In this paper we present a methodology for automatically classifying the translation equivalents of a machine readable bilingual dictionary in three main groups: lexical units, lexical gaps (that is cases when a lexical concept of a language does not have a correspondent in the other language) and translation equivalents that need to be manually classified as lexical units or lexical gaps. This...

In this paper we present the results of a quantitative evaluation of the discrepancies between the Italian and English lexica in terms of lexical gaps. This evaluation has been carried out in the context of MultiWordNet, an ongoing project that aims at building a multilingual lexical database. The quantitative evaluation of the English-to-Italian lexical gaps shows that the English and Italian ...

Classical generative phonology draws a distinction between possible words (accidental gaps) and impossible words (systematic gaps) [4]. This model predicts that speakers should categorically judge accidental gaps to be well-formed and systematic gaps to be ill-formed, and thus rate accidental gaps more highly than systematic gaps in a wordlikeness judgment task. Such structure models attribute ...

Lexical items play a key role in both language in general and translation in particular. Likewise, equivalence is a controversial concept discussed so widely in translation studies. Some theorists deem it to be fundamental in translation theory and define translation in terms of equivalence. The aim of this study is to identify the problems of lexical gaps in two translations of Nahj al-ba...

A bstract This paper deserihes the treatment of lexical gaps, collocation information and idioms in the English to Portuguese machine translation system PORTUGA. The perspective is strictly bilingual, in the sense that all problems referenced above are considered to behmg to the tranM'cr phase, and not, as in other systems, to analysis or generation. The solution presented invokes a parser fi}r...

Although paradigm gaps are an analytical puzzle for all linguistic theories, until recently they have received only sporadic discussion in the literature. Since the advent of Optimality Theory, however, gaps have gradually become the subject of more systematic attention. This is certainly due in part to the particular mechanical challenge that gaps pose for OT; hence, a major focus has been on ...

Computer programs so far have not fared well in modeling language acquisition. For one thing, learning methodology applicable in general domains does not readily lend itself in the linguistic domain. For another, linguistic representation used by language processing systems is not geared to learning. We introduced a new linguistic representation, the Dynamic Hierarchical Phrasal Lexicon (DHPL) ...

The goals of this paper are twofold. First, I provide empirical generalizations regarding paradigmatic gaps in the Russian genitive plurals. Second, I propose an analysis of these facts in terms of inviolable lexical conservatism conditions. The main idea behind Lexical Conservatism is that speakers are hesitant introducing forms that would create a new allomorph of an existent morpheme. I reje...

It is very costly to build up lexical resources and domain ontologies. Especially when confronted with a new application domain lexical gaps and a poor coverage of domain concepts are a problem for the successful exploitation of natural language document analysis systems that need and exploit such knowledge sources. In this paper we report about ongoing experiments with ‘bootstrapping technique...