A Conceptual Model Of Modern Chinese Adjectives

In NLP and Computational Linguistics, it is a hot topic to study adjectival modification, i.e. the adjective in attributive use. According to the classical theory, the adjective and the noun are treated as the predicates, and the computation of the combination of the adjective and the noun is based on the Compositionality Principle. Although it is in coincidence with Mathematical Logic, the fault is that it is difficult to describe the shade difference in meaning when the adjective is used to modify different nouns. Because the adjective is understood as the value of the entity in the objective world in the Chinese A+N combinations, whether the semantic analysis of the whole nominal compound can represent these attributes and the values at the conceptual level is critical for the unity of the intension of the concept, and is related with the unity of the user's need in information retrieval which is represented in the conceptual graph and the accuracy of the retrieval. Consequently, it is related with the accuracy of information retrieval. Therefore, the research is of significance in theory and application. The paper is applied in the Teaching Chinese as Foreign Language. The paper is a part of the'Intensional Logic'theory and its application, and can be applied in the filed of information retrieval, digital library and so on.The paper has a research into adjectival modification in Mandarin, including the conceptual model and its application. The model describes the corresponding relationship between the form and the meaning of the words. The model explains polysemy as a multi-connection relationship between the value standing for the adjective and the attributes. The model proves valid through a number of examples tagged manually and the auto-extraction of the attributes through the dictionary. Based on the semantic interpretation of the model, the paper has a research into the computability based on the attribute bank of the dictionary and the attribute extraction of conceptual attributes and synonyms and antonyms, which will be used in the compiling of CFL.First, the paper has a research into the representation of polysemy of Chinese adjectives. From the four theories to represent polysemy, we conclude two major methods, namely the approach of semantic relation and the approach of semantic attributes. Based on a statistical study of the definitions of 127 adjectives in Modern Chinese Standard Dictionary (MCSD), a common way to represent the adjective is the synonyms and antonyms tagged by corresponding attributes. Therefore, we propose a model of"Entity– Attribute - Value", where a value is connected with different attributes, the names of which are given by the dictionary compilers. Besides, the attributes are enough to explain a lot of A + N combinations. This model is different from the common AVS, where the attribute is connected with the concept and one value is connected with one attribute. To a given adjective, the attribute and the value are different in value and attribute. Because it is time-consuming to construct every model manually, the paper annotates randomly a small number of the adjective of high frequency to get patterns for extraction. Consequently, we use the remaining as the test bed and get satisfactory accuracy and recall. From the experiments, it is feasible to generate the adjectival conceptual model from the text dictionary.From the point of view of computational lexicography, the extracted adjectival model differs from MCSD in information display. First, it collected all the synonyms and antonyms and attributes, which are scattered among other entries in MCSD. Therefore, it is not easy fro students especially foreign students to consult. Besides, it becomes easy to distinguish synonyms and antonyms in the aspects of the attributes, entities and other attributes connected, which is useful for foreign students to use language.In methodology, the paper pays attention to the research into the Chinese language and linguistics. It has a statistical analysis of 127 adjectives of high frequency and corresponding thousands of A+N compounds. With the application of the'Intensional logic'theory and cognitive theories, the paper is creative in following aspects.1. It proposes the conceptual model:"Entity– Attribute - Value"to represent polysemy of adjectival modification. In previous AVS models, people are concerned with semantics such as prototype, context, and negation. A common default is the treatment of the adjective as a word having one sense, which is not against natural language.2. It handles successfully the relativity of attributes construction. The semantic attributes are an important part of the semantic knowledge base. Their definition and the construction are closely related with the counting of automatic extraction and its accuracy. However, there is a discrepancy among the attribute databases of HowNet, CCD and SKCC in both number and naming. The paper has a research into the Classical theory, the Prototype theory and the Relational theory, and first discovers a continuum among different attributes. In the paper, we do not first construct a nominal ontology. Based on the representation of adjectival modification in MCSD, we extract the attributes given by compilers directly.3. The model is applied in Teaching Chinese as Foreign Language. It serves as a pedagogical dictionary of adjectival synonyms and antonyms.4. The paper researches into the auto-conversion of the text dictionary into the pedagogical dictionary.In Computational linguistics, there are two approaches. One is to improve the algorithms with the acceptance of the linguistic theories, especially western theories. We have adopted the second, i.e. the proposal of an adjectival model, which will be realized by the compter techniques. This is also a very important approach.