Automatic semantic classification of verbs from their syntactic contexts

An implemented program that automatically classifies verbs into those that describe only states of the world and those that describes events, such as to look, is discussed, demonstrating an important new technique for the automatic generation of lexical databases.

Abstract

This paper discusses an implemented program that automatically classifies verbs into those that describe only states of the world, such as to know, and those that describe events, such as to look. It works by exploiting the constraint between the syntactic environments in which a verb can occur and its meaning. The only input is on-line text. This demonstrates an important new technique for the automatic generation of lexical databases.