Parts of Speech | A database would also be nice

[Hero Doug]

I have the book Chinese Made Easier where it lists the parts of speech. I'd just like to know two things.

One, do you consider this a good list.

Two, are there any resources such as dictionary.com where you can enter a wrod and see the part of speech?

For instance, if you enter hello you'll see that it can be used as an injunction.

I'm asking because I'd like to know where I can double check what part of speech a word belongs to. I'm also not exactly sure what a number of them are used for (bound form for instance).

Here's the list.

Noun

Pronoun

Subject

Measure

Number

Specifiers

Action Verbs

Equative Verbs

Question Words

Auxiliary Verbs

Adjectives

Adverbs

Particles

Time Words

Prepositions

Moveable Adverbs

Conjunctions

Verb-Objects

Place Words

Bound Forms

Localizers

Resolute Verb Ending

Expressions

Attributive

Thanks

[muyongshi]

1) I have no clue where you could find a list to double check with but it sounds like dictionary.com would work no?

2) I don't know half of those grammar words anyway so unless you love grammar is it really necessary?

3) Does CME list the word as the chinese usage or the English usage? If it does refer to the Chinese not the English (which I believe it does) your search on dictionary.com or where ever you wind up doing it on because futile as they will not match....

[c_redman]

The Lancaster Corpus of Mandarin Chinese is a 1,000,000 word (segmented words, not characters) set of texts that have been fully tagged for part of speech. You can download the whole dataset at the link above, but it's a rather unwieldy set of XML files. Alternatively, you can search a concordance interface to it, where it will return every sentence matching the word you are searching for, with every word tagged for part of speech. The parts of speech they use are quite extensive.

[Hero Doug]

I have no clue where you could find a list to double check with but it sounds like dictionary.com would work no?

While it's a great authority for English vocabulary Dictionary.com doesn't work for Chinese. It just provides a list of translations but not examples or parts of speech. Here's an example using the word 你好

I don't know half of those grammar words anyway so unless you love grammar is it really necessary?

You're right, it's not necessary to learn all the parts of speech a word belongs to; but I have commercial purposes in mind. Being able to query words based on their part of speech would make my life easier.

Does CME list the word as the chinese usage or the English usage? If it does refer to the Chinese not the English (which I believe it does) your search on dictionary.com or where ever you wind up doing it on because futile as they will not match....

Yes it uses Chinese parts of speech, which is why I'm looking for a source to double check the parts of speech before I commit them to my database.

c_redman >> Thanks for the link. I tried it out quickly and it may be what I'm looking for, I'm not sure. I typed 你好 into the search box and it popped up a lot of entries listing 你好 but aside from that I couldn't make heads or tales of the information it was displaying.

I'm also going to go to the bookstore and see if any of the dictionaries there are suitable as well.

Thanks for the help guys/girls

[character]

[...] I have commercial purposes in mind.

Then you'll want to stay away from the The Lancaster Corpus of Mandarin Chinese.

http://bowland-files.lancs.ac.uk/corplang/lcmc/LCMC/LCMC_license.htm :

"(f) There is no restriction on the use of the Licensee's Results except that the Licensee may not publish in print or electronic form or exploit commercially in any form whatsoever any extracts from the LCMC Processed Material other than those permitted under the fair dealings provision of copyright law.

"(g) The Licenser does not grant to the Licensee any rights whatsoever to reproduce the LCMC Texts or use all or any part of the LCMC Texts in commercial products or services in any way other than would be permitted under the fair dealings provision of copyright law."

Fair dealing is explained here: http://copyrightservice.co.uk/copyright/p01_uk_copyright_law

---

Aside: I wish use of the Apache license would catch on for Chinese research projects. The research has already been paid for, it can't be turned into a weapon, so let people (not just academics) use it. Some of them might make a buck from it. Big deal.

[Hero Doug]

I believe my purposes fall under fair use.

I'm going to use the list of most frequently used words from Wiktionary and manually enter them into the databse looking up the part of speech and providing examples as I go. I'm then going to translate all those words into Chiense and enter the parts of speech/examples etc before having them proof read by a professional translator to ensure accuracy. Painstaking I know, but what can I do?

