Skip to main content
Log in

Lexical paraphrases in multilingual sentence generation

  • Published:
Machine Translation

Abstract

We describe the architecture of a sentence generation module that maps a language-neutral “deep” representation to a language-specific sentence-semantic specification, which is then handed over to a conventional front-end generator. Lexicalization is seen as the main task in the mapping step, and we specifically examine the role of verb semantics in the process. By separating the various kinds of knowledge involved, for related languages (such as English and German) the task of multilingual sentence generation can be treated as a variant of the monolingual paraphrasing problem.

This is a preview of subscription content, log in via an institution to check access.

Access this article

Price excludes VAT (USA)
Tax calculation will be finalised during checkout.

Instant access to the full article PDF.

Similar content being viewed by others

References

  • Allerton D.J.: 1982, Valency and the English Verb. London: Academic Press.

    Google Scholar 

  • Bach E.: 1986, ‘The Algebra of Events’, Linguistics and Philosophy 9, 5–16.

    Google Scholar 

  • Bateman J., R. Kasper, J. Moore, R. Whitney: 1990, ‘A General Organization of Knowledge for Natural Language Processing: The Penman Upper Model’, Tech. Rep. USC Information Sciences Institute, Marina del Rey, CA.

    Google Scholar 

  • Bateman, J., C. Matthiessen, K. Nanri, and L. Zeng: 1991, ‘The Re-use of Linguistic Resources Across Languages in Multilingual Generation Components’, in: Proceedings of the International Joint Conference on Artificial Intelligence (IJCAI-91), Sydney, pp. 966–971.

  • Bierwisch M.: 1983, ‘Semantische und Konzeptuelle Repräsentation Lexikalischer Einheiten’, in: R. Ružička and W. Motsch (eds): Untersuchungen zur Semantik. Berlin: Akademie-Verlag, pp. 61–99.

    Google Scholar 

  • Busemann S.: 1993, ‘A Holistic View of Lexical Choice’, in: H. Horacek and M. Zock (eds): New Concepts in Natural Language Generation. London: Pinter, pp. 302–308.

    Google Scholar 

  • DiMarco, C., G. Hirst, and M. Stede: 1993, ‘The Semantic and Stylistic Differentiation of Synonyms and Near-Synonyms’, in: Proceedings of the AAAI-93 Spring Symposium on Building Lexicons for Machine Translation, Stanford University, pp. 114–121.

  • Dorr B. J.: 1993, ‘Interlingual Machine Translation: A Parameterized Approach’, Artificial Intelligence 63, 492.

    Google Scholar 

  • Dorr, B.J., C.R. Voss, E. Peterson, and M. Kiker: 1994, ‘Concept-Based Lexical Selection’, in: Proceedings of the AAAI-94 Fall Symposium on Knowledge Representation for Natural Language Processing in Implemented Systems, New Orleans.

  • Elhadad, M.: 1993, ‘Using Argumentation to Control Lexical Choice: A Functional Unification Implementation’, Ph.D. thesis, Dept. of Computer Science, Columbia University.

  • Garza-Cuarón B.: 1991, Connotations and Meaning. Berlin/New York: Mouton de Gruyter.

    Google Scholar 

  • Hawkins J. A.: 1986, A Comparative Typology of English and German. London/Sydney: Croom Helm.

    Google Scholar 

  • Helbig G. and W. Schenkel: 1973, Wörterbuch zur Valenz und Distribution deutscher Verben. Leipzig: VEB Verlag Enzyklopädie.

    Google Scholar 

  • Henschel R.: 1993, ‘Merging the English and the German Upper Model’, Technical Report, GMD/Institut für integrierte Publikations- und Informationssysteme, Darmstadt.

    Google Scholar 

  • Horacek H.: 1990, ‘The Architecture of a Generation Component in a Complete Natural Language Dialogue System’, in: R. Dale, C. Mellish and M. Zock (eds): Current Research in Natural Language Generation. London: Academic Press, pp. 193–228.

    Google Scholar 

  • Hovy E.: 1988, Generating Natural Language under Pragmatic Constraints. Hillsdale, NJ: Lawrence Erlbaum.

    Google Scholar 

  • Hovy, E. and S. Nirenburg: 1992, ‘Approximating an Interlingua in a Principled Way’, in: Proceedings of the DARPA Speech and Natural Language Workshop. Hawthorne, NY.

  • Iordanskaja L., R. Kittredge, and A. Polguère: 1991, ‘Lexical Selection and Paraphrase in a Meaning-Text Generation Model’, in: C.L. Paris, W.R. Swartout and W.C. Mann (eds): Natural Language Generation in Artificial Intelligence and Computational Linguistics. Dordrecht: Kluwer Academic Publishers, pp. 293–312.

    Google Scholar 

  • Jackendoff R.: 1990, Semantic Structures. Cambridge, MA: MIT Press.

    Google Scholar 

  • Jacobs P. S.: 1987, ‘Knowledge-Intensive Natural Language Generation’, Artificial Intelligence 33: 325–378.

    Google Scholar 

  • Kasper, R.: 1989, ‘A Flexible Interface for Linking Applications to Penman's Sentence Generator’, in: Proceedings of the DARPA Workshop on Speech and Natural Language Processing, University of Pennsylvania, pp. 153–158.

  • Leech G.: 1981, Semantics. Harmondsworth, UK: Penguin, (2nd edition).

    Google Scholar 

  • MacGregor R. and R. Bates: 1987, ‘The Loom Knowledge Representation Language’, Technical Report ISI/RS-87-188, USC Information Sciences Institute, Marina del Rey, CA.

