Abstract
This work aims to present an automatic processing of the Spanish and the Quechua gerunds to show the similarities and differences between an SVO and an SOV language [3] to teach Spanish as a foreign language for Quechua speakers, and Quechua as a foreign language to Spanish speakers. For this purpose, we use NooJ [7] to develop a preliminary formalization of the Spanish and the Quechua gerunds in order to examine their morphological features and their syntactic behavior according to their contexts of occurrence. The Spanish gerund uses the suffix -ndo after a thematic vowel which varies according to the verb conjugation: the vowel - a- belongs to the first conjugation, and the diphthong -ie (or its orthographic variant -ye) belongs to the second and third conjugations [5]. On the other hand, the Quechua gerund uses four suffixes: -spa, -stin, -pti, -chka and the reduplicated combination of the suffix -n in a verb stem, which is combined among them or with other verb suffixes to create different gerund forms, tenses, and aspects. In order to work with a standard use of Spanish, we used a corpus from a repository of the Ministry of Education of Argentina [10]. As the Spanish gerunds behave in different ways according to their context of occurrence, our research process includes NooJ grammars to analyze the Spanish gerund as part of a periphrasis or as a part of a subordinate clause with adjectival or adverbial value. Finally, we use NooJ to explore the syntactic and morphological richness of the Spanish and Quechua gerunds to show language learners the similarities and differences between them.
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Notes
- 1.
Our book Aprendo con NooJ [1] summarizes this perspective of work.
- 2.
We have already presented some developments on this topic with [6] for Spanish learners with regard to other languages such as Italian and Portuguese.
- 3.
We take the Quechua spoken in Ayacucho (Peru) as our language of reference. Other dialect variants are also included.
- 4.
Guardia Mayorga [4] considers the gerund as an impersonal form according to Spanish grammar.
- 5.
Both second person singular pronoun tú and vos Spanish forms are referred to since our language of reference is the Spanish spoken in the Río de la Plata, Argentina.
- 6.
For example, the verb to laugh “reír”: asi-n asi-n richkarqa “iba riendo” “he went laughing” (verb in the present tense, third singular person, repeated).
- 7.
Due to space limitations, we will study the remaining suffixes in future works.
- 8.
This section does not examine the suffix –chka and the reduplicated combination of the suffix –n.
- 9.
The main endings of the verb conjugations are the indefinite time endings (TI) which make reference points for the present simple: TI = (ni, nki, n, nchik, niku, nkichik, nku), miku-ni “comí” “(I) ate”, miku-nki “comiste” “(you) ate”, miku-n “comió” “(he/she/it) ate”, miku-nchik “comimos” “(we) ate”; (the T2 operator transforms the TI endings in the group of the TIM2 transformed endings = (i, iki, n, nchik, iku, ikichik, nku) which are used to conjugate verbs with the suffixes (-pti, -spa,).
- 10.
SIP = (chaku, chi, chka, ykacha, ykachi, ykamu, ykapu, ykari, yku, ysi, kacha, kamu, kapu, ku, lla, mpu, mu, na, naya, pa, paya, pti, pu, ra, raya, ri, rpari, rqa, rqu, ru, spa, sqa, stin, tamu, wa).
- 11.
SPP = (ch, chá, chik, chiki, chu, chusina, má, man, m, mi, ña, pas, puni, qa, raq, ri, si, s, taq, yá) post-positional verb suffixes. Such suffixes are placed after the verb ending of the conjugation. See [2].
- 12.
The sample sentence has been taken from the corpus of work (repository of the Ministry of Education, Argentina) to develop this topic in the same way as that of the Quechua gerund [10].
- 13.
-pti as a subordinating suffix indicates that the action described in the subordinate clause occurs before the action described in the main clause. In Spanish, this suffix means cuándo “when”, porque “because”, debido a que “due to”, “si” “if”. jajchawaptinja manam takisajchu “Si me regaña, no voy a cantar”. “If he scolds me, I will not sing”.
- 14.
This corpus is a collection of regulations from several historical periods.
- 15.
We are referring to the Rioplatense Spanish variant, although some features are common to the Iberian Spanish.
- 16.
RAE [5], p. 2037.
- 17.
ONE = <B2> ando/ger; TWO = <B2> iendo/ger; THREE = <B2> yendo/ger; FOUR = <B2> <Y> iendo/ger; FIVE = <Y> <B2> endo/ger.
- 18.
Due to space limitations, we will not study here the compound forms of the Spanish gerunds. Just as a mere reference, compound forms are made by the auxiliary verb haber “to have” in its gerund form plus a participle form standing as the main verb. Example: habiendo pensado en eso “having thought about that”.
- 19.
Similarly, qinchaspa if the action occurs before the main event, qinchastin if the action occurs simultaneously.
- 20.
kaspa can be replaced by: kachkaspa “siendo” (meaning “being”); kaptin “siendo” (meaning “on the condition that”).
- 21.
In this case, the gerund is part of a subordinate clause that modifies the noun head. Such occurrences are no longer allowed by the present-day Spanish grammar normative. In this context, this gerund can also be understood as an adverb of cause.
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Rodrigo, A., Duran, M., Nalli, M.Y. (2021). Approach to the Automatic Treatment of Gerunds in Spanish and Quechua: A Pedagogical Application. In: Bigey, M., Richeton, A., Silberztein, M., Thomas, I. (eds) Formalizing Natural Languages: Applications to Natural Language Processing and Digital Humanities. NooJ 2021. Communications in Computer and Information Science, vol 1520. Springer, Cham. https://doi.org/10.1007/978-3-030-92861-2_12
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