Verb valence information can be derived from corpora by using subcorpora of typical sentences that are constructed in a language independent manner based on frequent POS structures. The inspection of typical sentences with a fixed verb in a certain position can show the valence information directly. Using verb fingerprints, consisting of the most typical sentence patterns the verb appears in, we are able to identify standard valence patterns and compare them against a language’s valence profile. With a very limited number of training data per language, valence information for other verbs can be derived as well. Based on the Norwegian valence patterns we are able to find comparative patterns in German where typical sentences are able to express the same situation in an equivalent way and can so construct verb valence pairs for a bilingual PolyVal dictionary. This contribution discusses this application with a focus on the Norwegian valence dictionary NorVal.

This contribution describes a free and open mobile dictionary app based on open dictionary data. A specific focus is on usability and user-adequate presentation of data. This includes, in addition to the alphabetical lemma ordering, other vocabulary selection, grouping, and access criteria. Beyond search functionality for stems or roots – required due to the morphological complexity of Bantu languages – grouping of lemmas by subject area of varying difficulty allows customization. A dictionary profile defines available presentation options of the dictionary data in the app and can be specified according to the needs of the respective user group. Word embeddings and similar approaches are used to link to semantically similar or related words. The underlying data structure is open for monolingual, bilingual or multilingual dictionaries and also supports the connection to complex external resources like Wordnets. The application in its current state focuses on Xhosa and Zulu dictionary data but more resources will be integrated soon.