Article published in:
Verb Phrase and Fluid Construction Grammar
Edited by Luc Steels and Katrien Beuls
[Constructions and Frames 9:2] 2017
► pp. 278–301

An open-ended computational construction grammar for Spanish verb conjugation

| AI Lab, Vrije Universiteit Brussel

The Spanish verb phrase can take on many forms, depending on the temporal, aspectual and modal interpretation that a speaker wants to convey. At least half a dozen constructions work together to build or analyze even the simplest verb form such as hablo ‘I speak’. This paper documents how the complete Spanish verb conjugation system can be operationalized in a computational construction grammar formalism, namely Fluid Construction Grammar. Moreover, it shows how starting from a seed grammar that handles regular morphology and grammar one can create a productive grammar that captures systematicity in Spanish verb conjugation and can expand its construction inventory when new verbs are encountered.

Keywords: Fluid Construction Grammar, Spanish verbs, grammar fragment, constructional morphology, construction learning
Article outline
  • 1.Introduction
  • 2.Learning challenges in the acquisition of Spanish verbs
    • 2.1Semantic challenges
      • 2.2.1Tense
      • 2.1.2Aspect
      • 2.1.3Mood
    • 2.2Morpho-syntactic challenges
  • 3.Α Spanish grammar fragment
    • 3.1Grammar design
      • 3.1.1Lexical constructions
      • 3.1.2Stem constructions
      • 3.1.3Suffix constructions
      • 3.1.4Grammatical constructions
    • 3.2Verb conjugation
    • 3.3Stem changes
  • 4.Towards a productive Spanish grammar
    • 4.1Extending the seed grammar
    • 4.2Grammar evaluation
  • 5.Conclusions and future outlook
  • Acknowledgments
  • Note
  • References
Published online: 30 December 2017
https://doi.org/10.1075/cf.00005.beu
References
Basterrechea, E., & Rello, L.
(2010) El verbo en espanõl. Madrid: Molino de Ideas.Google Scholar
Beuls, K.
(2011) Construction sets and unmarked forms: A case study for Hungarian verbal agreement. In L. Steels (Ed.), Design patterns in Fluid Construction Grammar (pp. 237–264). Amsterdam: John Benjamins. DOI logoGoogle Scholar
(2014) Grammatical error diagnosis in Fluid Construction Grammar: A case study in L2 Spanish verb morphology. Computer Assisted Language Learning, 27(3), 246–260. DOI logoGoogle Scholar
(2013) Towards an agent-based tutoring system for Spanish verb conjugation. Ph.D. thesis, Vrije Universiteit Brussel.Google Scholar
Bull, W.
(1965) Spanish for teachers: Applied linguistics. R.E. Krieger Pub. Co.Google Scholar
Comrie, B.
(1976) Aspect. Cambridge: Cambridge University Press.Google Scholar
Croft, W., & Cruse, D. A.
(2004) Cognitive Linguistics [Cambridge Textbooks in Linguistics]. Cambridge: Cambridge University Press. DOI logoGoogle Scholar
Daelemans, W., & Van den Bosch, A.
(2005) Memory-based language processing [Studies in Natural Language Processing]. Cambridge: Cambridge University Press. DOI logoGoogle Scholar
Delbecque, N., Masschelein, D., & Vanden Bulcke, P.
(2001) El uso de los tiempos del pasado. Gramática espanõla aplicada. Mechelen: Wolters Plantyn.Google Scholar
Gili Gaya, S.
(1943) Curso superior de sintaxis espanõla. Madrid: Ediciones Minerva.Google Scholar
Koskenniemi, K.
(1983) Two-level morphology: A general computational model for word-form recognition and production. Ph.D. thesis, University of Helsinki.Google Scholar
Michaelis, L. A. (2006) Tense in English. In B. Aarts & A. McMahon (Eds.), The handbook of English linguistics (pp. 220–243). Malden, MA: Blackwell Publishing. DOI logoGoogle Scholar
Ramsey, M.
(1956) A textbook of modern Spanish (revised edition by Robert Spaulding). New York: Holt, Rinehart & Winston.Google Scholar
Rello, L., & Basterrechea, E.
(2011) Onoma: A linguistically motivated conjugation system for Spanish verbs. In Lecture Notes in Computer Science Number 6608, CICLing 2011: The 12th International Conference on Intelligent Text Processing and Computational Linguistics (pp. 227–238). New York: Springer.Google Scholar
Terrell, T., & Hooper, J.
(1974) A semantically based analysis of mood in Spanish. Hispania, 571, 484–494. DOI logoGoogle Scholar
Whitley, M.
(2002) Spanish-English contrasts: A course in Spanish linguistics. Georgtown: Georgetown University Press.Google Scholar
Cited by

Cited by 1 other publications

van Trijp, Remi, Katrien Beuls, Paul Van Eecke & Andrew Kehler
2022. The FCG Editor: An innovative environment for engineering computational construction grammars. PLOS ONE 17:6 ► pp. e0269708 ff. DOI logo

This list is based on CrossRef data as of 11 january 2023. Please note that it may not be complete. Sources presented here have been supplied by the respective publishers. Any errors therein should be reported to them.