Proceeding ofANLP-KE'05

A Contrastive Study of Chinese Progressive Aspect

Structure, "ZM +verb" and Its English
Correspondents: A Bilingual Parallel Corpus-based
Perspective
Yunhua QU
School of International Studies, Zhejiang University, 388 Yu Hang Tang Road, Hangzhou, 310058;
Doctoral student at Communication University of China, 1 Dingfiizhuang Dongjie, Chaoyang District, Beijing, 100024;
Email: quyunhua~hzcnc.com
Zhiwei, FEiNG
Istitute ofApplied Linguisfics, Ministry of Education, Beijing, 100010
Emal: zwfengde@public.bta.net.cn

Abstidt-One of the Chinese-English machine translation burning
problems is how to convert the Chinese aspects to their English
correspondents. Chinese progressive aspect marker "ZAI +verb" can
have multiple English correspondents besides the EngGsh progressive
aspect This paper takes an empirical approach to this unresolved
conversion, based on a bilingual parallel corpus. It identifies 10 English
translation equivalents of "ZAI+verb", figures out the conversion rates
between "ZAI+verb" and its English translation equivalents, and presents
14 conversion rules to define the matching relationships between them.
The results implies that the precise degree of Chinese-English machine
translation of "ZAI+verb" to progressive aspects in English can be
expected to be up to 67%.
Key words: bilingual parallel corpus, progressive aspect, aspect marker
"ZAP', conversion Mte, conversion rule
1. INTRODUCTION
One of the Chinese-English machine trnslation bottleneck
problems is how to convert the Chinese aspects to their English
conrespondents. This difficulty stems from some inbom linguistic
factors: English has inflectional morphologies for its aspects while
Chinese has null inflectional morphologies and has only several
aspect markers like: "ZAI" and "ZHE' for progressive and durative,
"LE" for perfect, and "GUO" for experienced, and etc. Nevertheless,
on most occasions, these marker words do not have one-to-one
mapping with their English aspects. For instnces, "verb+LE' can
conrespond to simple aspect perfect aspect in English, while
sometimes "LE' even does not designate any aspects and thus
conrespond to null aspects in English. "ZAJ+verb" can conrespond
to progressive aspect, present participle phrases, prepositional phrases
and so on. Therefore, the core of this difficulty is to establish a set of
mapping rules for converting Chinese aspects to their English
correspondents.
Up till now, only few researches have been done for coping with
this problem. Cheng Jiehua, Dai Xinyu, Chen Jiajun, and Wang
Qixiang (2004,[2]) put forward an algorithm to extract the aspect
infonnation in Chinese sentences for converting aspects in Chinese
into aspect forms in English. However, their research does not
address the multi-matching relationships between "ZAI+verb" and its
English correspondents, needless to say, expose the conversion rates
and rules between them.
Based on a bilingual parallel corpus, our approach aims to solve
this problem by identify'ing the English conrespondents of
"ZAI+verb", figuring out the conversion rates between "ZAI+verb"
and its English correspondents, and extrcting their conversion rules.
II. RESEARCH METHODS
A bilingual parallel corpus with 500, 000 words is adopted for this
research. This corpus is a fully annotated aligned bilingual parallel
corpus, which involves 18 source Chinese govenmmental white paper
and four famous Chinese modem novel texts with their target English
texts.
This corpus involves the following primary relevant functions:
extcting the aligned Chinese -English pairs, extracting the Chinese
"ZAI+verb' structure, and its augmented structures like "DOU
+ZAL+verb" with their English correspondents, and listing the
numbers of extracted words or stuctures from this corpus.
As our research focuses attention on the Chinese aspect marker
"ZAr' followed by a verb, the other uses of ZAI and similar aspect
markers ('ZHE", "ZHENG" and their collocations with "ZAP') will
be excluded from the tokens of "ZAI +verb" structure and not be
addressed in this paper.
The process of our research involves three phases: identifying the
"ZAI+verb" and its English correspondents, figuring out the
conversion rates between "ZAI+verb" and its English conrespondents,
and extrting their conversion rules.
These three primary phases are elabomted as follows:

