Verbing Weirds Language (Models): Evaluation of English Zero-Derivation in Five LLMs

arXiv:2403.17856v1 Announce Type: new
Abstract: Lexical-syntactic flexibility, in the form of conversion (or zero-derivation) is a hallmark of English morphology. In conversion, a word with one part of speech is placed in a non-prototypical context, where it is coerced to behave as if it had a different part of speech. However, while this process affects a large part of the English lexicon, little work has been done to establish the degree to which language models capture this type of generalization. …

abstract arxiv context conversion cs.cl derivation english evaluation five flexibility form hallmark language llms part speech type word