The Identification of English Non-finite Structures Using NooJ Platform

Non-finite clauses, clauses that have a non-finite verb phrase, have proven to be frequent and complex features of the structure of academic discourse in English. They are also indicators of writers’ good mastery of academic discourse structures [5, 20, 22]. Therefore teaching non-finite clauses using specifically compiled and selected corpora is believed to have the potential of enhancing the teaching of these problematic structures. The purpose of this paper is to present the application of NooJ software in the automatic detection and extraction of English non-finite clauses occurring in a business English corpus compiled from a student’s master dissertation, business editorials, and business academic research articles. We develop for the purpose of the pedagogical application an annotation framework based on syntactic, semantic and discoursal patterns using NooJ platform. Having implemented the annotation in NooJ platform and obtained satisfactory results, the syntactico-semantic and discoursal analysis of the target structure would be expected to facilitate the autonomous discovery of the rules of use governing English non-finite clauses in the English classroom with the ultimate aim of enhancing students’ mastery of the elaborate and variant use of non-finite clauses in academic writing.