Table Of Contenti
Lexical Ontological Semantics
Lexical Ontological Semantics introduces ontological methods into lexical
semantic studies with the aim of giving impetus to various fields of endeavours
which envision and model the semantic network of a language. Lexical onto-
logical semantics (LOS) provides a cognition- based computation- oriented
framework in which nouns and predicates are described in terms of their
semantic knowledge and models the mechanism in which the noun system is
coupled with the predicate system. It expands the scope of lexical semantics,
updates methodologies to semantic representation, guides the construction
of semantic resources for natural language processing, and develops new the-
ories for human- machine interactions and communications.
Guoxiang Wu is Associate Professor in the College of Foreign Languages at
Huaqiao University, Quanzhou, China. His research interests include (1) lex-
ical semantics, translation studies and natural language processing; and
(2) English for overseas Chinese affairs. He is the translator of Cognition-
Based Studies on Chinese Grammar.
Yulin Yuan is Professor in the Department of Chinese Language and
Literature at Peking University, Beijing, China. His research interests include
(1) theoretical linguistics and Chinese linguistics; and (2) computational lin-
guistics and Chinese information processing. He is the author of Cognition-
Based Studies on Chinese Grammar.
ii
Routledge Studies in Chinese Linguistics
Series editor: Hongming Zhang
Routledge Studies in Chinese Linguistics is a state-o f- the- art book series
showcasing high- quality research on the linguistics of the Chinese language.
Titles in the series range from seminal classics to cutting-e dge studies in the
field, and comprise both research monographs and edited volumes.
Titles in the series include:
Lexical Ontological Semantics
Guoxiang Wu and Yulin Yuan
Modern Chinese Grammar
A Clause- Pivot Approach
Fuyi Xing
Syntax- Phonology Interface
Argumentation from Tone Sandhi in Chinese Dialects
Hongming Zhang
Cognition- Based Studies on Chinese Grammar
Yulin Yuan, translated by Guoxiang Wu
The Interfaces of Chinese Syntax with Semantics and Pragmatics
Yicheng Wu
Dimensions of Variation in Written Chinese
Zheng- Sheng Zhang
The Semantics of Chinese Classifiers and Linguistic Relativity
Song Jiang
For more information, please visit: www.routledge.com/ Routledge- Studies-
in- Chinese- Linguistics/ book- series/ RSICL
ii i
Lexical Ontological Semantics
Guoxiang Wu and Yulin Yuan
iv
First published 2019
by Routledge
2 Park Square, Milton Park, Abingdon, Oxon OX14 4RN
and by Routledge
52 Vanderbilt Avenue, New York, NY 10017
Routledge is an imprint of the Taylor & Francis Group, an informa business
© 2019 Guoxiang Wu and Yulin Yuan
The right of Guoxiang Wu and Yulin Yuan to be identified as authors of this work
has been asserted by them in accordance with sections 77 and 78 of the Copyright,
Designs and Patents Act 1988.
All rights reserved. No part of this book may be reprinted or reproduced or utilised
in any form or by any electronic, mechanical, or other means, now known or
hereafter invented, including photocopying and recording, or in any information
storage or retrieval system, without permission in writing from the publishers.
Trademark notice: Product or corporate names may be trademarks or registered trademarks,
and are used only for identification and explanation without intent to infringe.
