1. Creation of English and Hindi Verb Hierarchies and their Application to Hindi WordNet Building and English-Hindi MT
Debasri Chakrabarti, Gajanan Krishna Rane, Pushpak Bhattacharyya.
Computer Science and Engineering Department,
Indian Institute of Technology, Bombay,
Mumbai, 40076, India.
2/2/2019
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2. Introduction Verb hierarchy System is based on
creation of the verb hierarchy for English and Hindi
verbs.
organized according to semantics and syntax
semantic hierarchy - through the super-ordinate terms and the inbuilt ontology of the UNL KB.
syntactic information- through UNL case relations
System is based on
English verb classes and their alternation (Levin)
UNL System: UW Manual, Knowledge base (KB) & specification
Semantic relations of English WordNet
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3. Levin’s Class of English verbs
Classification of the English verbs
Adopted from English Verb Classes and Alternation of Beth Levin.
Details of Levin’s work
Levin’s classification of the English verb is the most significant and celebrated work.
Assumption underlying Levin’s work
Syntactic behavior of a verb is semantically determined
Levin investigated and exploited this hypothesis for about 3200 English verbs.
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4. Details of Levin’s work
Verb Classes
Preliminary Investigation
considerable correlation between some facets of the
semantics of verbs and their syntactic behavior
200 semantic classes defined in Levin’s system
each class share a number of alternations
Example of verb classes
verbs of putting , verbs of communication, correspond
verbs etc.
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5. The Universal Networking Language (UNL)
electronic language for computers to express and
exchange information.
UNL system consists
Universal words (UW) : Vocabulary of UNL
Relations, attributes : Syntax of UNL
UNL knowledge base (KB): Semantics of UNL
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6. The Universal Networking Language
UNL represents information
sentence-by-sentence as a hyper-graph
concepts as nodes and relations as arcs
Sentence is a hyper-graph
a node in the structure can itself be a graph
the node is called a compound word (CW)
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7. Graphical representation in UNL
@ present
eat (icl>do)
agt
obj
ins
John (iof>person)
rice (icl>food)
spoon (icl>artifact)
John eats rice with a spoon
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8. Verbal Concepts in UNL
Verbal concepts in the UNL system are organized into three categories
(icl>do) for defining the concept of an event which is
caused by something or someone
change (icl>do) : as in She changed the dress
(icl>occur) for defining the concept of an event that
happens of its own accord
change (icl>occur) : as in The weather will change
(icl>be) for defining the concept of a state verb
remember (icl>be) : as in Do you remember me?
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9. Verbal Concepts in UNL Partial hierarchical structure for do
do(agt>thing{,^gol>thing,icl>do,^obj>thing,^ptn>thing,^src>thing})
do(agt>volitional thing{,icl>do(agt>thing)})
do(agt>living thing{,icl>do(agt>volitional thing)})
do(agt>human{>living thing,icl>do(agt>living thing)})
do(agt>thing,gol>thing{,icl>do, ^obj>thing,^ptn>thing,^src>thing})
Partial hierarchical structure for do
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10. do in UNL KB Semantic hierarchy in terms of the inbuilt ontology in KB
do(agt>thing,gol>thing{,icl>do},obj>thing{,^ptn>thing,^src>thing})
do({icl>do(}agt>thing{,gol>thing,obj>thing)},gol>abstract thing,obj>abstract thing)
do({icl>do(}agt>thing{,gol>abstract thing,obj>abstract
thing)},gol>custom{>abstract thing},ob j>custom{>abstract thing})
do(gol>thing)
do(gol>abstract thing)
do(gol>custom)
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11. Creation of the verb hierarchy
First, a particular verb class is selected from Levin.
Next the class is categorized according to the UNL format
Parent node of a class is obtained through English wordnet and various dictionaries
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12. Creation of the verb hierarchy
“put”
‘Put your clothes in the cupboard’.
(to put something into a certain place)
(icl>move(agt>person,obj>concrete thing,gol>place)
(loc_prep{in/on/into/under/over})
[VTRANS, VOA-ACT]
“hang”
‘He hanged the wallpaper on the wall’.
