This paper presents ongoing work on the detection of preposition errors of non-native speakers of English. Since prepositions account for a substantial proportion of all grammatical errors by ESL (English as a Second Language) learners, developing an NLP application that can reliably detect these types of errors will provide an invaluable learning resource to ESL students. To address this probl...

To learn relational terms such as verbs and prepositions, children must first dissect and process dynamic event components. This paper investigates the way in which 8- to 14-month-old English-reared infants notice the event components, figure (i.e., the moving entity) and ground (i.e., stationary setting), in both dynamic (Experiment 1) and static representations of events (Experiment 2) for ca...

This paper describes in outline a method for translating Japanese temporal expressions into English. We argue that temporal expressions form a special subset of language that is best handled as a special module in machine translation. The paper deals with problems of lexical idiosyncrasy as well as the choice of articles and prepositions within temporal expressions. In addition temporal express...

In this paper we explore a generative model for recovering surface syntax and strings from deep-syntactic tree structures. Deep analysis has been proposed for a number of language and speech processing tasks, such as machine translation and paraphrasing of speech transcripts. In an effort to validate one such formalism of deep syntax, the Praguian Tectogrammatical Representation (TR), we presen...

We present a new lexical resource for the study of preposition behavior, the Pattern Dictionary of English Prepositions (PDEP). This dictionary, which follows principles laid out in Hanks’ theory of norms and exploitations, is linked to 81,509 sentences for 304 prepositions, which have been made available under The Preposition Project (TPP). Notably, 47,285 sentences, initially untagged, provid...

This study investigated common English writing errors made by undergraduate ESL learners at Aligarh Muslim University whose first language is Urdu-Hindi. The carried out with the help of written compositions from 20 participants. data were analyzed within a broader framework propounded S. Pit Corder. researcher concluded that study's in form spelling, copula, word choice, prepositions, verb ten...

Many people are learning English as a second or foreign language, and there are estimated 375 million English as a Second Language (ESL) and 750 million English as a Foreign Language (EFL) learners around the world according to Graddol (2006). Evidently, automatic grammar checkers are much needed to help learners improve their writing. However, typical English proofreading tools do not target s...