A Computational Study of the Ba Resultative Construction : Parsing Mandarin Ba Sentences in HPSG

A Computational Study of the Ba Resultative Construction: Parsing Mandarin Ba Sentences in HPSG Picus Sizhi Ding Institute of Linguistics Academia Sinica, Taipei, Taiwan, R.O.C. Email: picus@sinica.edu.tw ABSTRACT Recognizing Mandarin ba sentences as the Ba Resultative Construction, this study implements a rigid test of Ding's (1993) treatment of ba as a matrix verb in the periphrastic resultative construction. The computational experiment is facilitated with a formal rendition of the analysis of ba in Head-driven Phrase Structure Grammar. Moreover, the small parsing experiment also highlights the important role of semantics in natural language processing, including common-sense knowledge. 1. INTRODUCTION Probably no other lexeme in Mandarin evokes as much controversy as ba in regard to the lexical category. The category of ba in Modem Mandarin has been claimed to be various types of verbs (including auxiliary verb) as well as a `deverbalized' preposition (cf. Wang 1947, Chao 1968, Hashimoto 1971, Huang 1974, Li & Thompson 1981, Sun 1996, and Sybesma 1999, among others). What counts towards the so-called `ba-construction' is also controversial (for details, see Ding 1993). Mangione (1982) presents an investigation of ba sentences most comparable to the one undertaken here in terms of the types of ba sentences and the explicit formal approach. The largest divergence lies in his treatment of ba as a preposition, heading a sort of 'adverbial prepositional phrase' (Mangione 1982: 158). Since Montague Grammar allows prepositions to head predicates semantically (cf. Dowty et al 1981: 243), the crux of the ba problem is dissolved in this framework. Taking advantage of this conflation of verb and preposition, Mangione is able to offer a formal analysis of the predicate headed by ba while arguing for treating ba as a preposition. This convenience, however, is intrinsically built upon the premises of Montague Grammar. The perennial debate about the syntactic category of ba endures such a lengthy period partly due to neglect of its resultative meaning, and in part because of the discrete-category classification that hinges on a clear-cut distinction. This study aims at demonstrating the advantage of treating ba as a resultative verb, proposed in Ding (1993), through a rigid computational implementation of the analysis of the Ba Resultative Construction within the framework of Head-driven Phrase Structure Grammar (HPSG). It also includes a small parsing experiment for processing the Ba Resultative Construction, showing the crucial interplay between syntax and semantics. The major parts of the paper are organized as follows: A working definition of ba sentences is proffered in §2. Discussing the option of considering ba as a resultative verb, §3 analyzes the general syntactic structure of the resultative construction. Following the HPSG analysis presented in §4, §5 is devoted to the parsing experiment that implements the proposed analysis. 2. THE BA RESULTATIVE CONSTRUCTION The following is a working definition for the Ba Resultative Construction (BRC, henceforth), advanced in Ding (1993): A ba sentence belongs to the Ba Resultative Construction if, and only if, the object of ba holds a proper semantic relationship with the successive clause that denotes …

Content truncated to 500 words