Abstract
The work targets two areas of Italian morphosyntax: auxiliary selection (AS) and past participle agreement (PPA). In selecting such inflectional morphemes, learners of Italian commit frequent errors, even after a long period of constant study. We aim to enclose AS and PPA within the boundaries of NLP in order that a tool can be developed with a twofold purpose: first, it helps experts to build specific computer drills regarding AS and PPA; second, it assists self-taught learners in verifying whether their periphrastic sentences in Italian are well-turned. This area of Computer-Assisted Language Learning is currently poorly investigated. Further research might substantiate the importance of a field which is aimed at facilitating the study of a foreign language and simultaneously stimulate advances in NLP.
The authors thank the Salerno team, in particular Annibale Elia, for sharing important material from their NooJ resources. Italian regulations on authorship require the authors to specify the sections for which they are responsible: EC is responsible for Sects. 3 and 4.2, whilst the remaining sections were contributed by IMM.
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Notes
- 1.
It is beyond the scope of this paper to illustrate the difference between unergative and unaccusative predicates. In Relational Grammar, the framework which “saw” the birth of this finding, the distinction between the two types is purely syntactic (see [3]). It is common knowledge that this rule was originally proposed in [27].
- 2.
In regard to the well-known difference between ‘mistake’ and ‘error’, (see [4]).
- 3.
- 4.
The recording is available at https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=hEiBNXdDRF8, 19:01 min.
- 5.
Sentence (2) is ill-formed also on account of the missing auxiliary. Italian being a pro-drop language, the correct sentence should be either Sono arrivata in Libia or Io sono arrivata in Libia.
- 6.
The 1-relation and the 2-relation stand for subject and direct object respectively. The P-relation is any predicative relation, regardless of which part of speech conveys it. RG is a multistratal theory, so that a single nominal can bear more than one grammatical relation in different strata. When a nominal simultaneously bears two grammatical relations in a single stratum, this is called ‘multiattachment’ (as in Table 8 below). The rules in (3) and (4) are parametrically conceived. With a number of differences, they produce AS (except for one type of unaccusative) and PPA also in French [7]. The error shown in (1) derives from the valence of changer in its intransitive use. Unlike its Italian counterpart, this verb combines with avoir: Le numéro de téléphone a changé.
- 7.
Other segments may remain, for example adverbs (which are easily treated since they are not classified as (pro)nouns), compounds, and dates. See [18].
- 8.
No mention is made of PPA, most probably because the sample language is mainly English, whose past participles, as is well-known, do not inflect.
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Mirto, I.M., Cipolla, E. (2018). Invalid Syntax: NooJ Assisted Automatic Detection of Errors in Auxiliaries and Past Participles in Italian. In: Mbarki, S., Mourchid, M., Silberztein, M. (eds) Formalizing Natural Languages with NooJ and Its Natural Language Processing Applications. NooJ 2017. Communications in Computer and Information Science, vol 811. Springer, Cham. https://doi.org/10.1007/978-3-319-73420-0_10
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