Implementation of Subject-Predicate Agreement in Hindi and Telugu ...

Implementation of Subject-Predicate Agreement in 

Hindi and Telugu: A Machine Translation Perspective 

G. Uma Maheshwar Rao, 

Christopher Mala 

CALTS 

University of Hyderabad 

guraohyd@gmail.com, efthachris@gmail.com 

December 10, 2010 

G. Uma Maheshwar Rao, Christopher Mala CALTS Implementation Universityof Subject-Predicate Hyderabad guraohyd@gmail.com, Agreement in Hindi efthachris@gmail.com December and Telugu: 10, A2010 Machine () 1 Translati / 36

Outline 

Introduction 

Defining Agreement 

Agreement Divergence between Hindi and Telugu 

Expression of Agreement 

Typology of Agreement 

Realization of Exponence and its mapping on verbs 

Agreement Transfer between Hindi-Telugu 

Implementation of Agreement in Machine Translation System 

Evaluation and Conclusion 


Introduction 

1 The quality of translation is extremely dependent on the 

appropriateness of the agreement transfer. 

2 One of the major goals of this study is to come up with a design to 

implement a computational model of the agreement in Hindi-Telugu 

Machine Translation System. 

3 In Hindi, agreement is observed between the Finite verb and its 

complement noun in the nominative except when the verb expresses 

default agreement in such case nouns are inflected overtly for cases. 


Definition 

1 Agreement mainly explains the phenomena that exhibit specific 

morphological form of a word (Predicate) appearing in a sentence with 

respect to the presence of morpho-syntactic categoires of some other 

word (Subject or object in case of Hindi) elsewhere in the sentence. 

2 Agreement does this by encoding the information of the grammatical 

properties (Gender, Number, Person) of its referent(s) (i.e. 

Argument(s)) in terms of the morphological elements that appear(s) 

with the word (Predicate) in the sentence. 


Cont.... 

1 Deals with the expression of the appropriate inflectional categories of 

the word (i.e. the verb) with respect to the properties of other words 

(i.e. the GNP of the Subj/Obj NP) in the sentence. 

2 To explicate the computational procedures for generating appropriate 

agreement in the Target Language Telugu in a Machine Translation 

System. 


Agreement Divergence between Hindi and Telugu 

1 Argument Structure and Case: Hindi is an ergative - accusative 

language where as Telugu is nominative - accusative language. 

2 Types of Predicates: Telugu has non-verbal predicates where as 

Hindi does not have. 

3 Gender systems: 

1 Hindi has two genders, viz. masculine and feminine both in singular 

and plural. 

2 Telugu has masculine vs. non-masculine in singular while human vs. 

non-human in plural. 


Expression of Agreement 


Cont.... 

Exemplication of basic agreement facts in Hindi and Telugu. 

rAma(X) 3,m,sg,(X ′ ) gAnA(Y) 3,f ,s,(Y ′ ) gAwA(Z)-hE (TAM),3,sg,(Z ′ ) 

rAmudu(X) 3,m,sg,(X ′ ) pAta(Y) 3,nm,sg,(Y ′ ) pAdu(Z)-wAdu (TAM),3,m,sg,(Z ′ ) 

The expression of Agreement may be stated as: Verb (the Predicate Z) 

displays its inflectional categories (Z’) in terms of coindexing with the 

corresponding inflectional categories of (X’) of the complement argument 

(the Subject X). 


Condition for Agreement 

1 Only a nominative NP qualifies to be referential. 

2 Only Predicates qualify to be co-indexed (Adjectives, Nouns, 

Pronouns, Locative nouns, Number words beside verbs in Telugu). 

3 Only a predicate displays inflectional endings corresponding to the 

morpho-syntactic categories of the subject NP (or object NP in case 

of Hindi). 

4 If there is more than one NP in the nominative then the ontological 

hierarchy decides what should be the candidate for subject NP. 


Predicate Typology 

G. Uma Maheshwar Rao, Christopher Mala CALTS Implementation Universityof Subject-Predicate Hyderabad guraohyd@gmail.com, Agreement in Hindi efthachris@gmail.com December and Telugu: 10, 2010 A Machine () 10 Translati / 36

Cont.... 

Agreement between Verb and its Complements is expressed overtly in 8 

ways in Hindi and 7 ways in Telugu. 

In Hindi: 

NP. Masculine. Feminine 

sg 1 A huM I hUM 

sg 2 A ho I ho 

sg 3 A hE I hE 

pl 123 A hEM I hEM 


Cont.... 

In Telugu: 

P. Sg. Pl. 

1 nu mu 

2 vu ru 

3 m du ru 

3 nm xi/xu vi/vu 


Cont.... 

There are three major types of Agreement realization between the finite 

verb and its complement noun and two types of agreement one involving 

copula verb and the other one with the prenominal adjective. 


Type-1 

Hin: ladakA (3,sg,m) Kela rahA (3,sg,m) hE. ’The boy is playing’ 

Boy play -ing is 

Tel: abbAyi (3,sg,m) AduwunnAdu (3,sg,m) . 


Type-2 

Hin: rAma ne rotI (f ,sg,3) KAI (f ,sg,3) . ’Ram has eaten the bread’ 

rAma erg bread eat 

Tel: rAmudu (m,sg,3) roVtteV winnAdu (m,sg,3) 


Type-3 

Hin: meM/hama ne usako xekA (!gnp) . ’I saw him’ 

I/We erg him Acc saw. 

Tel: nenu/memu wanani cUsAnu/mu (!g,sg/pl,1/2) . 


Type-4 

1 Hin: mEM dAktar hUM (any,sg,1) . ’I am doctor’ 

I doctor am 

Tel: nenu dAktarnu (any,sg,1) . 

