Type Construction of Event Nouns in Mandarin Chinese

Copyright 2012 by Shan Wang and Chu-Ren Huang 26th Pacific Asia Conference on Language,Information and Computation pages 582–591 Type Construction of Event Nouns in Mandarin Chinese Shan Wang1, 2 Chu-Ren Huang1 1Dept. of Chinese and Bilingual Studies, The Hong Kong Polytechnic University, Hung Hom, Kowloon, Hong Kong 2 Department of Computer Science, Volen Center for Complex Systems, Brandeis University {wangshanstar, churenhuang} @gmail.com Abstract Natural and non-natural kinds have significant differences. This paper explores the subclasses of each kind and establishes the type system for event nouns. These nouns are divided into natural types, artifactual types, complex types (including natural complex types and artifactual complex types). This new classification not only enriches the Generative Lexicon theory, but also helps us to capture the properties of different types of event nouns. 1 Introduction A considerable amount of research has been condu cted into event nouns in Mandarin Chinese (Chu 2000; Han 2010a; Ma 1995; Wang & Zhu 2000; Wang & Huang 2011a, 2011b, 2011c, 2012a, 2012b, 2012c, 2012d). Previous research on the classification of these nouns is based on their semantic categories (Han 2004, 2010b; Liu 2004; Wang 2010; Zhong 2010). However, such classification conceals the shared characteristics of different categories of event nouns. Because natural and non-natural kinds have significant differences (Pustejovsky 2001, 2006; Pustejovsky & Jezek 2008), this paper explores the subclasses of each kind and establishes the type system for event nouns. The Data in this research are collected from three sources: (a) a balanced Modern Chinese corpus Sinica Corpus1, accessed through Chinese 1 http://db1x.sinica.edu.tw/kiwi/mkiwi/ Word Sketch Engine2, (b) Gigaword Corpus, also accessed through Chinese Word Sketch Engine, and (c) web data collected through the search engines google and baidu. 2 Related Work Pustejovsky (2001, 2006) and Pustejovsky & Jezek (2008) establish a type system for the three upper concepts (entity, event and quality). Each concept is divided into three subtypes (natural, artifactual and complex) by using qualia structure as a typing specification. Entities are distinguished into three types: (a) Natural Types: Predication from the domain of substance, e.g., the qualia formal or constitutive. (b) Functional Types: Predication includes reference to either agentive or telic qualia. (c) Complex Types: Cartesian type formed by Dot Object Construction. Similarly, the domains of relations and properties are also partitioned into three ranks: (a) Natural Events: Arguments in the predicate or relation are only from the domain of substance, e.g., the qualia formal or constitutive. (b) Functional Events: At least one argument in the predicate or relation is a functional type, f, e.g., makes reference to either agentive or telic qualia. (c) Complex Events: At least one argument in the predicate or relation is a complex type, e.g., a type formed by Dot Object Construction. Pustejovsky (2006) further discusses three linguistic diagnostics which motivate a fundamental distinction between natural and 2 http://wordsketch.ling.sinica.edu.tw/ 582 unnatural kinds. These diagnostics are: (a) Nominal Predication: How the common noun behaves predicatively; (b) Adjectival Predication: How adjectives modifying the common noun can be interpreted; (c) Interpretation in Coercive …

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