Using corpora to study Classifiers in Mandarin Chinese

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Using corpora to studyClassifiers in Mandarin
Chinese

• Richard Xiao
• z.xiao_at_lancaster.ac.uk

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Chinese corpus linguistics

• In relation to English, Chinese has a much
  shorter history of using corpora
• Sinica Balanced Corpus of Chinese
• The first annotated corpus of Mandarin
• Freely accessible online since the mid-1990s
• Rapid progress over the last decade
• Corpus building and exploration technology
• Publicly available corpus resources

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Chinese text processing

• Computational processing of Chinese text is more
  complex than English
• Chinese text is encoded in double-byte native
  encodings
• Potential confusion of bytes in running text
• GB2312 for SC and Big5 for TC
• The advent of Unicode has facilitated Chinese
  computing
• But most existing data and tools are based on
  native encoding
• Word tokenization is an essential first step in
  serious Chinese computing
• Defining legitimate words in running text
• Involving dictionary matching and the use of
  statistic models
• Part-of-speech tagging depends on the results of
  tokenizaton
• Accuracy of accuracy 98
• Accuracy of POS tagging 96

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Concordancers for Chinese

• Many concordancers designed for English do not
  work well with Chinese data
• There are presently three types of tools for
  Chinese
• Unicode-based tools
• WordSmith version 4 (Commercial product)
• Xaira (open source freeware)
• Concordancers dependent on language support packs
  (or in WinXP, default non-Unicode font set as
  Chinese)
• AntConc (freeware)
• ConcApp (freeware)
• MonoConc Pro (commercial product)
• Concordance (shareware)
• Web-based query systems bundled with specific
  online corpora

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Chinese corpus resources

• Sinica Balanced Corpus
• http//www.sinica.edu.tw/SinicaCorpus/
• Sinica Tagged Corpus of Early Mandarin
• http//www.sinica.edu.tw/Early_Mandarin/
• Modern Chinese Language Corpus
• http//219.238.40.2138080/CpsQrySv.srf
• PKU-CCL Chinese Corpus
• http//ccl.pku.edu.cn/YuLiao_Contents.Asp
• BLCU Modern Chinese Corpus
• http//202.112.195.88089/ccir_login?input
• Chinese Internet Corpus
• http//corpus.leeds.ac.uk/query-zh.html
• Lancaster Corpus of Mandarin Chinese
• http//www.ling.lancs.ac.uk/corplang/lcmc/
• Lancaster LOS Angeles Spoken Chinese Corpus
• http//www.ling.lancs.ac.uk/corplang/llscc/
• More details of more corpora in more languages
  are on the handout

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Lancaster Corpus of Mandarin Chinese (LCMC)

• Designed as a Chinese match for FLOB and Frown
• Representing written Mandarin as used in mainland
  China in the early 1990s
• A balanced corpus of one million words in 500
  samples proportionally taken from 15 text
  categories
• Marked up in XML and Encoded in Unicode
• Tokenized and POS tagged
• Freely searchable online
• http//www.ling.lancs.ac.uk/corplang/cgi-bin/conc.
  pl
• Released by ELRA and OTA free of charge for
  academic and educational purposes
• An indexed version for use with Xaira is
  available
• V1.2 incorporates validated details of classifier
  use

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Lancaster LOS Angeles Spoken Chinese Corpus
(LLSCC)

• One million words of spoken Mandarin
• Both dialogues (55) and monologues (45 )
• Both spontaneous (57 ) and scripted (43) speech
• Seven spoken registers
• face-to-face conversation, telephone
  conversation, play/movie scripts, TV talk show
  transcripts, formal debates, spontaneous oral
  narrative, edited oral narrative
• Marked up in XML and encoded in Unicode
• Tokenised and POS tagged
• The Telephone Conversation part is tagged with
  details of classifier use
• The unannotated version of this part is available
  from the LDC as CallHome Mandarin Transcripts
• More information
• http//www.ling.lancs.ac.uk/corplang/llscc/

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Annotation scheme for classifiers (q)
Tag Gloss
qu Unit classifier
ql Collective classifier
qa Arrangement classifier
qc Container classifier
qm Standard measure
qs Species classifier
qt Temporal classifier
qv Verbal classifier
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Why classifiers are necessary (1)

• Grammatically mandatory
• san ben shu san shu
• three CL book three book
• three books three books
• Distinguishing between word senses
• yi tiao xian yi gen xian
• one CL line one CL thread
• a line a thread

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Why classifiers are necessary (2)

• Resolving syntactic ambiguity
• Example A)
• Ho laozong gei-le ta yi-ba shouqiang
• Ho general give-Asp him one-CL pistol
• General Ho gave him a pistol.
• Example B)
• Ho laozong gei-le ta yi shouqiang
• Ho general give-Asp him one pistol (CL)
• General Ho shot him once with a pistol.

