GRASP: Grammar- and Syntax-based Pattern-Finder for Collocation and Phrase Learning

We introduce a method for learning to find the representative syntax-based context of a given collocation/phrase. In our approach, grammatical patterns are extracted for query terms aimed at accelerating lexicographers’ and language learners’ navigation through the word usage and learning process. The method involves automatically lemmatizing, part-of-speech tagging and shallowly parsing the sentences of a large-sized general corpus, and automatically constructing inverted files for quick search. At run-time, contextual grammar patterns are retrieved and presented to users with their corresponding statistical analyses. We present a prototype system, GRASP (grammarand syntax-based pattern-finder), that applies the method to computer-assisted language learning. Preliminary results show that the extracted patterns not only resemble phrases in grammar books (e.g., make up one’s mind) but help to assist the process of language learning and sentence composition/translation.