Get tense of verb java

Question

I am using simpleNLG to find the actual tense of a verb. But i cannot seem to be doing it right, instead of giving the tense of the verb it converts it to present tense :/

public class TenseWas
{
    public static void main(String[] args)
    {
        String word = "ate";
        Lexicon lexicon=Lexicon.getDefaultLexicon();
        NLGFactory nlgFactory=new NLGFactory(lexicon);
        Realiser realiser=new Realiser(lexicon);
        SPhraseSpec p=nlgFactory.createClause();
        p.setVerb(word);
        if(p.getVerb().getFeature(Feature.TENSE) == (Tense.PAST))
        {
            System.out.println("past");
        }
        if(p.getVerb().getFeature(Feature.TENSE) == (Tense.FUTURE))
        {
            System.out.println("future");
        }
        if(p.getVerb().getFeature(Feature.TENSE) == (Tense.PRESENT))
        {
            System.out.println("Present");
        }
        String output=realiser.realiseSentence(p);
        System.out.println(output);
    }
}

This is what appears in the console:

Eats.

score 1 · Accepted Answer · answered Mar 25 '17 at 16:49

1

Calling getFeature() doesn't tell you what tense the verb you set was, it echoes back the tense of the clause as set by you for rendering the clause. You use it like this:

p.setSubject("Foo");
p.setVerb("eat");
p.setObject("bar");
p.setFeature(Feature.TENSE, Tense.PAST); 
String output = realiser.realiseSentence(p);
System.out.println(output); // "Foo ate bar"

answered Mar 25 '17 at 16:49

Bohemian

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it is not my question.. i really need to know the tense of the verb :/ – noobProgrammer Mar 25 '17 at 17:27
@noob I trying to tell you that AFAIK you can't *find out* the tense of the verb, you can only *specify* it. Youre using the API incorrectly. It's not designed to parse a phrase and tell you what the tense is. – Bohemian Mar 25 '17 at 17:42
owww ok. Do you know any java compatible tool that can do what i want to? – noobProgrammer Mar 25 '17 at 17:45
you sir... You are a life saver – noobProgrammer Jun 05 '17 at 20:48

score 1 · Answer 2 · edited May 23 '17 at 12:32

answering this for future programmers.

As @Bohemian pointed out, simplenlg isn't used to classify the verb tense of a verb, it's a realization engine, being used to convert an abstract representation of 'sentence' to an actual sentence.

If you look at the lexicon xml 'database' library that simplenlg uses, it comprises the annotated version of verbs and nouns, etc. It's in https://github.com/simplenlg/simplenlg/blob/master/src/main/resources/default-lexicon.xml. FYI, you can use other lexicon xml databases.

<word>
    <base>sleep</base>
    <category>verb</category>
    <id>E0056246</id>
    <present3s>sleeps</present3s>
    <intransitive/>
    <past>slept</past>
    <pastParticiple>slept</pastParticiple>
    <presentParticiple>sleeping</presentParticiple>
    <transitive/>
</word>

So to answer your question, you shouldn't use simplenlg to get a tense of a verb but use other NLP/'smarter' libraries to do 'verb' or word classification such as the Parts of Speech Tagger in CoreNLP or OpenNLP, here's information on them, OpenNLP vs Stanford CoreNLP

Thank you very much after many days, Your solution helped me :) — noobProgrammer, Mar 28 '17 at 17:52

Get tense of verb java

2 Answers2