18. Automatic extraction of translation equivalents of phrasal and light verbs in English and Russian
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Olga Mudraya
Abstract
This chapter aims at bridging the functionalist theoretical perspective on word usage with corpus-based studies. We are dealing with the issue of construction of reliable lists of what is called ‘phraseological units’ in general linguistics literature or ‘multi-word expressions’ (MWEs) in literature on computational linguistics. The two groups of constructions under investigation in this chapter are phrasal verbs and light verb constructions. Another distinguishing feature of this study is its multilingual aspect. Previous computational approaches to MWEs have mainly focussed on English, and there has been little research on computational approaches to MWEs in other languages. In this chapter, we examine phrasal verbs in English and their translation equivalents in Russian, and compare English-Russian/Russian-English translation equivalents of selected light verb constructions in two case studies. Our study reveals some interesting cross-language structural divergences between the languages under consideration and shows that a phraseological expression in a language may have equivalent expressions in other languages with different morpho-syntactic structures and semantic properties. However, our investigation not only reveals marked differences between English and Russian, but also discovers some general corresponding structural patterns between them; for example, English phrasal verbs usually have single-word translation equivalents in Russian. Moreover, our study of phrasal and light verbs demonstrates that corpus-based resources can provide an invaluable help to a practising translator, as dictionaries do not cover a large variety of real-life language examples.
Abstract
This chapter aims at bridging the functionalist theoretical perspective on word usage with corpus-based studies. We are dealing with the issue of construction of reliable lists of what is called ‘phraseological units’ in general linguistics literature or ‘multi-word expressions’ (MWEs) in literature on computational linguistics. The two groups of constructions under investigation in this chapter are phrasal verbs and light verb constructions. Another distinguishing feature of this study is its multilingual aspect. Previous computational approaches to MWEs have mainly focussed on English, and there has been little research on computational approaches to MWEs in other languages. In this chapter, we examine phrasal verbs in English and their translation equivalents in Russian, and compare English-Russian/Russian-English translation equivalents of selected light verb constructions in two case studies. Our study reveals some interesting cross-language structural divergences between the languages under consideration and shows that a phraseological expression in a language may have equivalent expressions in other languages with different morpho-syntactic structures and semantic properties. However, our investigation not only reveals marked differences between English and Russian, but also discovers some general corresponding structural patterns between them; for example, English phrasal verbs usually have single-word translation equivalents in Russian. Moreover, our study of phrasal and light verbs demonstrates that corpus-based resources can provide an invaluable help to a practising translator, as dictionaries do not cover a large variety of real-life language examples.
Chapters in this book
- Prelim pages i
- Table of contents v
- List of contributors xi
- Acknowledgements xiii
- Preface xv
- Introduction: The many faces of phraseology xix
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Part I. Phraseology: theory, typology and terminology
- 1. Phraseology and linguistic theory: A brief survey 3
- 2. Disentangling the phraseological web 27
- 3. A unified approach to semantic frames and collocational patterns 51
- 4. Processing of idioms and idiom modifications: A view from cognitive linguistics 67
- 5. A very complex criterion of fixedness: Non-compositionality 81
- 6. Reassessing the canon: 'Fixed' phrases in general reference corpora 95
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Part II. Corpus-based analyses of phraseological units
- 7. Adjective + Noun sequences in attributive or NP-final positions: Observations on lexicalization 111
- 8. Phrasal similes in the BNC 127
- 9. Foot and Mouth: The phrasal patterns of two frequent nouns 143
- 10. The Good Lord and his works: A corpus-driven study of collocational resonance 159
- 11. Fixed expressions, extenders and metonymy in the speech of people with Alzheimer's disease 175
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Part III. Phraseology across languages and cultures
- 12. Cross-linguistic phraseological studies: An overview 191
- 13. Figurative phraseology and culture 207
- 14. Critical observations on the culture-boundness of phraseology 229
- 15. Phraseology in a European framework: A cross-linguistic and cross-cultural research project on widespread idioms 243
- 16. Free and bound prepositions in a contrastive perspective. The case of with and avec 259
- 17. Contrastive idiom analysis: The case of Japanese and English idioms of anger 275
- 18. Automatic extraction of translation equivalents of phrasal and light verbs in English and Russian 293
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Part IV. Phraseology in lexicography and natural language processing
- 19. Dictionaries and collocation 313
- 20. Computational phraseology: An overview 337
- 21. A computational lexicography approach to phraseologisms 361
- 22. Extracting specialized collocations using lexical functions 377
- 23. Combined statistical and grammatical criteria for the retrieval of phraseological units in an electronic corpus 391
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Envoi
- The phrase, the whole phrase and nothing but the phrase 407
- Author index 411
- Subject index 417
Chapters in this book
- Prelim pages i
- Table of contents v
- List of contributors xi
- Acknowledgements xiii
- Preface xv
- Introduction: The many faces of phraseology xix
-
Part I. Phraseology: theory, typology and terminology
- 1. Phraseology and linguistic theory: A brief survey 3
- 2. Disentangling the phraseological web 27
- 3. A unified approach to semantic frames and collocational patterns 51
- 4. Processing of idioms and idiom modifications: A view from cognitive linguistics 67
- 5. A very complex criterion of fixedness: Non-compositionality 81
- 6. Reassessing the canon: 'Fixed' phrases in general reference corpora 95
-
Part II. Corpus-based analyses of phraseological units
- 7. Adjective + Noun sequences in attributive or NP-final positions: Observations on lexicalization 111
- 8. Phrasal similes in the BNC 127
- 9. Foot and Mouth: The phrasal patterns of two frequent nouns 143
- 10. The Good Lord and his works: A corpus-driven study of collocational resonance 159
- 11. Fixed expressions, extenders and metonymy in the speech of people with Alzheimer's disease 175
-
Part III. Phraseology across languages and cultures
- 12. Cross-linguistic phraseological studies: An overview 191
- 13. Figurative phraseology and culture 207
- 14. Critical observations on the culture-boundness of phraseology 229
- 15. Phraseology in a European framework: A cross-linguistic and cross-cultural research project on widespread idioms 243
- 16. Free and bound prepositions in a contrastive perspective. The case of with and avec 259
- 17. Contrastive idiom analysis: The case of Japanese and English idioms of anger 275
- 18. Automatic extraction of translation equivalents of phrasal and light verbs in English and Russian 293
-
Part IV. Phraseology in lexicography and natural language processing
- 19. Dictionaries and collocation 313
- 20. Computational phraseology: An overview 337
- 21. A computational lexicography approach to phraseologisms 361
- 22. Extracting specialized collocations using lexical functions 377
- 23. Combined statistical and grammatical criteria for the retrieval of phraseological units in an electronic corpus 391
-
Envoi
- The phrase, the whole phrase and nothing but the phrase 407
- Author index 411
- Subject index 417