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Use and name of classifiers

• The use of classifiers dated back as early as
  over 3,300 years ago
• Oracle bone inscriptions excavated from the Yin
  Ruins (1300-1100 B.C.)
• Classifiers became established as a separate word
  class in Chinese only in the 1950s
• Ding et al (1952) A Talk on Grammar in Modern
  Chinese
• Different terms had been used for classifiers
• But mainly treated as a subclass of nouns

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Syntactic features of classifiers

• Classifiers were the last to have become one of
  the 11 word classes in Chinese because they
  cannot be used independently as sentential
  constituents
• Typically following a numeral or demonstrative
  pronoun zhe ? this, na (?) that, or na (?)
  which
• Monosyllabic classifiers can be reduplicated to
  function as different sentential constituents,
  expressing a general grammatical meaning with
  different situational variants (Guo 1999)
• Co-existence or repetition of entities or events
• All around, many, one by one, continuous

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Levels of grammaticalization

• Specialised classifiers
• Fully grammaticalized
• Functioning as classifiers only
• Bleaching of lexical meaning, difficult to find
  translation equivalents in a non-classifier
  language
• E.g. (n) ?,?,?,?,?,?,?,? (v) ?,?,?,?,?,?,?,?,?,?
• Concurrent classifiers
• Mainly derived from nouns and verbs
• Can be used as nouns/verbs and classifiers
• The classifier use is semantically related to the
  lexical meaning of the original noun/verb
• E.g. ?,?,??,? ?,?,?,?,?
• Temporary borrowings
• Mainly borrowed from nouns, verbs, and adjectives
• Functioning as classifiers only on an ad hoc
  basis
• Full lexical meaning
• E.g. ? (face),?? (house) ? (knife),? (gun),?
  (foot),? (fist)

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Semantic types of classifiers (1)

• Nominal classifiers (6 types) Quantifying nouns
• Unit classifiers
• Count individual entities
• E.g. ? (63.5 of unit classifiers, 38.8 of all
  classifiers),?,?,?,?,?,?,?,?,?,?,?,?,?,?,?,?,?,?,?
  
• Collective classifiers
• Provide a collective reference for separate
  entities
• E.g. ? set ,? batch ,? pair ,?? series ,?
  pair ,? group ,? generation ,? group ,?
  pair ,? team
• Arrangement classifiers
• Also refer to a collection, but focus on
  constellation aspect (shape), i.e. how entities
  are arranged or grouped together
• E.g. ? layer,? pile,? ball,? pad,?
  string,? thread,? row,? handful,?
  drop,? bunch,? thread,? row

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Semantic types of classifiers (2)

• Nominal classifiers Quantifying nouns
• Standard measure classifiers
• Express exact measures of various kinds, in local
  or international units
• E.g. ?,?,?,?,?,??,?,??,?,?,???,?,??,??,?,?,?,?,?
• Container classifiers
• Denote types of containers, which are borrowed
  temporarily to provide an inexact measure of mass
  or entities usually associated with such
  containers
• E.g. ?,?,?,?,?,?,?,?,?,?,?,?,?,?,?,?,?,?,?,?,?,?,?
  ,??
• Special container classifiers, can only take yi
  -gt full, more descriptive than quantifying
• Species classifiers
• Denote the type of entities grouped together
• E.g. ? (kind, over 90),? (sort),? (grade),?
  (type),? (grade),? (class)

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Semantic types of classifiers (3)

• Verbal classifiers quantifying verbs
• 9 specialised verbal classifiers
• E.g. ?(times, 40.8 of all verbal
  classifiers),?(stroke),?(course of action),?(once
  over),?(step of action),?(return
  journey),?(times),?(once through),?(criticising,
  abusing)
• Borrowed verbal classifiers
• An open set, mostly nouns denoting tools and
  related items
• E.g. ?,?,?,?,?,?,??,?,?
• Temporal classifiers measuring time
• Exact measures
• ?,?,?,??,??,?,?,??,?,??,?,?,??,??,?,?,?,??,?
• Inexact measures
• E.g. ??,?,??,??,?,?,??

