1,721,038 research outputs found
Exploiting Lexical Resources for Therapeutic Purposes: the Case of WordNet and STaRS.sys
Full text linkIn this paper, we present an on-going project aiming at extending the Word-Net lexical database by encoding common sense featural knowledge elicited from language speakers. Such extension of WordNet is required in the framework of the STaRS.sys project, which has the goal of building tools for supporting the speech therapist during the preparation of exercises to be submitted to aphasic patients for rehabilitation purposes. We review some preliminary results and illustrate what extensions of the existing WordNet model are needed to accommodate for the encoding of commonsense (featural) knowledge
A Feature Type Classification for Therapeutic Purposes: A Preliminary Evaluation with Non-Expert Speakers
Full text linkWe propose a feature type classification thought to be used in a therapeutic context. Such a scenario lays behind our need for a easily usable and cognitively plausible classification. Nevertheless, our proposal has both a practical and a theoretical out-come, and its applications range from com-putational linguistics to psycholinguistics. An evaluation through inter-coder agree-ment has been performed to highlight the strength of our proposal and to conceive some improvements for the future
Modelling the Meaning of Argument Constructions with Distributional Semantics
Full text linkCurrent computational models of argument constructions typically represent their semantic content with hand-made formal structures. Here we present a distributional model implementing the idea that the meaning of a construction is in- timately related to the semantics of its typical verbs. First, we identify the typical verbs occurring with a given syntactic construction and build their distributional vectors. We then calculate the weighted centroid of these vectors in order to derive the distributional signature of a construction. In or- der to assess the goodness of our approach, we replicated the priming effect described by Johnson and Golberg (2013) as a function of the semantic distance between a construction and its prototypical verbs. Additional support for our view comes from a regression analysis showing that our distributional in- formation can be used to model behavioral data collected with a crowdsourced elicitation experiment
Encoding Commonsense Lexical Knowledge into WordNet
Full text linkIn this paper, we propose an extension of the WordNet conceptual model, with the final purpose of encoding the common sense lexical knowledge associated to words used in everyday life. The extended model has been defined starting from the short descriptions generated by naïve speakers in relation to tar-get concepts (i.e. feature norms). Even if this proposal has been developed primarily for therapeutic purposes, it can be seen as a generalization of the original WordNet model that takes into account a much wider and systematic set of semantic relations. The extended model is also an enhancement of the psycholinguistic vocation of the WordNet model. A featural representation of concepts is nowadays assumed by most models of the human semantic memory. For testing our proposal, we conducted a fea-ture elicitation experiment and collected de-scriptions of 50 concepts from 60 participants. Problematic issues related to the encoding of this information into WordNet are discussed and preliminary results are presented.In this paper, we propose an extension of the WordNet conceptual model, with the final purpose of encoding the common sense lexical knowledge associated to words used in everyday life. The extended model has been defined starting from the short descriptions generated by naïve speakers in relation to target concepts (i.e. feature norms). Even if this proposal has been developed primarily for therapeutic purposes, it can be seen as a generalization of the original WordNet model that takes into account a much wider and systematic set of semantic relations. The extended model is also an enhancement of the psycholinguistic vocation of the WordNet model. A featural representation of concepts is nowadays assumed by most models of the human semantic memory. For testing our proposal, we conducted a feature elicitation experiment and collected descriptions of 50 concepts from 60 participants. Problematic issues related to the encoding of this information into WordNet are discussed and preliminary results are presented. © Christiane Fellbaum, Piek Vossen, 2012
Human Language Technologies supporting Therapeutic Practices for Language Disorders: the Project STaRS.sys
No full textIndefinite determiners in two northern Italian dialects : A quantitative approach
