Krešimir Šojat

Derivational and Semantic Relations of Croatian Verbs

This paper deals with certain morphosemantic relations between Croatian verbs and discusses their inclusion in Croatian WordNet. The morphosemantic relations in question are the semantic relations between unprefixed infinitives and their prefixed derivatives. We introduce the criteria for the division of aspectual pairs and further discuss verb prefixation which results in combinations of prefixes and base forms that can vary in terms of meaning from compositional to completely idiosyncratic. The focus is on the regularities in semantic modifications of base forms modified by one prefix. The aim of this procedure is to establish a set of morphosemantic relations based on regular or reoccuring meaning alternations.

Identification of Croatian Light Verb Constructions with NooJ

This paper deals with the identification of verbal multiword expressions in Croatian using NooJ. We focus on light verb constructions, i.e. constructions consisting of a light verb and a nominal part (e.g. donijeti odluku ‘to make a decision’ or ‘to reach a decision’). The nominal part in light verb constructions (LVCs) can be either a noun phrase (e.g. dati udarac ‘to give a blow’) or a prepositional phrase (staviti na raspolaganje ‘to put at disposal’). Light verbs are entirely or partially deprived of their lexical meaning and the meaning of the whole construction is conveyed by their complimentary NPs or PPs. All elements in these constructions act as a single unit at some level of linguistic analysis, particularly at the level of semantics and, more recently, of syntax.

Detection of Verb Frames with NooJ

This paper deals with semi-automatic extension of CroDeriV with verb valency frames. CroDeriV is a morphological database of Croatian verbs. In its present shape the database comprises 14 500 verbs in infinitive forms. Each verb in CroDeriV is segmented into lexical and derivational morphemes and verbs of the same root are mutually linked. In order to further enrich the CroDeriV with semantic and syntactic information, we have used the NooJ platform to recognize derivationally related verbs, find the verb frames and to speed up the sentence processing.

CroDeriV 2.0.: Initial Experiments

This paper deals with the processing of derivational morphology in Croatian and focuses on the expansion of CroDeriV a resource with data on morphological structure and derivational relations. The purpose of CroDeriV is to systematically present the morphological structure and derivational relations of Croatian lexemes, and to use this data for the enrichment and development of existing resources and tools, as well as of new ones. One of the objectives in this ongoing project is to build an analyzer for Croatian capable of analyzing both inflectional and derivational morphemes. In this paper we present the initial experiments towards the enlargement of CroDeriV to include nouns, as well as the development of a morphological analyzer for inflectional and derivational morphemes.

From Morphology to Lexical Hierarchies and Back

This paper deals with language resources for Croatian and discusses the possibilities of their combining in order to improve their coverage and density of structure. Two resources in focus are Croatian WordNet (CroWN) and CroDeriV - a large database of Croatian verbs with morphological and derivational data. The data from CroDeriV is used for enlargement of CroWN and the enrichment of its lexical hierarchies. It is argued that the derivational relatedness of Croatian verbs plays a crucial role in establishing morphosemantic relations and an important role in detecting semantic relations.

A Method for the Computational Representation of Croatian Morphology

In this paper we present the development of the Croatian Derivational Database (CroDeriV), a unique language resource for the Croatian language. We describe the initial stage of its development as well as its redesign according to insight gained from data analyzed thus far. We believe that the data model we have presented will enable us to encode all derivational processes in Croatian. We also believe that our model is sufficiently flexible and abstract that it could be used for other morphologically “rich” languages.