    Google Scholar 

  • Matthiessen C. and J. Bateman: 1991, Text Generation and Systemic-Functional Linguistics: Experiences from English and Japanese. London: Pinter.

    Google Scholar 

  • McDonald D.D.: 1991, ‘On the Proper Place of Words in the Generation Process’, in: C.L. Paris, W.R. Swartout, and W.C. Mann (eds): Natural Language Generation in Artificial Intelligence and Computational Linguistics. Dordrecht: Kluwer Academic Publishers, pp. 227–248.

    Google Scholar 

  • Miezitis, M.M.: 1988, ‘Generating Lexical Options by Matching in a Knowledge Base’, Technical Report CSRI-217, University of Toronto.

  • Moens M. and M. Steedman: 1988, ‘Temporal Ontology and Temporal Reference’, Computational Linguistics 14(2): 15–28.

    Google Scholar 

  • Nirenburg, S. and I. Nirenburg: 1988, ‘A Framework for Lexical Selection in Natural Language Generation’, in: Proceedings of the 12th International Conference on Computational Linguistics (COLING). Budapest, pp. 471–475.

  • Nogier J.F. and M. Zock: 1992, ‘Lexical Choice by Pattern Matching’, Knowledge Based Systems 5(3): 200–212.

    Google Scholar 

  • Parsons T.: 1990, Events in the Semantics of English: A Study in Subatomic Semantics. Cambridge, MA: MIT Press.

    Google Scholar 

  • The Penman group: 1989, Unpublished Documentation of the Penman Sentence Generation System. USC Information Sciences Institute, Marina del Rey, CA.

  • Pustejovsky J.: 1991a, ‘The Syntax of Event Structure’, Cognition 41: 47–81.

    Google Scholar 

  • Pustejovsky J.: 1991b, ‘The Generative Lexicon’, Computational Linguistics 17(4): 409–441.

    Google Scholar 

  • Reiter E.: 1990, ‘Generating Descriptions that Exploit a User's Domain Knowledge’, in: R. Dale, C. Mellish, and M. Zock (eds): Current Research in Natural Language Generation. London: Academic Press, pp. 257–286.

    Google Scholar 

  • Rösner, D. and M. Stede: 1994, ‘Generating Multilingual Documents from a Knowledge Base: The TECHDOC Project’, in: Proceedings of the 15th International Conference on Computational Linguistics (COLING), Kyoto, pp. 339–343.

  • Schmitt P.: 1986, ‘Die ‘Eindeutigkeit’ von Fachtexten: Bemerkungen zu einer Fiktion’, in: M. Snell-Hornby (ed.): Übersetzungswissenschaft — eine Neuorientierung. Tübingen: Francke, pp. 252–282.

    Google Scholar 

  • Smadja, F. and K. McKeown: 1990, ‘Automatically Extracting and Representing Collocations for Language Generation’, in: Proceedings of the 28th Annual Meeting of the ACL, Pittsburgh, pp. 252–259.

  • Somers H.: 1987, Valency and Case in Computational Linguistics. Edinburgh: Edinburgh University Press.

    Google Scholar 

  • Stede M.: 1995, ‘Lexicalization in Natural Language Generation: A Survey’, Artificial Intelligence Review 8: 309–336.

    Google Scholar 

  • Stede, M.: 1996a, A Generative Perspective on Verbs and Their Readings’, in: Proceedings of the Eighth International Workshop on Natural Language Generation. Brighton, pp. 141–150.

  • Stede, M.: 1996b, ‘Lexical Semantics and Knowledge Representation in Multilingual Sentence Generation’, Doctoral Dissertation, published as Technical Report CSRI-347, Dept. of Computer Science, University of Toronto.

  • Stede, M. and B. Grote: 1995, ‘The Lexicon: Bridge between Language-neutral and Language-specific Representations’, in: Working Notes of the IJCAI Workshop on Multilingual Text Generation. Montréal, pp. 129–135.

  • Talmy L.: 1985, ‘Lexicalization Patterns: Semantic Structure in Lexical Forms’, in: T. Shopen (ed): Language Typology and Syntactic Description 3: Grammatical Categories and the Lexicon. Cambridge, UK: Cambridge University Press, pp. 57–149.

    Google Scholar 

  • Tesnière L.: 1959, Eléments de Syntaxe Structurale. Paris: Librairie C. Klincksieck.

    Google Scholar 

  • Vendler Z.: 1967, Linguistics and Philosophy. Ithaca, NY: Cornell University Press.

    Google Scholar 

  • Wanner, L.: 1994, ‘On Lexically Biased Discourse Organization in Text Generation’, in: Proceedings of the 15th International Conference on Computational Linguistics (COLING), Kyoto, pp. 369–378.

  • Woods W.: 1991, ‘Understanding Subsumption and Taxonomy: A Framework for Progress’, in: J.F. Sowa (ed): Principles of Semantic Networks. San Mateo, CA: Morgan Kaufmann, pp. 45–94.

    Google Scholar 

  • Wunderlich D.: 1991, Arbeitsbuch Semantik. Königstein: Athenäum (2nd edition).

    Google Scholar 

Download references

Author information

Authors and Affiliations

Authors

Rights and permissions

Reprints and permissions

About this article

Cite this article

Stede, M. Lexical paraphrases in multilingual sentence generation. Machine Translation 11, 75–107 (1996). https://doi.org/10.1007/BF00349354

Download citation

  • Issue Date:

  • DOI: https://doi.org/10.1007/BF00349354

Key words

Navigation