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Article published In:
Natural language processing for learner corpus research
Edited by Kristopher Kyle
[International Journal of Learner Corpus Research 7:1] 2021
► pp. 131–162

Assessing the impact of automatic dependency annotation on the measurement of phraseological complexity in L2 Dutch

| Vrije Universiteit Brussel | Université catholique de Louvain

The extraction of phraseological units operationalized in phraseological complexity measures (Paquot, 2019) relies on automatic dependency annotations, yet the suitability of annotation tools for learner language is often overlooked. In the present article, two Dutch dependency parsers, Alpino (van Noord, 2006) and Frog (van den Bosch et al., 2007), are evaluated for their performance in automatically annotating three types of dependency relations (verb + direct object, adjectival modifier, and adverbial modifier relations) across three proficiency levels of L2 Dutch. These observations then serve as the basis for an investigation into the impact of automatic dependency annotation on phraseological sophistication measures. Results indicate that both learner proficiency and the type of dependency relation function as moderating factors in parser performance. Phraseological complexity measures computed on the basis of both automatic and manual dependency annotations demonstrate moderate to high correlations, reflecting a moderate to low impact of automatic annotation on subsequent analyses.

Keywords: dependency parsing, L2 Dutch, phraseological complexity, proficiency
Article outline
  • 1.Introduction
  • 2.Dependency parsing learner language
  • 3.Research setup
    • 3.1Research questions and objectives
    • 3.2Dutch learner data
    • 3.3Sampling
  • 4.Dutch Dependency parsers
    • 4.1Alpino
    • 4.2Frog
    • 4.3Compatibility of parser output
  • 5.Gold standard
    • 5.1Double coding the gold standard
  • 6.Study 1: Parser accuracy for L2 Dutch
    • 6.1Accuracy across proficiency
    • 6.4Accuracy across dependency relations
    • 6.3A qualitative look at parsing error
  • 7.Study 2: Impact of automatic annotation on measures of phraseological sophistication
    • 7.1Computing phraseological sophistication
    • 7.2Global impact of automatic annotation on the measurement of phraseological complexity
    • 7.3Effect of dependency relations
    • 7.4A qualitative look at the impact of parsing error
  • 8.Discussion and conclusions
    • 8.1Implications for automatic annotation in LCR
    • 8.2Limitations and future directions
  • Notes
  • References
Published online: 1 March 2021
DOI logo
https://doi.org/10.1075/ijlcr.20005.rub
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