Full text linkItalian and Italian dialects express indefiniteness in different ways, among which with a null determiner (ZERO) like all other Romance languages, but also with the definite article (ART) unlike what is found in Romance. Italian and some northern Italian dialects also display the so-called "partitive determiner" DI+ART, which is present in French. Few northwestern Italian dialects display (bare) DI, parallel to French. We adopt Cardinaletti and Giusti's (2015, 2016) unified analysis and build on Cardinaletti and Giusti's (2018, 2020) hypothesis that the variation and optionality in the distribution of the four determiners in regional Italian mirror their distribution in Italian dialects along two isoglosses: the ART isogloss spreading from the center of Italy towards north-west and south-east; and the DI isogloss spreading from Piedmont eastwards. We conduct a quantitative analysis on the results of a questionnaire in Piacentino and Rodigino. We test the distribution of the four determiners with mass and count nouns in two dimensions: sentence type (positive vs. negative) and predicate type (telic vs. atelic). The results confirm the hypothesis that the complexity of the determiner is related to its distribution highlighting two hierarchies of contexts: NEG < POS and ATEL < TEL. It also confirms that Piacentino, located at the crossroads of the ART and DI isoglosses, has more optionality than Rodigino, located at their borders
"Beware the Jabberwock, dear reader!" Testing the distributional reality of construction semantics
Full text linkLinguistica computazionale, Construction Grammar, Semantica distribuzionaleNotwithstanding the success of the notion of construction, the computational tradition still lacks
a way to represent the semantic content of these linguistic entities. Here we present a simple
corpus-based model implementing the idea that the meaning of a syntactic construction is in-
timately related to the semantics of its typical verbs. It is a two-step process, that starts by
identifying the typical verbs occurring with a given syntactic construction and building their dis-
tributional vectors. We then calculated the weighted centroid of these vectors in order to derive
the distributional signature of a construction. In order to assess the goodness of our approach,
we replicated the priming effect described by Johnson and Golberg (2013) as a function of the
semantic distance between a construction and its prototypical verbs. Additional support for our
view comes from a regression analysis showing that our distributional information can be used
to model behavioral data collected with a crowdsourced elicitation experiment
You Are What you Do. An Empirical Characterization of the Semantic Content of the Thematic Roles for a Group of Italian Verbs
Full text linkThe nature of thematic roles is a central, yet controversial, issue both for models of linguistic competence as well as for models of sentence processing. McRae et al (1997b) proposed to treat thematic roles as verb-specific prototypes that can be empirically described by resorting to a modified version of the traditional feature norm paradigm. In this paper, we present the results of two norming experiments in which we extended this approach to incorporate the distinction between filler-inherent and verb-entailed features, the latter being further characterized on the basis of their association with one or more phases of the time course of the event.
In the first experiment, we asked to a group of speakers to list the prototypical characteristics of the fillers of two semantic roles, agent and patient, for a set of 20 Italian transitive verbs. We then manually annotated the collected features according to our classification of feature types. In the second experiment, we encouraged participants to list as many properties as possible to describe the verb roles with respect to three different time slots: before, during and after the event described by the verb takes place.
The collected data supports the claim in McRae et al (1997b) that thematic roles can be also treated as verb-specific concepts. The first experiment reveals differences between the agent and the patient roles, which instead disappears in the second experiment. The methodological novelty introduced in the latter is also able to highlight the interaction between the speakers’ knowledge of verb roles and the temporal phases of the events
A Bilingual Treebank (ITA-LIS) suitable for Machine Translation: what Cartography and Minimalism teach us
No full textWhat Makes an Agent an Agent?
No full textThis study investigates the defining properties of Agents and the interplay of syntax and semantics in semantic inferences, based on Dowty’s Proto-Role Hypothesis. Five properties from Dowty’s list were selected, and 39 Italian sentence pairs showing the Instrument-subject Alternation were created. 93 participants rated how much Agents, Instrument-subjects, Instrument-PPs and Patients exhibit each property. Results show that while some properties are sensitive to syntactic realization, others are linked to lexical semantics and world knowledge, supporting the view that semantic inferences arise from an interaction between syntax and semantics
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