0-7803-9361-9/051$20.00 (©2005 IEEE

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 TABLE r'
ENGUSH CRRESPoNDENSOF "ZAI+VERB
Chinese English correspondents Examples
progresve
aspect form I~ ~ ~
I.Progressive aspect (I)Sun xiaojie dao: " Fang xiansheng zai hong wo, zhao shushu, shi bu shiT'
?vJvJNM: '-;i-A I AE I a A& 1>1"
Miss Son said, "You're fooling me, Mr. Fang Isnt he, Mr Chao?"
2.Pefect (2)HongJia huranmingai, ie xingzh A de dui ziji wuli, shi zai chicu, dang ziji shi ta de qingdi.
A MfM, OJI X i E)L k, l I A I "A, RBffiMINIt sddly daW on
Hung-chien tat Chads rudeness toward him had stemmed fiom jealousy, for Chao had obviously tken him as his
loverival. (FlI) Fortres Besieged
3.Perfect progrssive aspect (3)"Li xiansheng, ni henhai women deng si le, women tiantian zaiwang ni"
"14 {t ' t 1 ET, a4f']-) 1 i I l4W,
"Mr. Li you really kept us waiting on tenthoks. We've been expecting you eveiy day- (R% Forrss
Besieged
4Simple aspect (4)Xiangzi dui zhe napianhong ,ug yaodahmjishieng, zicongyi bei dabing laqu, tashffihu mei jia guo taiyang,
xin zhong lao zai jiuma, tou lao di zhe, wangle hai youriyuewanglee latian.
+t+ftt#33Lt%XQ'^ A-kt4k 1 ; 'CAPtI *E I 9E, Mf
t-, ZTi{- H), k likehailingdeffexea ofredigih tforiwasasifehehadn seenthe
angzifet
sm since the soldiers seized him.His head bowed, his heart flied with curses, he had foigoan the soi, moon and
slay. (OME #-) CamelXiangi
5.Present parficiple (5)Lin xiaojie zai puonian he "neizhai" zhijiantiaojintianchu, lian shanghongpenpen de shichang zai xdao.
"ZA.I+verb"
Miss Lin skipped up and back betweenie shop and the "inn sanctun" herfce flushed and smiling. (fjO
f-) The Shop of theLin Famity
6.Keep doing sth. (6)Waimian yu ing le, tonao li hai zai guafeng xiayu, yi pian shengyin.
k[Fi1>f I -JLflMJIM I A 'WE4
I )t Outsidehetrainhadstopped,but
the sound of the wind and rain kept roanring in everyone's head. (1& Fortess Besieged
7Seesb. doing sth. (7)Taji leyihuier, huran kanjian zhangguafiu bao zhewusui dehaizizai nali aiqiu lingyigejingchafangtajinquO
JW-fU-)ULZ M M- f I (E 1 V*o
She kept pushingThen suddenly she saw Widow Zhang wtit her five-year-old baby in her amns, pleading with the
other policeman to let herenter. (t f ) The Shop ofthe Lin Family
8.Be+busy.+doingsth. (8)Xianzai zhe cun lijiajiadu zai "wozhong" le.
I@SSg~ I iF 1 "eP" L0
Every family in the village was busy " incubating. (t ) Spring Silkworms
9.Prepositional phrase (9)xinli fenxi xuezhe yi ting zhe huajiuzhidao qianyishi zai daogui.

Ifapsychoanalystheardallus,he'dknowatonceathesubcnsciouswasuptotlicks. (n4*Fortresseseeged
lO.likedoingsthAike+noun+doingsth- (lO)Tashuo "VeiyWell" erzishengyin huoxiangxiaoyanggouzaigu4u "VeryWul'"
4IiA "VetyWell" ~^ M%441'J [ M*-- "VezyWul4"
The way he said "Very well" soumdedjust like a dog growling-" Vuny wu." (N)
I Fortress Besieged
I_ _.

