Cognate prepositions in English and Swedish

A corpus-based attempt at categorization

Kerstin Lindmark

Department of Linguistics

Stockholm university

Background

• Translation– Prepositions are often problematic!– Selection restrictions, collocations– Special problems with closely related languages

• Wordnet– Model for categorizing– Matching patterns across languages

Background

• Small tentative part of a larger project– Student translation corpus– Study of ”errors” could contribute to the

exploration of translator/translation competence– Collocations and application of selection

restrictions can be revealing

Background

• Explorative and In Progress!• The categorization is intended to serve as a

background for studying translations of prepositions

Related work

• The Preposition Project– Senses from OED– Linked to FrameNet– Finegrained

http://www.clres.com/prepositions.html–

Wordnet(s)

• Princeton Wordnet– Psychology!– Semantically organized lexical database– Concepts are linked by semantic relations• Hyperonymy• Meronymy• Antonymy• Troponymy

Wordnet(s)

• EuroWordNet– Dutch, Italian, Spanish, German, French, Czech,

and Estonian– Separate wordnets– Linked via interlingual index (modified English net)– ”eq”-relations between languages (to English)– Different approaches to the configuration of the

language-specific net

Wordnet(s)

• Swedish Wordnet– Module to be linked to EWN– Difficulties in stretching the English senses– Experience: Even seemingly straightforward, first

order entities are difficult to categorize

Prepositions under investigation

• Corpora– BNC Sampler• 1 million spoken, 1 million written; representative of

the BNC

– SUC (Stockholm–Umeå Corpus)• 1 million written: fiction and non-fiction

– ESPC (English–Swedish Parallel Corpus)• fiction and non-fiction: 2.8 million words

Prepositions under investigation

• Cognate words – and related concepts• Examples:

after efterover överunder underfor förin i, inbefore före, framförof av

Prepositions under investigation

• Why?– Friends – true AND false!– Overlapping basic sense, but different usage and

different extended senses– Usage determined not only by the actual sense,

but by conventions:• A quarter to eleven• Kvart i elva (in) (SV)• Kvart på elve (on) (NO)

Prepositions under investigation

• Governed by complement or/and attachment, e.g. verb• in a container – i en behållare• look for someone (distinguish from phrasal verbs) – leta

efter någon

Prepositions under investigation

• Selected:– after– efter– before– före

• which– express a time-related basic meaning.

Prepositions under investigation – efter

• time (sense 1)– after a period of time: efter 10 år, efter en stund, efter semestern– after a point in time: efter 10 juli, efter jul, efter lunch

• time (sense 2)– after an event: efter mötet, efter döden, efter uppstigning

• sequence (space) (sense 3)– en efter en, han kom efter mig, han låste dörren efter sig

• sequence (sense 4)– after financial measures: kostnaden efter skatt

• according to (sense 5)– efter europeiskt mönster• thereafter (sense 6) (adverb)– dagen efter

Prepositions under investigation – efter

• governed by the preceding verb (or noun)– goal (sense 7) söka efter, gräva efter, leta efter, titta

efter, vara ute efter; spaning efter, strävan efter, längtan efter

– according to (sense 8?) rätta sig efter, ?få namn efter, ?arbeta efter (=enligt, sense 5?)

• Different from phrasal verbs: ge efter, se efter, titta efter (!)

• Conjunction: efter att, efter det att (after + clause)

Prepositions under investigation – after

• time (sense 1)– after a period of time: after 15 minutes, after a short time– after a point in time: after 10 july, after Christmas, after lunch, after work,

after school• time (sense 2)

– after an event: after the accident, after death, after that, after all• time (sense 3)

– After an event VERB: after giving birth• sequence (space) (sense 4)

– one evidence after the other, generations to come after us, closing the lids after them, clean up the mess after him

• sequence (sense 5)– after financial measures: eighty seven pounds after tax• thereafter (sense 6) (later; adverb)– the week after, 6 months after

Prepositions under investigation

• governed by the preceding verb (or noun)– goal (sense 7) he’s after

• Different from phrasal verbs: look after• Conjunction: soon after construction began

(after + clause)

Prepositions under investigation – före

• time (sense 1)– before a period of time: före Jesu tid, före romantiken– before a point in time: före år 2000, före den 1 april 1990, före och efter jul• time (sense 2)– before an event: före bröllopet, före döden, före freden i Brömsebro, före

jäsningen, före gryningen• sequence (space/time) (sense 3)

– någon kilometer före Pragser Wildsee, någonstans före mitten• sequence (sense 4)– låta talet komma före tanken, liksom min pappa före mig, – before financial measures: rörelseresultatet före finansiella poster

• priority (sense 5)– sätta den egna bekvämligheten före tron på…• before (sense 6) (adverb)– dagen före

Prepositions under investigation – before

• time (sense 1)– before a period of time: before two minutes, before long– before a point in time: before Christmas, before supper, before 1st April 1985• time (sense 2)– before an event: before installation, before death, before that meeting

• time (sense 3)– before an event VERB: before planting, before being freed,

• sequence (space/time) (sense 4)– .2 Miles before La Brea Avenue, 70 mph (FOUND ON THE INTERNET)• sequence (sense 5)– composed just before Gloriana, his father before him– before financial measures: before extraordinary items• before (sense 6) (adverb)– I’ve been here before, more than ever before

Prepositions under investigation – before

• space/abstract: in front of (sense 7)– on the rocks before them, the carrot to dangle

before the leading dissident– summoned before the King’s Justices, before the

tsar,

• Conjunction: before they died (before + clause)

Relations

• Crosslinguistic relations– after1 eq_syn efter1– after2 eq_syn efter2– efter5 eq_syn according_to– efter3, bakom eq_syn after4, behind– before 7 eq_syn införN, framförN

And the preposition project?

References• SUC

http://spraakbanken.gu.se/parole/• BNC

http://www.natcorp.ox.ac.uk/• ESPC

http://www.englund.lu.se/content/view/66/127/• EuroWordNet

http://www.illc.uva.nl/EuroWordNet/• Princeton Wordnet

http://wordnet.princeton.edu/• Swedish WordNet

Viberg, Å., Lindmark, K., Lindvall, A. & Mellenius, I. 2002. The Swedish WordNet Project. In: Proceedings of Euralex 2002, Copenhagen University. Pp. 407-412.