Pattern Dictionary of English Prepositions

We present a new lexical resource for the study of preposition behavior, the Pattern Dictionary of English Prepositions (PDEP). This dictionary, which follows principles laid out in Hanks’ theory of norms and exploitations, is linked to 81,509 sentences for 304 prepositions, which have been made available under The Preposition Project (TPP). Notably, 47,285 sentences, initially untagged, provide a representative sample of preposition use, unlike the tagged sentences used in previous studies. Each sentence has been parsed with a dependency parser and our system has near-instantaneous access to features developed with this parser to explore and annotate properties of individual senses. The features make extensive use of WordNet. We have extended feature exploration to include lookup of FrameNet lexical units and VerbNet classes for use in characterizing preposition behavior. We have designed our system to allow public access to any of the data available in the system.