British Library Cataloguing-i n- Publication Data
A catalogue record for this book is available from the British Library
Library of Congress Cataloging-i n- Publication Data
A catalog record for this book has been requested
ISBN: 978- 1- 138- 85524- 3 (hbk)
ISBN: 978- 1- 315- 72046- 3 (ebk)
Typeset in Times New Roman
by Newgen Publishing UK
v
Contents
List of illustrations vi
Preface vii
Abbreviations xi
Introduction: From lexis to lexical ontological semantics 1
1 The semantic network and ontological lexicology 16
2 A qualia- structure descriptive system for nouns 31
3 An argument- structure descriptive system for predicates 59
4 The QS- AS coupling mechanism 108
5 A corpus- based lexicon- construction interactive model 146
6 Automatic restoration of implicit predicates 165
7 Qualia structure and translated text analysis 198
8 Conclusion 220
References 224
Index 230
vi
List of illustrations
Figures
0.1 Five calligraphical styles of the character 永 yǒng ‘everlasting’ 11
4.1 Semantic associations between QSDS@noun and
ASDS@predicate 110
4.2 The QS- AS coupling mechanism and the lexical network 138
4.3 The network of conceptual relations in the ‘tennis’ problem 141
4.4 The network of conceptual relations in the ‘birthday’ problem 144
5.1 A paratactic sentence annotated with semantic roles 160
5.2 A subordinate sentence annotated with semantic roles 161
5.3 An overview of the corpus- based lexicon- construction
interactive model 162
7.1 A three- layer relation among lexical qualia, lexical items and
lexical situations 201
Tables
2.1 Sentiment polarities on a five- point scale 57
6.1 The semantic classification system in SKCC 172
6.2 The Noun_ Noun table (a library of paraphrase templates) 185
6.3 The Noun_ Verb table (a knowledge base of nouns) 190
vi i
Preface
Lexical Ontological Semantics (LOS) introduces ontological methods into
lexical semantic studies with the aim of giving impetus to various fields of
endeavours which envision and model the semantic network of a language,
including the practice of lexical ontology or ontological lexicon and the
theory of ontological lexicography or ontological semantics. LOS provides
a cognition- based computation- oriented framework in which nouns and
predicates (including verbs and adjectives) are described in terms of their
semantic knowledge, and models the mechanism in which the noun system
is coupled with the predicate system on the basis of large-s cale annotated
corpora. It expands the theoretical scope of lexical semantics, updates meth-
odological solutions to semantic representation, guides the construction of
semantic resources for natural language processing, and develops new the-
ories for human- machine interactions and communications.
This book is based on a number of works or programmes that we and our
colleagues have undertaken in the past few years, including:
1. Guoxiang Wu (researcher) and Yulin Yuan (supervisor) 吴国向, 袁毓林.
(2015). Lexical Ontological Semantics: An Empirical Exploration
词汇本体语义学的实证性研究. Unpublished post-d octorate disserta-
tion, Department of Chinese Language and Literature, Peking University.
2. Yulin Yuan 袁毓林. (2014). On a descriptive system of qualia struc-
ture of Chinese nouns and its application in parsing complex Chinese
grammatical phenomena 汉语名词物性结构的描写体系和运用案例.
Contemporary Linguistics 当代语言学, 16(1), pp. 31– 48.
3. Yulin Yuan 袁毓林. (2013). A study of Chinese semantic knowledge
system based on the theory of generative lexicon and argument struc-
ture 基于生成词库论和论元结构理论的语义知识体系研究. Journal of
Chinese Information Processing 中文信息学报, 27(6), pp. 23– 30.
4. Yulin Yuan and Hong Cao 袁毓林, 曹宏. (forthcoming). An
Introduction to the Syntactic- Semantic Knowledge-B ase of Chinese Verbs
《汉语动词句法语义信息词典》知识内容说明书.
viii
viii Preface
5. Yulin Yuan and Hong Cao 袁毓林, 曹宏. (forthcoming). An Introduction
to the Syntactic- Semantic Knowledge-B ase of Chinese Adjectives
《汉语形容词句法语义信息词典》知识内容说明书.
6. Yulin Yuan and Qiang Li 袁毓林, 李强. (2014). How to use qualia struc-
ture to solve the ‘tennis problem’ 怎样用物性结构知识解决“网球问题”.
Journal of Chinese Information Processing 中文信息学报, 28(5), pp. 1–1 0.
7. Qiang Li and Yulin Yuan李强, 袁毓林. (2015). What kind of semantic
knowledge is necessary for the semantic description and research of
nouns 名词词义描写和研究需要什么样的语义学知识. Journal of
Chinese Information Processing 中文信息学报, 29(5), pp. 9– 20.
8. Yulin Yuan 袁毓林. (2008). A programme of semantic resources oriented
to information retrieval 面向信息检索系统的语义资源规划. Linguistic
Sciences 语言科学, 32(1), pp. 1– 11.
9. Yulin Yuan, Weidong Zhan, and Chunhong Shi 袁毓林, 詹卫东, 施春宏.
(2014). On the lexicon- construction interaction model of Chinese
grammatical description and its application in TCSL 汉语“词库—
构式”互动的语法描写体系及其教学应用. Language Teaching and
Linguistics Studies 语言教学与研究, (2), pp. 17– 25.