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 Table II
FREQUENCES AND CONVERSION RATES

Progressive aspect in source Transferred English Correspondents Frequency Counts Conversion rates
language N; TR
1.Pgressive aspect 105 60.3%
2.Perfect 1 0.6%
31Perfect progressive aspect 3 1.7%
4.Simple aspect 25 14.4%
5.Present participle 11 6.3%
"ZAI+verb" ..
6.Keep doing sth. 3 1.7%
7.See sb. doing sth. 7 4.0O/o
8.Be-busy.+doingsth. 2 1.1%
%9.Prpositional phrase 11 6.3%
10. like doing sth,Aike +noun. 6 3.4%
Total 174 100.0%/0

III. CORRESPONDENTS OF "ZAI+vero"
In the preliminay phase, "ZAI+verb" structures with its English
correspondents are automatically extracted. These extmcted aligned
pairs are manually classified according to the grammatical categories
of their English conrespondents. The results of classification are
listed in Table I.
As can be seen from Table I, "ZAI +verb" has 10 English
corrspondents in our bilingual parallel Chinese-English corpora.
This classification provides the statistic and empirical preparations for
the subsequent two phases: calculating the conversion rates between
"ZAI+verb" structure and its English correspondents, finding out the
features of "ZAI+verb" structure associated with English translation
equivalents.
IV. CONVERSION RATES
The preliminary stage for the calculation of the conversion rates
between "ZAI+vetb" and its English conrspondents is counting the
frequencies of the English correspondents. The results of counting are
listed in Table II.
The conversion mtes between "ZAI+verb" and its conrespondents
equals that the total frequency counts of"ZAI+verb" is divided by the
frequency counts of each conresponding English grammatical
category. TR designates the conversion rate. N designates the total
counts. Ni designates the frequency counts of each corresponding
English grmnatical categories. The algorithm is presented as
follows:
TR= N
N To uncover the mysteries of these exceptions needs locating the
The results of calculation of the conversion rates are listed in
Table II.
As can be seen from Table II, the conversion rate between "ZAI +
verb" and progressive aspect accounts for the highest percentage,
60%. The conversion rate between "ZAI+verb" and "Perfecf' takes
the lowest percentage. This is in consistent with our common sense
that on most occasions "ZAI+verb" structure is converted to English
progressive aspects. About 14.4% of "ZAI+verb" structures is
transformed into simple aspect At least 12 sentences among the 25
English corrsondents with simple aspect should have been
translated as progressive aspects in English according to our
comprehension ofthe progressive aspects. For instance,
(1 I)Tongshi, meiguo dui hua maoyi ye zai xunsu fazhan.
PH4, FK{tj [ tE 1 5 JO (tUt&V) White
Paper
In the mean time, US service exports to China also have recorded fast
development
The better translation for this sentence should be:
In the mean time, US service exports to China are also developing
fast.
If the number of these mistranslated sentences were added to the
counts of progressive in English, the percentage of progressive aspect
would rise to 672% and the percentage of simple aspect would drop
to 7.5%. This estimation implies that the precise degree of
Chinese-English machine translation from "ZAI+verb" to progressive
aspect can be expected to be 67.2%. The frequencies of nine
English coirespondents besides the progressive aspect are the sparse
data in this corpus. They are the exceptions of the correspondents,
but are worthy discussing for their conversion rules.
V. CONVERSION RULES
constraining condiions and summanze the conversion rules. This
section presents a set of rules to define the mappings between
"ZAI+verb" and its English coespondents.
-*"is used for designating that the conversion is dirctive from

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Chinese to English. Its left side represents the Chinese aspect INI,! "73
"ZAI+verb" or its augmented structures. Its right side repesents I have a cold and cant breathe. You got away with it cheap. You
their English conrespondents.
havent even begged for my love!"
ZAI+verb - progressive aspect (5.1) (I4fJA ) Fortress Besieged
SHIZAI+verb * perfect aspect (5.2)
SHI ZAI indicates that the subsequent verb is to express the cause "ZAI+verb" refers to past habitual actions
of the theme. As the cause happened before the effect, perfect aspect >- simple aspect (5.4.4)
is used. See Example (2). Past habiual actions are the siuations referred to by simple aspect
in English.
k4\*+ZAI+verb * perfect progressive aspect (14)A-duo xiang yige longzi shi de bu li cai laotou zi na zao-zao ye-ye
(5.3) de laodao, ta xin li que zai an xiao.
TIANTIAN indicates the tempoml period from past to present or
into fiture. BEN means YUANLAI by Chinese, indicating the
temporal period from past to present. Thus the two temporal words The old man harped atAh Duo moming, noon and night, but the boy
used with ZAI often associate with perfect progressive aspect in tumed a deaf ear to his fthie's gummbling. In his heart, he laughed at
English. See Example (3) it (I$NA) Fortress Besieged

