Using corpora tools to analyze gradable nouns in Dutch

Abstract

In this paper, we expand Morzycki (2009)’s claims that degree readings of size adjectives are attributed to syntax. We introduce a corpus-based analysis in Dutch to verify and extend his claim into the semantic domain. Using the LASSY Treebank, we extract syntactic and semantic properties of noun phrases consisting of the adjectives “gigantisch”, “kolossaal”, and “reusachtig” and manually annotate each adjective-noun pair with a gradable or nongradable label.

Using these features, we construct a statistical model based on logistic regression and find that the grammatical role, definiteness, and particular semantic noun groups derived from Cornetto (a Dutch WordNet with referential relations) have a significant effect on the likelihood that an adjective-noun pair is interpreted by the reader to have a degree reading.