The multilingual dictionary of noun valency Portlex is considered to be the trigger for the creation of the automatic language generators Xera and Combinatoria, whose development and use is presented in this paper. Both prototypes are used for the automatic generation of nominal phrases with their mono- and bi-argumental valence slots, which could be used, among others, as dictionary examples or as integrated components of future autonomous E-Learning-Tools. As samples for new types of automatic valency dictionaries including user interaction, we consider the language generators as we know them today. In the specific methodological procedure for the development of the language generators, the syntactic-semantic description of the noun slots turns out to be the main focus from a syntagmatic and paradigmatic point of view. Along with factors such as representativeness, grammatical correctness, semantic coherence, frequency and the variety of lexical candidates, as well as semantic classes and argument structures, which are fixed components of both resources, a concept of a multi-sided prototype stands out. The combined application of this prototype concept as well as of word embeddings together with techniques from the field of automatic natural language processing and generation (NLP and NLG) opens up a new way for the future development of automatically generated plurilingual valency dictionaries. All things considered, the paper depicts the language generators both from the point of view of their development as well as from that of the users. The focus lies on the role of the prototype concept within the development of the resources.
This paper describes how the field of Combinatorial Semantics has contributed to the design of three prototypes for the automatic generation of argument patterns in nominal phrases in Spanish, French and German (Xera, Combinatoria and CombiContext). It also shows the importance of knowing about the argument syntactic-semantic interface in a production situation in the context of foreign languages. After a descriptive section on the design, typologie and information levels of the resources, there follows an explanation of the central role of the combinatorial meaning (roles and ontological features). The study deals with different semantic f ilters applied in the selection, organization and expansion of the lexicon, being these key pieces for the generation of grammatically correct and semantically acceptable mono- and biargumental nominal phrases.