DBS analysis of Chinese noun phrases

A new semantic theory, Database Semantics (DBS), is applied to the analysis of modern Chinese noun phrases and their usage in sentences. Noun phrases are defined as elementary nouns and phrasal nouns. Phrasal nouns are composed of determiners, numerals, quantifiers, pronouns and elementary nouns. During derivation, determiners are absorbed with their core values copied to the modifier attributes in the resulting proplets. Quantifiers are also absorbed, but in a different way. Noun phrases in Chinese are basically used as subjects, objects, or adnominal modifiers. They are also observed as predicators or adverbial modifiers. The syntactic-semantic relations of all these applications are analyzed through the Left-Associative Grammar (LAG), and represented by certain features in the resulting proplets. Graphic representation is also available through the DBS semantic relation graphs and the signatures. The time-linear order of words is followed in the LAG analysis. Experiments have proved that the LAG approach is efficient and DBS is capable of analyzing and representing the syntactic and semantic relations in modern Chinese sentences.