Creating a Verb Synonym Lexicon Based on a Parallel Corpus

This paper presents the first findings of our recently started project of building a new lexical resource called CzEngClass, which consists of bilingual verbal synonym groups. In order to create such a resource, we explore semantic 'equivalence' of verb senses (across different verb lexemes) in a bilingual (Czech-English) setting by using translational context of real-world texts in a parallel, richly annotated dependency corpus. When grouping semantically equivalent verb senses into classes of synonyms, we focus on valency (arguments as deep dependents with morphosyntactic features relevant for surface dependencies) and its mapping to a set of semantic "roles" for verb arguments, common within one class. We argue that the existence of core argument mappings and certain adjunct mappings to a common set of semantic roles is a suitable criterion for a reasonable verb synonymy definition, possibly accompanied with additional contextual restrictions. By mid-2018, the first version of the lexicon called CzEngClass will be publicly available.