2 Hin: wU dAktar ho (any,sg,2) . ’you are doctor’ 

You doctor are 

Tel: nuvvu dAktarvu (any,sg,2) . 

3 Hin: Apa dAktar hEM (any,sg,3) . ’you are doctor’ 

You doctor are 

Tel: mIru dAktarlu (any,sg,3) . 


Type-5 

1 Hin: ladakA (m,sg,3) acCA (m,sg) hE (sg,3) . ’boy is good’ 

Tel: abbAyi maMcivAdu (m,sg,3) . 

2 Hin: ladakI (f ,sg,3) acCI (f ,sg) hE (sg,3) . 

Tel: ammAyi/axi maMcixi (nm,sg,3) . 

3 Hin: ladakiyAM (f ,pl,3) acCI (f ) hEM (pl) . ’girls are good’ 

Tel:ammAyilu maMcivAlYlu (h,pl,3) . 

4 Hin: ladake (m,pl,3) acCe (m,pl) hEM (pl) . ’boy is good’ 

Tel: abbAyilu maMcivAlYlu (h,pl,3) . 


Type-6 

Hin: acCA ladakA. ’good boy’ 

Tel: maMci abbAyi. 



Exponent Type-1 

Hin: vaha AwI hE 

Tel: wanu vaswuMxi 




Hin: vaha AwI hE 

Tel: wanu vaswuMxi 



Hin: vaha AwA hE 

Tel: wanu vaswAdu 



Hin: ve Awe hEM 

Tel: vAru vaswAru 



Hin: ve AwI hEM 

Tel: vAru vaswAru 



Hin: meM/hama ne usako xekA 

Tel: nenu/memu wanani cUsAnu/mu. 


Agreement Transfer 

Hin: ladakA {m,sg,3p}AGRi kiwAba paDawA {m,sg}ARGi hE {sg,3p}AGRi 

Tel: abbAyi {m,sg,3p}ARGi puswakaM caxuvuwAdu {m,sg,3p}AGRi 


1a 

Hin: ladake {m,pl,3p}AGRi kiwAba paDawe {m,pl}AGRi hEM {pl,3p}AGRi 

Tel: abbAyilu {m,pl,3p}AGRi puswakaM caxuvuwAru {+h,pl,3p}AGRi 


2 

Hin: ladakI {f ,sg,3p}AGRi kiwAba paDawI {f }AGRi hE {sg,3p}AGRi 

Tel: ammAyi {f ,sg,3p}AGRi puswakaM caxuvuwuMxi {f ,sg,3p}AGRi 


2a 

Hin: ladakiyAz {f ,pl,3p}AGRi kiwAba paDawI {f }AGRi hEM {pl}AGRi 

Tel: ammAyilu {f ,pl,3p}AGRi puswakaM caxuvuwAru {pl,3p}AGRi 


3&4 

3. Hin: meM {!g(m),sg,1p}AGRi ne usko xeKA {!g(m),sg}AGRi 

Tel: nenu {!g,sg,1p}AGRi wanani cUsAnu {!g,sg,1p}AGRi 

4. Hin: meM {!g(f ),sg,1p}AGRi ne usko xeKA {!g(f ),sg}AGRi 

Tel: nenu {!g,sg,1p}AGRi wanani cUsAnu {!g,sg,1p}AGRi 


5&6 

5. Hin: hama {m,pl/+hon,+1p}AGRi ne usko xeKA {!g,sg}AGRi 

Tel: memu {!g,pl,1p}AGRi wanani cUsAmu {!g,pl,1p}AGRi 

6. Hin: hama {f ,pl,+1p}AGRi ne usko xeKA {!gnp}AGRi 

Tel: memu {hon,pl,+1p}AGRi wanani cUsAmu {!g,pl,1p}AGRi 


Implementation of Agreement in Machine Translation 

System 

1 Find the Agent/karwa (k1) in the sentence and pass it’s GNP to the 

predicate in the sentence. 

2 Retrieve the gender of the arguments according to the Target 

Language (Telugu). 

3 If k1 is a pronoun (subject pronoun) then the gender should be passed 

back (reverse passage), i.e. from predicate to its subject followed by 

pronoun reconstruction. 

4 The gender of the nonverbal predicate (adjective and noun) should be 

passed on to the subject NP. 

5 In case the predicate has a copula then pass the gender number and 

person of the copula to the preceeding non-verb. 

vaha sg,3 acCA m,sg hE m,sg,3 = vAdu maMcivAdu. 



Evalution: In a randomly selected list of 100 Sentence 81 number 

sentences display proper agreement. 

S.No Sent. Type No.of Sent. No. of Correct Agreement 

1 Simple 60 57 

2 Complex 20 14 

3 Compound 20 10 



Evalution: In a randomly selected list of 100 Sentences, 81 sentences 

display proper agreement. 

S.No Sent. Type No. Sent. No. Agr loci No. rt Agr % 

1 Simple 60 60 57 95 

2 Complex 20 26 14 53.8 

3 Compound 20 24 10 41.6 

The Average Agreement generation is 81/110*100= 73.63%. 


Conclusion 

1 This exercise demonstrated the efficacy of the design of the 

computational model for the transfer of grammatical agreement 

which is implemented in the Machine Translation (MT) System of 

Hindi-Telugu. 

2 The proposed Agreement Rules work with almost all sorts of finite 

structures. 

3 System identifies boundaries of Agreement in terms of Source and 

Target. 

4 Agreement rules apply within these boundaries irrespective of simple, 

complex or compound sentences. 

5 Identification of Agreement boundaries ensures correct agreement. 


Thank you

Implementation of Subject-Predicate Agreement in Hindi and Telugu ...

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