(to suspend or fasten something so that it is held up from above and
not supported from below)
(icl>put{>move}(agt>person,obj>concrete thing,gol>place)
(loc_prep{from/on})
Partial hierarchy of the put class
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13. Verb Hierarchy in Hindi
रखना ; rakhanaa; r«kHna
‘put’ ‘Put your things here.’ (to put something into a certain place)
(icl>act(agt>person,obj>concrete thing,gol>place)
अपना सामान यहाँ पर रखो।; («pna saman y«ha) p«r r«kHo) ; apanaa saamaana
yahaa par rakho)
{(adv_plc (यहाँ/वहाँ / ‘y«ha) / v«ha)’ loc_postp (पर ‘p«r’)}
रखना, सजाना ; r«kHna, s«jana; rakhanaa , sajaanaa;
‘arrange’ ‘he arranged the books here’.(to put into a proper or systematic
manner)
(icl>put{>act}(agt>person,obj>thing)
उसने किताबों को यहाँ पर सजाकर रखा। usne kitabo) ko y«ha) p«r s«jak«r r«kHa.)
(usne kitabo ko yahaa par sajaakar rakhaa.)
{(adv_man (सजाकर, s«jak«r ;क्रम से, kr«m se))+ (adv_plc (यहाँ/वहाँ / ‘y«ha) /
v«ha)’ ))+ loc_postp( पर ‘p«r’)}
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14. Verb Hierarchy in Hindi
Syntax frames specified for the put class in English
(adv_plc{here/there})
(loc_prep)
Sentence frames for put in Hindi
adv_man
adv_plc + adv_man
loc_postp + adv_man
English
Hindi
adv_plc (here / there)
adv_man (सजाकर, s«jak«r; क्रम से, kr«m se etc )
loc_prep (in, inside, on etc)
adv_plc(यहाँ/वहाँ / ‘y«ha) / v«ha)’) +loc_postp(पर ‘p«r)+adv_man (सजाकर, s«jak«r ;क्रम से, kr«m se etc)
loc_postp(के उपर, ke up«r
etc)+adv_man (सजाकर,
s«jak«r etc)
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15. Verb hierarchy and the Hindi WordNet
Application of the hierarchy in the Hindi wordnet
will help in determining
semantic relations like hypernymy and troponymy
syntactic frames
revealed facts like
difference in the representations for troponyms in Hindi and English
reclassifications of the verbs in Hindi
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16. Representations of Troponyms
English
sentence
Hindi
put
put your things here.
रखना
r«kHna
अपना सामान यहाँ पर रखो।; («pna s«man y«ha) p«r r«kHo)
pile
pile your books up on the shelves.
-----
उसने खाने में एक के ऊपर एक सामान रखा।;((((((usne kHane me) ek ke Up«r ek saman r«kHa)
cram
she cram the books into the suitcase.
उसने बक्से के अन्दर सारी किताब ठूँसकर रखी।;(usne bakse ke a)d«r sari kitab tHu)sak«r r«kHI))
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17. Classification of Hindi Verbs
simple
compound
noun + verb
Verbs
adjective + verb
adverb + verb
conjunct
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18. Classification of the Hindi Verbs
Simple verbs
खाना(kHana) ‘to eat’
Compound verbs
गिर पड़ना(gir p«êna) ‘to fall down’
Conjunct verbs
noun + verb आरंभ करना (ar«mbH k«rna) ‘to start’
adjective +verb शांत करना (Sant k«rna) ‘to calm down’
adverb + verb उठाकर रखना (utak«r r«kHna) ‘to lift’
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19. Reclassification of the Hindi verbs
Sentence frames of the verbs reveals
only noun+ verb conjunct is a true conjunct
Hence, a re-classification of the verbs is needed
2/2/2019
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20. Application in NLP The application of the verb hierarchy in NLP
gives semantic hierarchy of a verbal concept
enumerates syntactic details of a verb
UNL based MT will be immensely benefited
possible UNL relations that appear with a concept is specified
2/2/2019
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21. Application in MT Verb Sentence Frame UNL Relations fight
Sam and Sue fought.
conj_and
agt>person
Sam was fighting with Sue.
prep_accompaniment{with}
agt>person, ptn>person
The tribesmen fought each other.
-prep_with
agt>person, obj>person
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22. Conclusion
System statistics
approximately 3000 English verbs
approximately 5500 UWs
Common English verbs are dealt with
tested against British National Corpus
Coverage of both English and Hindi verbs is increasing everyday
Visualizer and an application programming interface for the verb knowledge bases in both the languages are under construction
2/2/2019
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