Parsing Light Verb Constructions in Lexical-Functional Grammar

Abstract

A successful parsing of light verb construction depends on how the intricate interplay of morphology and syntax is resolved. That is, all (or at least some) of the arguments are transferred from predicational nouns to the light verb mainly through word formation, but the syntactic cases are assigned by the light verb at the syntactic level. This paper demonstrates that the basic mechanisms of argument transfer and inheritance must be employed to resolve the dyadic nature of light verb construction. The paper will review the basic issues of light verb construction, argument transfer and inheritance. Interesting phenomena in light verb construction will be shown in such a way that the order of argument transfer is the reversed order of lexicalization of predicational nouns and their arguments. Two different types of argument transfer, predicational nouns plus multiple arguments, and predicational nouns plus a chain of embedded predicational nouns and their argument(s), will be exemplified and also, the monotonic single inheritance mechanism implemented in the system will be explained. Finally, the ECS Machine Translation System will be briefly introduced and followed by a demonstration combining those concepts and the briefed MT system.