Ellipses resolution in WH-constructions in Pashto

Abstract

The constructions in Pashto, having a question involving a WH-word equivalent and an answer or response to that question, are called WH-constructions. In most of the cases, in both written and spoken WH-constructions, there occur ellipses among them. This paper presents the first ever rulebased algorithm and the factors involved in ellipses resolution in WH-constructions in Pashto text. The algorithm resolves ellipses occurring in the answers to WH-questions by using the morphological and syntactic information of both the question and its corresponding answer. The algorithm accurately resolves the ellipses occurring in the answers to the questions having WH-words i.e. (Who-Dir), (Who-Obl), (What), (Which), (Where) and (How much) among them. The algorithm has been tested on real world text of Pashto taken from various genres such as books, novels, newspapers and online magazines. The algorithm achieved an accuracy of 76%.