Sebastian Sulger

Towards Identifying Hindi/Urdu Noun Templates in Support of a Large-Scale LFG Grammar

Complex predicates (CPs) are a highly productive predicational phenomenon in Hindi and Urdu and present a challenge for deep syntactic parsing. For CPs, a combination of a noun and light verb express a single event. The combinatorial preferences of nouns with one (or more) light verb is useful for predicting an instance of a CP. In this paper, we present a semi-automatic method to obtain noun groups based on their co-occurrences with light verbs. These noun groups represent the likelihood of a particular noun-verb combination in a large corpus. Finally, in order to encode this in an LFG grammar, we propose linking nouns with templates that describe preferable combinations with light verbs.

Automatic Detection of Causal Relations in German Multilogs

This paper introduces a linguisticallymotivated, rule-based annotation system for causal discourse relations in transcripts of spoken multilogs in German. The overall aim is an automatic means of determining the degree of justification provided by a speaker in the delivery of an argument in a multiparty discussion. The system comprises of two parts: A disambiguation module which differentiates causal connectors from their other senses, and a discourse relation annotation system which marks the spans of text that constitute the reason and the result/conclusion expressed by the causal relation. The system is evaluated against a gold standard of German transcribed spoken dialogue. The results show that our system performs reliably well with respect to both tasks.

Discontinuous Genitives in Hindi/Urdu

This paper discusses genitive phrases in Hindi/Urdu in general and puts a particular focus on genitive scrambling, a process whereby the basic order of constituents is changed. In Hindi/Urdu, genitive phrases may not only occur at different structural positions within the NP that they modify; under the right circumstances, they can also be found outside of the NP, yielding discontinuous structures. The theoretical challenge is to identify and formalize the linguistic constraints that govern genitive scrambling. Further, a successful computational treatment correctly attaches the genitive phrase to its head NP. I use a Lexical-Functional Grammar to solve both challenges, demonstrating that the constraints can be aptly formulated using a functional uncertainty path. Successful attachment further depends on the morphological agreement of the genitive phrase with its head. On a theoretical level, the present contribution sheds light on the possibilities of NP discontinuities in a morphologically rich language like Hindi/Urdu.