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Classifiers in writing and speech

• Unit classifiers by far most common, in speech
  and writing
• Because of the weight of generalised classifier
  ge, unit classifiers are particularly frequent in
  speech
• Other common types temporal, verbal
• Infrequent types container, arrangement,
  collective

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Variation across genres

• Apart from the speech-writing difference, various
  genres also differ in classifier use
• Most frequent in news reportage (A), humour (R),
  and speech (S) over 3K in 100K
• Least common in news review (B), news editorial
  (C), religious writing (D), and academic prose
  (J) below 2k in 100k
• Generally more common in imaginative (K-R)
  writing and speech (S) than in informative
  writing (A-J)

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Distribution of classifier types

• Distribution of different types of classifiers
  also varies across genres
• Unit classifier is the most common type in all
  genres (2/3 of all classifiers)
• Container, arrangement, and collective
  classifiers are relatively rare in all genres
• Std measure classifiers are most frequent in news
  reportage (A) and official docs (H)
• Species classifiers are more common in
  informative than imaginative writing

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Cognitive basis of classifier use

• Allan (1977) number of dimensions
• Adams and Conklin (1973) elasticity, hardness,
  discreteness
• Shi (2001) ratio between different dimensions,
  and materiality
• Dimensions and use of classifiers
• 0-D point, e.g. yi dian (?) mo a point of ink
• 1-D line, e.g. yi xian (?) xiwang a thread of
  hope
• 2-D area (Y being the longer dimension)
• Y/Xgtgt1 gt zhang (?) e.g. yi zhang zhaopian a
  photo
• Y/Xgtgt0 gt tiao (?) e.g. yi tiao malu a road
• 3-D block (QY/X)
• Z/Q gtgt 0 gt pian (?) e.g., yi pian shuye a
  leaf
• Z/Q gtgt 1 gt kuai (?) e.g. yi kuai tang a lump
  of sugar
• Z/Q gtgt sufficiently large gt gen (?) e.g. yi gen
  dianxian a cable
• While the use of nominal classifiers is closely
  associated with shape, this is not the only
  criterion nouns and classifiers co-select each
  other
• Five co-selection criteria

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Co-selection by similarity

• Classifiers are closely related to shapes which
  are historically associated with the nouns that
  have given rise to these classifiers, e.g. tiao
  (?)
• tiao small branch/twig gt long, narrow,
  flexible jie (?) street, tui (?) leg, lu
  (?) road, xian (?) line thread, he (?)
  river, yu (?) fish, etc bamboo slips for
  writing gt guiding (??) regulation, jianyi
  (??) suggestion, falu (??) law, xinwen (??)
  news, etc
• kuai (?) (soil lump/block gt something of a
  lumpy/blocky shape, e.g. a wrist watch
  territory soil gt something with a boundary,
  e.g. a scar

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Co-selection by metonymy

• The original lexical meanings of classifiers
  refer to the most salient features of the
  entities being classified, e.g.
• kou (?) mouth (for pigs), tou (?) head (for
  cattle), wei (?) tail (for fish), ding (?)
  top (for hats, sedan chairs etc)
• BUT long term linguistic conventions are always
  important in language use
• tou rabbit, cat
• wei peacock, squirrel

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Co-selection by relatedness

• The original lexical meanings of classifiers
  refer to actions closely related to entities
  being classified, e.g.
• bao (?) wrap-gt pack (resulting of packing)
• chuan (?) string together-gt string, bunch
• kun (?) tie up, fasten -gt bundle
• peng (?) hold in both hands -gt a double handful

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Co-selection by association

• The original lexical meanings of classifiers
  refer to tools, containers, and places, etc
  closely associated with the entities being
  classified, e.g.
• dao (?) knife -gt a cut of (meat)
• wan (?) bowl -gt a bowl of (rice)
• chuang (?) bed -gt a bed of (quilt/sheet etc)
• mu (?) curtain -gt an act of (play)