Anyways, the only thing I'll be taking from any dictionary is knowledge. I just need to know the part of speech for a word, which in itself is not an origional work and can't be copyrighted.

Thanks for the link, I read it, I believe I'm well within my legal right.

Names, titles, short phrases and colours are not generally considered unique or substantial enough to be covered, but a creation, such as a logo, that combines these elements may be.

In short, work that expresses an idea may be protected, but not the idea behind it.

[liuzhou]

I'm going to use the list of most frequently used words from Wiktionary and manually enter them into the databse looking up the part of speech

Many words can be more than one part of speech depending on context. To take an English example, 'welcome' can be a noun, verb, or adjective.

The original list you quoted seems very confused. It lists subject as a part of speech which it isn't. It's a function. The subject of this sentence is a noun phrase.

Also 'time word' is very vague. Time words can be many different parts of speech, too.

[trevelyan]

Just a caveat on the copyright issue - US copyright law is not European or global copyright law. You're probably better off just doing the POS classification yourself.

[Hero Doug]

Many words can be more than one part of speech depending on context. To take an English example, 'welcome' can be a noun, verb, or adjective.

Thank's for bringing up this point, and I've already thought of that and have designed everything to work with that as opposed to lumping everything together like a regular dictionary. This is also the reason I need to know the parts of speech.

Just a caveat on the copyright issue - US copyright law is not European or global copyright law. You're probably better off just doing the POS classification yourself.

Don't worry, I'm not an American lawyer, I don't think American law's are applicable worldwide. ;)

Even though I really don't see a problem with my intended usage I'll contact a lawyer and see what they say.

[Altair]

Here is my take on the list.

Noun: Good

Pronoun: Good

Subject: I am not sure this would be helpful for Chinese words, but might be helpful to describe the English equivalents. If you use it for this latter purpose, then you should add "object" and "possessive."

Measure: I think the term "measure word" is more common.

Number: Good, but of limited usefulness.

Specifiers: Good, but of limited usefulness and slightly confusing

Action Verbs: Difficult category to define and of limited usefulness in isolation. I would suggest using simply "verb."

Equative Verbs: I have never heard of this category and wonder about its usefulness.

Question Words: Good

Auxiliary Verbs: Good

Here, I think you are missing "stative verb."

Adjectives: I strongly prefer the analysis of Chinese grammar that talks about "stative verbs," rather than "adjectives," and believe most serious grammar books written in English do not talk about Chinese "adjectives."

Adverbs: Good

Particles: Good

Time Words: Unnecessary, and perhaps confusing

Prepositions: I strongly prefer the analysis of Chinese grammar that talks about "coverbs," rather than "prepositions." The term "prepositions" might also confusingly suggest the same thing as "localizers."

Moveable Adverbs: Good, but perhaps problematic. For instance, does "因为 (yinwei) go here or under "conjunctions"?

Conjunctions: Good, but there is some overlap with "adverbs" and "prepositions'/"coverbs."

Verb-Objects: Good; however, there can be some confusion as to whether this refers to the internal structure of a compound (e.g., 尽量 jinliang) or how it is used in a sentence. I think the latter is more important. Also, an excellent dictionary would help the user know how separable the elements are and in what way.

Place Words: Perhaps useful if you are referring to the subset of nouns that can be used after a verb like 在 zai; otherwise, there would be overlap with other categories. In a practical work, I would delete this category and leave the distinction to grammar books.

Bound Forms: Good

Localizers: Perhaps useful, but this term may not be as widely used as the other ones here. In a practical work, I would delete this category and leave the distinction to grammar books.

Resolute Verb Ending: I don't know what you mean here. Do you mean "verb complement"? "Aspect particle"? "Verb suffix"? I like these three categories and like to see them in dictionaries.

Expressions: Good, but "fixed expression" or "bound expression" might be clearer, even if somewhat misleading.

Attributive: Useful within definitions, but not as a part of speech.