Light verb constructions with 'do' and 'be' in Hindi: a tag analysis

In this paper we present a Lexicalized Feature-based Tree-Adjoining Grammar analysis for a type of nominal predicate that occurs in combination with the light verbs “do” and “be” (Hindi kar and ho respectively). Light verb constructions are a challenge for computational grammars because they are a highly productive predicational strategy in Hindi. Such nominals have been discussed in the literature (Mohanan, 1997; Ahmed and Butt, 2011; Bhatt et al., 2013), but this work is a first attempt at a Tree-Adjoining Grammar (TAG) representation. We look at three possibilities for the design of elementary trees in TAG and explore one option in depth using Hindi data. In this analysis, the nominal is represented with all the arguments of the light verb construction, while the light verb adjoins into its elementary tree.

[1]  Miriam Butt.  The Structure of Complex Predicates in Urdu , 1995 .

[2]  Miriam Butt,et al.  Discovering Semantic Classes for Urdu N-V Complex Predicates , 2011, IWCS.

[3]  Claudia Claridge,et al.  MULTI-WORD VERBS IN EARLY MODERN ENGLISH. A Corpus-based Study , 2000 .

[4]  Akshar Bharati,et al.  LTAG-spinal treebank and parser for Hindi , 2009 .

[5]  Fei Xia,et al.  Creating a Tree Adjoining Grammar from a Multilayer Treebank , 2012, TAG.

[6]  XTAG Research Group,et al.  A Lexicalized Tree Adjoining Grammar for English , 1998, ArXiv.

[7]  Rajendra Singh,et al.  Phrasal Predicates: How N Combines with V in Hindi/Urdu , 2005 .

[8]  Kate Kearns,et al.  Light verbs in English , 2002 .

[9]  Tara Mohanan,et al.  Wordhood and lexicality: Noun incorporation in Hindi , 1995 .

[10]  Owen Rambow,et al.  The Sino-Korean light verb construction and lexical argument structure , 2000, TAG+.

[11]  Anne Abeillé,et al.  A Lexicalized Tree Adjoining Grammar for English , 1990 .

[12]  Juntae Yoon,et al.  A Feature-Based Lexicalized Tree Adjoining Grammar for Korean , 2000 .

[13]  Robert Frank,et al.  Phrase Structure Composition and Syntactic Dependencies , 2002, Computational Linguistics.

[14]  Michael Grüninger,et al.  Introduction , 2002, CACM.

[15]  Aravind K. Joshi,et al.  Feature Structures Based Tree Adjoining Grammars , 1988, COLING.

[16]  Miriam Butt,et al.  A Reference Dependency Bank for Analyzing Complex Predicates , 2012, LREC.

[17]  Fei Xia,et al.  Hindi Syntax: Annotating Dependency, Lexical Predicate-Argument Structure, and Phrase Structure , 2009 .

[18]  Laura Kallmeyer,et al.  Syntax-driven semantic frame composition in Lexicalized Tree Adjoining Grammars , 2014, J. Lang. Model..

[19]  Aravind K. Joshi,et al.  Tree-Adjoining Grammars , 1997, Handbook of Formal Languages.