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Co-selection by conventions

• Sometimes, co-selection has to be interpreted by
  following linguistic conventions because it is
  not always possible to track the
  grammaticalization path of a classifier to
  ascertain the relationship between its original
  lexical meaning with the entities being
  classified
• In what way is tiao historically related to
  renming human life?
• Why is tou used for pigs and cattle but not
  rabbits or cats?
• Why is wei used for fish but not for peacocks or
  squirrels even though they have tails that are as
  salient as, if not more so, than that of fish
• Such missing links have to be accounted for by
  linguistic conventions of the speech community

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Collocates

• Lets now have a look at the noun collocates of
  some common classifiers in Chinese to see how
  well the proposed co-selection criteria work
• Defining collocates (in 2 million words)
• Window span of L5-R5
• zgt3.0
• Minimum co-occurrence frequency of 5

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Collocates of zhang (?)
Collocate Gloss Frequency z-score
? playing card 64 85.9
?? notepaper 9 49.7
?? cheque 6 40.4
?? photo 7 26.6
? ticket 10 21.5
? paper 13 21.2
? (thick/thin) face, cheek 12 17.2
? skin/leather 7 17.2
? drawing 6 9.5
? (prototypical) bed 6 9.3
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Collocates of tiao (?) 1
Collocate Gloss Frequency z-score
?? stipulation 51 41.9
?? regulation 11 26.1
? street 11 25.4
? leg 14 22.5
?? (traffic) lane 6 20.4
? road 23 19.7
?? straight line 6 19.4
? river 6 11.7
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Collocates of tiao (?) - 2
Collocate Gloss Frequency z-score
?? instruction 6 10.7
?? suggestion 7 9.2
? fish 9 8.8
? line thread 7 7.4
?? principle 8 7.0
?? comment 6 5.3
?? news 6 4.3
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Collocates of kuai (?)
Collocate Gloss Frequency z-score
?? level ground 6 59.0
?? stone 11 51.1
? cloth 6 23.0
? land, field 9 3.2
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Collocates of ge (?)

• Generalised classifier ge (?) bamboo (?) split
  into halves, initially as a counter for bamboos
  and arrows when a bamboo chip is used for
  counting, it becomes a symbol of the entity being
  counted. In other words, the entity loses its
  shape, colour, function or any other attribute
  and becomes a unit of counting, ge.
• Ge can be used for any noun (people or things,
  large or small) that does not have a specific
  classifier, and it can be used to replace
  specific classifiers of many nouns.
• A total of 115 noun collocates
• 29 refer to human beings, 86 to non-human
  entities
• 66 refer to concrete entities, 49 to abstract
  entities
• 12 related to time
• Top 20 noun collocates (zgt8.8, Fgt5, in the order
  of z-scores)
• ? month, ?? week, ? person, ?? hour, ??
  phone call, ?? week, ? character,???
  percentage, ?? place, ?? corner, ??
  project, ?? hour, ?? problem, question, ???
  rice cooker, ?? woman, ?? character, ??
  example, ?? box, ??? camera, ?? stuff

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Classifiers for dongxi (??)

• A noun with a rather general and vague referent
  can refer to anything, but not human being
• It is an insult to say someone is a dongxi, or is
  not a dongxi
• The vagueness in reference makes it possible to
  use a nominal classifier of any type for dongxi
• Unit classifier
• (General) ge (?), jian (?) piece, fen (?)
  portion
• (Shape) tiao (?), zhang (?), and kuai (?)
• (Book/paper) ben (? for books), pian (? for a
  piece of writing)
• Collective classifier
• tao (?) set
• Arrangement classifier
• dui (?) pile
• Container classifier
• xiangzi (??) box, bao (?) pack
• Standard measure classifier
• dun (?) ton
• Species classifier
• yang (?) type, zhong (?) kind, lei (?) class

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Variations

• Not all instances of classifier use are in line
  with these co-selection criteria
• Regional variation
• dao (?) knife
• Mandarin yi-ba (?) dao a knife
• Cantonese yi-zhang (?) dao a knife
• niu (?) cattle
• Mandarin yi-tou (?) niu a cow
• Wu yi-zhi (?) niu a cow
• ren (?) person
• Mandarin yi-ge (?) ren
• Fuzhou yi-zhi (?) ren
• Unconventional, creative use of classifiers often
  found in literary works
• Diachronic variaion

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• Thank you!