10. Yulin Yuan, Hong Cao, and Chengming Xie 袁毓林, 曹宏, 谢成名.
(2014). Lexical ontology and its application in information retrieval
词汇本体知识及其在信息检索中的应用. Journal of Soochow University
(Philosophy & Social Science Edition), (5), pp. 149– 58.
11. Xue Wei and Yulin Yuan 魏雪, 袁毓林. 2014. Towards a rule- based
approach to automatic interpretation of Chinese noun compounds
基于规则的汉语名名组合的自动释义研究. Journal of Chinese
Information Processing 中文信息学报, 28(3), pp. 1– 10.
12. Guoxiang Wu and Yulin Yuan 吴国向, 袁毓林. (2018). Qualia
structure in text: Its construction, translation and derivation
物性结构在文本中的创建及其翻译转换与衍化. In Lexicology: Theory
and Application 词汇学理论与应用, (9), pp. 122–4 1. Beijing: Commercial
Press.
These 12 titles are directly related to different chapters or sections: No. 1 is
the Introduction, Chapter 1 and Chapter 8; No. 2 is Chapter 2; Nos. 3, 4 and
5 are Chapter 3; Nos. 6 and 7 are Chapter 4; Nos. 8 and 9 are Chapter 5; Nos.
10 and 11 are Chapter 6; and No. 12 is Chapter 7.
This research is supported by a grant from Major Research Projects for Key
Research Bases of Humanities and Social Sciences of Ministry of Education
(Grant No. 18JJD740003) and a grant from National Programme on Key
Basic Research Project (973 Programme; Grant No. 2014CB340502). The
former is titled ‘A Study on Representation and Its Computational System
for Lexical Semantic Knowledge in the Framework of Chinese Paratactic
Grammar’ and the latter is titled ‘The Neural Mechanism of Linguistic
Cognition’. These are further endeavours on the basis of several completed
programmes, including:
ix
Preface ix
1. ‘A Study of Chinese Lexical Ontologies Oriented to Semantic Search’,
a grant from Major Research Projects for Key Research Bases of
Humanities and Social Sciences of Ministry of Education (Grant No.
10JJD740008), January 2011– December 2013.
2. ‘Research in Chinese Paratactic Features and Construction of Large-
Scale Knowledge Bases and Corpora in the Context of Chinese
International Education’, a grant from Major Tender Projects of the
National Social Science Fund of China, Grant No. 12&ZD175, October
2012– October 2017.
3. ‘Lexical Ontological Semantics: An Empirical Exploration’, a gen-
eral grant from the China Postdoctoral Science Foundation, Grant No.
2014M550535, April 2014–J une 2015.
We are deeply grateful to six co-a uthors of seven articles among the 12 titles
mentioned earlier for their generosity to allow us to use materials co- written
by us. We would like to acknowledge our debt to:
Weidong Zhan 詹卫东, Professor, Department of Chinese Language and
Literature, Peking University
Chunhong Shi 施春宏, Professor, College of Humanities and Social
Sciences, Beijing Language and Culture University
Hong Cao 曹宏, Associate Research Fellow, School of Archaeology and
Museology, Peking University
Chengming Xie 谢成名, Assistant Professor, School of Literature,
Journalism and Communication, Minzu University of China
Qiang Li 李强, Assistant Professor, College of Liberal Arts, Shanghai
University
Xue Wei 魏雪, postgraduate, Department of Chinese Language and
Literature, Peking University
We are also thankful for all those colleagues and postgraduate students who
extend support and help to us in one way or another. Special thanks go to:
Baobao Chang 常宝宝, Associate Professor, Institute of Computational
Linguistics, Peking University
Houfeng Wang 王厚峰, Professor, Institute of Computational Linguistics,
Peking University
Zhifang Hui 穗志方, Professor, Institute of Computational Linguistics,
Peking University
Yang Liu 刘扬, Associate Professor, Institute of Computational
Linguistics, Peking University
Shiwen Yu 俞士汶, Professor, Institute of Computational Linguistics,
Peking University
Ren Zhou 周韧, Professor, Department of Chinese Language and
Literature, Peking University