LAOZAI+verb simple aspect (5.4.1) "ZAI+verb"refers to a subordinate action *

LAO ZAI equals LAO SHI and means OFTEN by English.
OFTEN nonnally appears with simple aspect in English. See
Example (4).
TWo "QL+ZAM+verb"9 * simple aspect (5.4.2)
If two "BIAN+ZAI+verb" structures are used successively in
Chinese, the two actions happen at the same time and are expressed as
simple aspect connected by WHILE or AS in English. "ZAI" in
this structure is not a progressive aspect marker.
(12)shi dian duo zhong, gan shi de xiangxiaren yi-qun yi-qun de zi
jie shang zou guo, ta men bi shang wan zhe lan, huo qian zhe xiaohaL
chushengdaqi de yi-bian zai zou, yi-bian zai tanhua.
present participe(5.5)
In Chinese there are no formal disfinctions between prmary actions
and subordiate actions. Most often the distinctions are recognized
through semantic differences. The verbs to express effects are often
recognized as the primary actions, while the verbs to express causes
and purposes are often considered as the subordinate actions. Aspect
marker, "ZHE" and the sequence of verbs sometimes can be the clues
to the recognition of primary actions and subordinate actions. In
English the primary verbs often function as the predicates, the
subordinate verbs often take the forns of participle. See Example (5).

7iJj-+ZAI+verb - keep doing sth. (5.6.1)

WN- (15)Ta men yuan yi zhe che zouxiaqu, zouxiaqu, yongyuan zai kai
A little past ten in the moming, group of peasants who had come into dong, yongyuan bu dao da, ti xiwang liu zhe yixian shengii
town to sell their produce in the market began drifting along the street.
Carying baskets on their arms, leading small children, they chatted
loud and vigorously as they strolled. (#A4f0'f ) The Shop of the They wanted the bus to keep going on and on forever without ever
Lin Family reaching its desfinationjustto keep theirhope alive. (MI*) Fortress
Besieged
ZAI+f-fFx - simple aspect (5.43)
There is normally no progressive aspect forn for the English temporal background clause-iF{+ZAI+verb * keep
equivalent HAVE A COLD. doing sth. (5.6.2)
(13)wo zai shangfeng, bizi li tou bu guo qi lai - tai pianyi ni, ni hai See Example (6).
meiyou qiu wo ai ni0
u i AL 1 4tF-i)i--{/{X S8 IW HTr?4W* ,9 -*+ZAI+verb see sb. doing sth. (5.7)

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See Example(7). rules between them. The results of calculating the conversion rates
implies that the precise degree of Chinese-English machine translation
of"ZAI+verb" to progressive aspects in English can be expected to be
Temporal words\clause\+MA\ 4+ZAI+verb _ up to 67%. The 14 conversion rules are not the exhaustive ones
Be+busy+doing sth. (5.8) between "ZAI+verb" and its English conrespondents due to the
limitation of the scale of the corpus but they are at least part of the
See Example(8). rules extrcted from the real life corpus. They are expected to be
robust enough to handle novel and white paper texts. The task of
ZAI+verb * prepositional phrase (5.9) exposing the remaining rules will be the further focus ofour research.
If the verb followed by ZAI does not have the proper English verb
equivalent and only has an English prepositional phrase instead or it
ACKNOWLEDGMENT
has one altemative English prepositional phrase besides the verb
equivalent, this altemative or only English prepositional phrase can Many thanks to Dr. Chang Baobao for the help with this research.
function as the predicate with "BE" instead of the verb. See
Example(9). TRICK, the English correspondent of DAOGUI, does REFERENCES
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Based on a bilingual parallel coIpus, this paper locates ten English
correspondents of"ZAI+verb" and exposes the conversion rates and

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