In this paper we describe an experiment with syntactic phrase indexing for Dutch texts. We compare different choices for combining terms to form head-modifier pairs and we also investigate the effect of adding none, one, or all constituent parts of the pair as a separate index term. The results of our experiments show that using head-modifier pairs as index terms can improve both recall and pre...

Complex Nominals (CNs) have simple syntactic structure that conceals non-trivial semantic characteristics. While speakers of natural languages combine noun(s)/adjective(s) with a head noun to indicate existing or novel concepts with ease, formalizing such a semantic process, however, has proven to be a daunting task. In this paper, we present a unified semantic approach for constructions involv...

This paper focuses on the semantic relations and interpratations of Chinese noun compounds (mostly search terms). In light of the semantic classification from Semantic Knowledge-base of Contemporary Chinese (SKCC) and Qualia Structures introduced by Pustejovsky (1991, 1995), we analyze the combinations of the semantic classes of the noun compounds, and thus, discover the implicit predicates of ...

Adjectives in Basaá [ɓasaá] (Bantu, A43: Cameroon) are morphologically nominal: they possess inherent noun class and distinguish singular and plural (Dimmendaal 1988, Hyman 2003). Additionally, adjectives in Basaá function as the head of their noun phrase, in a sense to be made precise below. This challenges the standard assumption that noun phrases or DPs are projected (or headed) by nouns. Th...

Complex noun sequences in Hindi can be formed by the sequences of nouns and genitives. In Hindi, the genitive marker is “kā”, and its allomorphic variations are “ke” and “kī”. When two or more nouns occur without any intervening post-positions, it is known as compound noun. Following are some examples of complex noun sequences: (1) “jilā cunāva adhikārī” (district election officer), (2) “tila k...

Based on the definition of the relative clause from Song (2001), this paper examines the relative clause in the Hui’an dialect from four parameters: (a) the relativization marker used; (b) the position of the head noun relative to the restricting clause; (c) the role and encoding of the head noun in the restricting clause; and (d) the role and encoding of the head noun in the main clause. The H...

Plurality of a Bengali Noun Phrase (NP) is not always determined by the plurality of its governing member (or the head). It is often seen that an NP is plural but the plurality is indicated through qualifiers or other means whereas the head noun has the singular form. In such scenarios, the plurality of the NP is determined by analyzing its non-head members or from other components (or context)...

The paper introduces a method for interpreting novel noun compounds with semantic relations. The method is built around word similarity with pretagged noun compounds, based on WordNet::Similarity. Over 1,088 training instances and 1,081 test instances from the Wall Street Journal in the Penn Treebank, the proposed method was able to correctly classify 53.3% of the test noun compounds. We also i...

Relative clauses (RCs) are subordinate clauses embedded within nominal phrases. Semantically, this embedded clause modifies the dominating nominal head. Syntactically, the nominal head is associated with an empty element within the subordinate clause. RCs have received great attention from language researchers as they demonstrate crucial properties of the human language. They enable recursion i...

Although previous studies of noun-noun compounding have shown that past experience of a modifier influences the comprehension of combinations involving that modifier (Gagné & Shoben, 1997; Storms & Wisniewski, in press), no similar head noun influence has been found. In this paper we describe an experiment that investigates the influence exerted independently by head nouns that are particularly...