Hostname: page-component-848d4c4894-nr4z6 Total loading time: 0 Render date: 2024-05-05T12:36:27.323Z Has data issue: false hasContentIssue false
  • English
  • Français

CALLex: a CALL game to study lexical relationships based on a semantic database

Published online by Cambridge University Press:  26 August 2021

Henriëtte Visser
Henriëtte Visser*
Affiliation:
University of Heidelberg
Get access Rights & Permissions [Opens in a new window]

Abstract

This paper presents the prototype of CALLex, a program for learning lexical functions, created by a project funded by INTAS, a European organisation promoting cooperation between the European Union and the states of the former Soviet Union, developed by the Laboratory of Computational Linguistics at the Russian Academy of Sciences, Moscow, supported by the universities of Klagenfurt, Austria and Heidelberg, Germany. The goal of the program is to facilitate language learning through several linguistic games in order to improve the lexical command of the language studied. The CALLex games access a lexico-semantic database consisting of two dictionaries, Russian and German, each containing roughly 1000 lexemes. The lexical functions cover a wide variety of lexical relationships, which can be roughly divided into three major groups: (1) collocations, which are syntagmatic relationships, such as ‘do x, nave x, or being in the state of x’, (trade) = conduct (trade) or (anger) = feel (anger), (2) substitutions, i.e. paradigmatic relationships, e.g. ‘a lexeme whose meaning is opposite to x’, (appear) = disappear, (courage) = cowardice, and (3) other prototypical relationships, ‘head of what is denoted by x’, (university) = rector, (tribe) = chief. While studying the combinatorial capabilities of a word and its most ‘idiomatic’ collocations, the student can get a feel for semantic fields and obtain structured access to the vocabulary and its syntactic expression in the foreign language. The strict separation of the CALL program and the underlying database facilitates the expansion of the linguistic resources on the one hand and the adaptation or the linguistic games to new didactic approaches on the other hand. This paper highlights the function of the database in the background of the program and the treatment of illrormed student input. Although some adjustments were made during the course of the project, a more flexible approach seems necessary. Here we envisage a component separate from, but interacting with the database, allowing for a more robust treatment of ill-formed input.

Type
Research Article
Information
ReCALL , Volume 11 , Issue S1: Natural Language Processing In Computer-Assisted Language Learning , May 1999 , pp. 50 - 56
Copyright
Copyright © The Author(s) 1999

Access options

Get access to the full version of this content by using one of the access options below. (Log in options will check for institutional or personal access. Content may require purchase if you do not have access.)

References

Apresjan, J.D. (1995) “Izbrannye trudy. Tom Il”. Integral'noe opisanie jazyka i sistemnqja leksikografija. Moskva: Jazyki russkoj kul'tury.Google Scholar
Apresjan, J.D. & Tsinman, L.L. (1998) “Perifrazirovanie na kom'putere”. Semiotika i informatika, vyp. 36. Moskva: Jazyki russkoj kul'tury.Google Scholar
Boguraev, B. & Briscoe, T. (eds.) (1989) Computational Lexicography for Natural Language Processing, London: Longman.Google Scholar
Colpaert, J. (1996) “Learning from the past, building new working hypotheses: the DIDASCALIA criteria framework for more added value in CALL”. Computer Assisted Language Learning, 9(4), 309-318.CrossRefGoogle Scholar
Decoo, W. (1996) “DIDASCALIA: Background and Basic Options”. Computer Assisted Language Learning, 9(4), 299-308.CrossRefGoogle Scholar
Hellwig, P. & Visser, H. (1994) PLAIN Morphology. Internal paper, Computerlinguistik, Universität Heidelberg.Google Scholar
Levy, M. (1997) Computer-Assisted Language Learning: Context and Conceptualization, Oxford: Clarendon Press.Google Scholar
Mel'cuk, I.A. (1974) Opyt teorii lingvisticeskich modelj ‘Smysl <=> Tekst'. Semantika, sintaksis, Moskva: Nauka.Google Scholar
Mel'cuk, I.A. (1996) “Lexical Functions: A Tool for the Description of Lexical Relations in the Lexicon”. In Wanner, L. (ed.), Lexical Functions in Lexicography and Natural Language Processing, Amsterdam: Benjamins, 37-102.Google Scholar
Micarelli, A. and Boylan, P. (1997) ‘Foreign-language tutoring systems today: old-fashioned teaching with newfangled gadgets', Cognitive Systems, 5-1, 37-56.Google Scholar
Pustejovsky, J. (ed.) (1993) Semantics and the Lexicon, Dordrecht: Kluwer Academic PublishersCrossRefGoogle Scholar
Pustejovsky, J. (1995) The Generative Lexicon, Cambridge: The MIT Press.Google Scholar
Reuther, T. (1994) “Funktionsverben in einem Erklärend-kombinatorischen Wörterbuch: Möglichkeiten der Generalisierung (mit russischen und deutschen Beispielen)”. In Mehlig, H.R. (ed.), Slavistische Linguistik 1993. Referate des XIX. Konstanzer Slavistischen Arbeitstreffens, München: Sagner, 279-291.Google Scholar
Reuther, T. (1996) “Das CALLex-Projekt (Computer-Aided Learning of Lexical Functions)”. In Kosta, P. & Mann, E. (eds.), Slavistische Linguistik 1996. Referate des XXII. Konstanzer Slavistischen Arbeitstreffens, München: Sagner, 283-307.Google Scholar
Swartz, M.L. & Yazdani, M. (eds.) (1992) Intelligent Tutoring Systems for Foreign Language Learning: The Bridge to International Communication, Berlin: Springer Verlag.CrossRefGoogle Scholar
Visser, H. (1992) Lexical Resources of the German Dependency Unification Grammar, Report submitted to the CEC of the ESPRIT Project No. 2315.Google Scholar
Wanner, L. (ed.) (1996) Lexical Functions in Lexicography and Natural Language Processing, Amersterdam: Benjamins.CrossRefGoogle Scholar
Wanner, L. (ed.) (1997) Recent Trends in Meaning-Text Theory, Amsterdam: Benjamins.CrossRefGoogle Scholar