The Verb Hoa

3.5.2 A-Vwith The Verb Kora

3.5.3 A-V With The Verb Dekhano

3.5.4 A-V With The Verb /Laga/

3.5 Conclusion

Chapter Four Compound Verbs Of Bangla

4.1 Introduction Of The Compound Verbs In Indian Languages

4.2 Senses And Representation Of The Vector Verbs Of Bangla

4.2.1 /Asa/ ‘To Come’

4.2.2 Rakha ‘To Keep, Put’

4.2.3 /Ana/ ‘To Bring’

4.2.4 /Dea/ ‘To Give’

4.2.5 /Nea/ ‘To Take’

4.2.6 /Tola/ ‘To Pick’

4.2.7 /Otha/ ‘To Rise’

4.2.8 /Pora/ ‘Fall’

4.2.9 /Bosa/ ‘Sit’

4.2.10 /Phela/ ‘Drop’

4.2.11 /Jaoa/ ‘Go’ And /Cola/ ‘Move’

4.2.12 Three More Vectors: Pathano, Berano And Mora

4.3 Causative Compound Structure Of Bangla

4.3.1 Generative Lexicon Model For Causative Compund Verbs

4.4 Syntactic Frames Of Bangla Vector Verbs

4.5 Findings And Results

4.6 Conclusion

Chapter Five Concluding Notes

5.1 A Brief Summary Of The Work

5.2 Future Direction Of The Work

References

Appendix

PREFACE

This book is an attempt to analyze and represent the complex predicates of Bangla in a Generative Lexicon framework. Lexical knowledge representation is one extremely important part of mining information for any further linguistic and NLP work. Generative Lexicon is an efficient framework for capturing the syntactic as well as semantic knowledge associated with a lexical item. It captures the dynamic nature of the lexicon when used in resulting word sense disambiguation. An efficient knowledge representation system should be able to capture all those aspects which are responsible for multiple sense of a word. Though there are several works done in Indian languages in general and Bangla in particular on complex predicates, no book-length study involving all types of complex predicates of Bangla is available till date. In spite of its suitability to represent lexical information, works in Generative Lexicon framework in any Indian language are also rare. Considering these points, I hope the book will be useful for the linguists as well as NLP researchers of all Indian languages working on complex predicates.

The book is an outcome of a major research project sponsored by University Grants Commission, India during 2008-2011. I thank UGC for the financial support it provided to make this study. I also thank Abhishek Chatterjee who worked in this project for 10 months and collected the data manually for the study from written corpus.

At this juncture I would like to remember all my teachers of Linguistics who trained me to become what I am today. A special thank to Professor Probal Dasgupta who always inspires me as a dedicated scholar and a living encyclopedia of Bangla linguistics. He initiated me in linguistic research

Many linguistic problems are revealed to us when we try to formalize it for applications in NLP research. How the ‘complex predicates’ are really ‘complex’ to handle in NLP research was realized by me only when I worked in Language Technology Research Centre, IIIT Hyderabad. I still remember many lively academic discussions which we had at that time with late Prof. Laxmi bai and Prof. Dipti Mishra Sharma.

I believe that there should not be thanks giving in an intimate relationship. However, the forward will not be complete if I do not mention that this work would never be possible to finish without a support from my colleague and husband Anil Thakur. Finally, I must remember my daughter Totoro who was born in between the project and brought up with it.

Sanjukta Ghosh

Varanasi 2014

LIST OF SYMBOLS

The following symbols are used in this book to facilitate typing.

E= front mid-low vowel

O= back mid-low vowel

M=velar nasal

S= palatal sibilant

y= palatal semi-vowel

c= palatal voiceless unaspirated affricate

ch=palatal voiceless aspirated affricate

j= palatal voiced unaspirated affricate

jh= palatal voiced aspirated affricate

t= dental voiceless unaspirated stop

th= dental voiceless aspirated stop

d= dental voiced unaspirated stop

dh= dental voiced aspirated stop

n= alveolar nasal

T= retroflex unaspirated voiceless stop

Th= retroflex aspirated voiceless stop

D= retroflex unaspirated voiced stop

N=retroflex nasal

R= retroflex flap

͂ sign on the vowel indicates nasalization

LIST OF ABBREVIATIONS

Acc. = Accusative case

cl. = Classifier

cont. = continuous

CPl. = Conjunctive participal

Dat. = Dative case

Erg= ergative case

Fut= future

Gen. = Genitive case

Hon. =Honourific

Loc. = Locative

Nom. = Nominative case

Neg = negative

Obj. = objective case

1P = 1st person

2P= 2nd person

3P = 3rd person

Part=particle

Perf. = perfective aspect

Pl= plural

Pr= present

Prog= Progressive aspect

Pt. = past tense

Q part= question particle

Sg= singular

ABSTRACT

This book is an attempt to provide a corpus based account of Bangla complex predicates and represent them in a structured lexicon suitable for further information processing useful in any Natural Language Processing (NLP) works. The framework which is adopted in the book for representation of the complex predicate is Generative Lexicon proposed by James Pustejovsky. Bangla has mainly three kinds of complex predicates which are extensively used in the language, viz., Adjective-Verb conjunct predicates, Noun-Verb conjunct predicates and Verb-Verb predicates known as compound verbs in the literature. These complex predicates have always been an interesting area of study in Indian languages because of their some typical behaviour and extreme productivity. Though some important research works (dissertations and research papers) have been done from theoretical and computational viewpoints in Bangla in this area, especially for the compound verbs (Paul 2004, Dasgupta 2012, Dasgupta Malasree 1990, Basu and Wilbur 2010, Das et al 2010, Ghosh and Chakraborty 2006, Ghosh and Thakur 2008, Ghosh 2008, Ghosh forthcoming 2014), a detailed and deep book-length syntactic-semantic study of all kinds of complex predicates in Bangla is long due. In fact, books written for other Indian languages also primarily deal with compound verbs and give only a partial account of complex predicates in any Indian language. This work is an first-ever attempt to place all possible kinds of complex predicates in one place taking examples from the corpus.

There are three very important outcomes of this research work, none of them has ever been attempted for any Indian languages and all of them are crucial from both theoretical as well as applicational point of view. Firstly, it provides a classification of adjectives of Bangla based on their behavior when attached in a conjunct verb. This classification is based on the semantic properties of the adjectives. However, it also provides information about their syntactic behavior, viz., which semantic class goes with which verb in a conjunct verb frame in the syntax. Adjective classification in any Indian language is never done as far my knowledge goes.

Secondly, it also attempts to classify the nouns of Bangla used in