Event Extraction in Basque: A Typologically Motivated Cross-Lingual Transfer-Learning Analysis

Konsep Inti

The study explores the impact of linguistic typology on the performance of cross-lingual transfer learning for event extraction tasks, using Basque as the target language.

Abstrak

The paper presents a study on cross-lingual transfer learning for event extraction tasks, focusing on the Basque language as the target. The key points are:

The authors introduce EusIE, the first event extraction dataset for the Basque language, following the guidelines of the Multilingual Event Extraction (MEE) dataset.

Experiments on three event extraction tasks (entity, event, and argument extraction) show that the shared linguistic characteristics between source and target languages impact the performance of cross-lingual transfer.

Further analysis on 72 language pairs reveals that for token classification tasks (entity and event trigger identification), common writing script and morphological features lead to higher quality cross-lingual transfer. For structural prediction tasks like argument extraction, common word order is the most relevant feature.

The authors also show that not all languages scale equally when increasing the training data size in the cross-lingual setting.

Statistik

The Basque language has a particularly interesting set of features, very different from the surrounding languages.
The EusIE dataset contains 300 annotated segments (1500 sentences) for Basque, divided into 150 for development and 150 for testing.
The authors equalized the training data size across all languages to enable fair comparisons in the cross-lingual experiments.

Kutipan

"Cross-lingual transfer-learning is widely used in Event Extraction for low-resource languages and involves a Multilingual Language Model that is trained in a source language and applied to the target language."
"Our experiments on three Event Extraction tasks show that the shared linguistic characteristic between source and target languages does have an impact on transfer quality."
"Further analysis of 72 language pairs reveals that for tasks that involve token classification such as entity and event trigger identification, common writing script and morphological features produce higher quality cross-lingual transfer."

Wawasan Utama Disaring Dari

Event Extraction in Basque

by Mikel Zubill... pada arxiv.org 04-10-2024

https://arxiv.org/pdf/2404.06392.pdf

Pertanyaan yang Lebih Dalam

How do the findings of this study generalize to other low-resource languages beyond Basque

The findings of this study can be generalized to other low-resource languages beyond Basque by considering the impact of typological features on cross-lingual transfer performance. The key insight from the study is that certain linguistic characteristics, such as shared writing script and morphological features, play a significant role in determining the success of cross-lingual transfer for event extraction tasks. Therefore, for other low-resource languages, researchers can analyze the typological similarities and differences with high-resource languages to determine the most effective transfer strategies. By identifying relevant linguistic features and tailoring the transfer learning process accordingly, it is possible to improve the performance of event extraction models in low-resource languages.

What other linguistic features, beyond the ones considered, could potentially impact cross-lingual transfer performance

Beyond the linguistic features considered in the study, several other factors could potentially impact cross-lingual transfer performance in event extraction systems. Some additional linguistic features to consider include:

Phonological features: Differences in phonetic structures and pronunciation patterns between languages could affect the performance of speech recognition systems and phonetic-based event extraction tasks.
Semantic features: Variations in semantic structures, word meanings, and conceptual frameworks across languages may influence the accuracy of event extraction models that rely on semantic understanding.
Syntactic features: Variances in sentence structures, grammatical rules, and syntactic dependencies can impact the ability of models to extract events and their arguments accurately.
Cultural features: Cultural nuances, idiomatic expressions, and contextual references unique to each language can pose challenges for cross-lingual event extraction systems, especially in capturing the intended meaning of events in different cultural contexts.
Considering these additional linguistic features alongside the typological characteristics analyzed in the study can provide a more comprehensive understanding of the factors influencing cross-lingual transfer performance in event extraction tasks.

How can the insights from this work be leveraged to develop more effective cross-lingual event extraction systems for real-world applications

The insights from this work can be leveraged to develop more effective cross-lingual event extraction systems for real-world applications by incorporating the following strategies:

Feature Engineering: Incorporate a broader range of linguistic features, including those beyond typological characteristics, to enhance the model's ability to capture language-specific nuances and improve cross-lingual transfer performance.
Data Augmentation: Utilize techniques such as back-translation, parallel data alignment, and synthetic data generation to increase the diversity and volume of training data, especially for low-resource languages, thereby improving the model's robustness and generalization capabilities.
Model Adaptation: Fine-tune pre-trained language models on a diverse set of languages to adapt them to the linguistic characteristics of specific target languages, enabling better transfer learning and performance in cross-lingual event extraction tasks.
Ensemble Learning: Combine multiple models trained on different languages to create an ensemble system that leverages the strengths of each model, enhancing the overall performance and cross-lingual transfer capabilities of the event extraction system.
Continuous Evaluation and Iteration: Regularly evaluate the system's performance on diverse language pairs, analyze the impact of various linguistic features, and iteratively refine the model to optimize cross-lingual event extraction accuracy and efficiency in real-world applications.