Cross-lingual frame comparability : computational and linguistic perspectives

Abstract

Frames are descriptions of commonplace scenarios or events. Because they describe everyday scenes, such as buying or eating, it seems reasonable to assume that many frames in one language would carry over directly to other languages. However, the specifics of how that scene is realized can be highly specific to a culture; it is still an open research question as to how well (and how many) frames actually apply across languages. This thesis concerns cross-lingual frame comparability - the degree to which a frame can be transferred from one language to another. It addresses several aspects of frame comparability: what is frame comparability; how a computational system can measure cross-lingual frame comparability; and how frame comparability affects cross-lingual models of frames.