[en] Did you found/find it?

Development
1

“Did you found” is a grammatically possible sentence with the verb “to found”. But commonly it is an error, and what was intended was “Did you find” or “Have you found”. “Did you found” is very present in search results, even as a wrong translation in bilingual corpus!

A rule for this error would be useful.

What do you think, @Mike_Unwalla?

2

@jaumeortola, I agree.(I won’t develop the rule at the moment, because I want to spend my time on other LT work.)

3

If everybody agrees, I can write that rule.

A question:

  • Should it also cover other pronouns in addition to “you”? (E.g. “Did they found it?”)
4

Hi @Jan_Schreiber,

I have already written one, but I will only push it tomorrow along with other fixes to recent changes.
If you can provide feedback about it in the meantime, it will be very appreciated.
Code follows:

+    <!ENTITY ambiguous_past_tense_forms "babysat|backlighted|backlit|bare|bended|bet|bid|bode|book|bore|bound|brake|breastfed|burst|bust|clang|clave|could|crew|drunk|fell|felt|fit|forbid|found|girt|green-lighted|green-lit|grove|hand-fed|hand-knit|hand-knitted|hew|hoist|knit|laugh'd|lay|let|lope|low|misfit|missaw|outdrank|outdrunk|outflew|overbred|overdrank|overdrunk|overgot|overlay|overstrung|quick-froze|quit|quod|quoth|read|re-laid|rent|resent|reshowed|retread|retrodden|rewed|rid|rove|sate|saw|self-fed|sew|shitted|shore|should|shove|slang|slayed|slew|smelt|sod|span|spat|spit|spoke|straight|stringed|sublet|sung|swank|sweat|swum|test-flew|thrust|tow|tread|trodden|underlay|underlet|unheard|upheaved|upswept|was|wed|were|wet|worth|worthed|would|wrack|writ|wrought|beat|beset|broadcast|clad|clearcut|crosscut|foreread|forspread|hit|lipread|mishit|misset|overbeat|recut|reshut|underhit|underspread|withset">

    +        <rule id='DID_FOUND_AMBIGUOUS' name='Auxiliary verb + ambiguous past tense'>
    +        <!-- Created by Tiago F. Santos, 2019-09-07 -->
    +        <!-- https://forum.languagetool.org/t/en-did-you-found-find-it/4694 -->
    +            <pattern>
    +                    <token>
    +                      <exception scope="previous" regexp="yes">than|what</exception>
    +                      <exception regexp="yes">free|than|wh(?:om?|ich)|a|the|neither|nor</exception></token>
    +                    <token skip="1" regexp="yes" postag="MD|VBD" postag_regexp="yes">did|will|could|can|should|would|does|ll|shall|cannot|might|may</token>
    +                <marker>
    +                    <token regexp="yes">&ambiguous_past_tense_forms;</token>
    +                </marker>
    +            </pattern>
    +            <message>Unless you mean to use the verb 'to \3', the base form of the main verb is required after '\2'.<!-- Did you mean <suggestion><match no="5" postag="VB"/></suggestion>-->.</message>
    +            <url>https://www.learnenglish.de/grammar/verbtodo.html</url>
    +            <example correction="">You did <marker>found</marker> it!</example><!-- suggestions mandatorily trigger error and testrule does not accept this -->
    +            <!-- TODO improve 'testrules' code to allow this-->
    +        </rule>

+        <rule id="DO_VBZ_AMBIGUOUS_VERB" name="do you found (find)">
+        <!-- Created by Tiago F. Santos, 2019-09-07 -->
+        <!-- https://forum.languagetool.org/t/en-did-you-found-find-it/4694 -->
+            <pattern>
+                <token postag="SENT_START"/>
+                <token min="0" regexp="yes">wh(at|ere)</token>
+                <token regexp="yes">Do(es)?|did</token>
+                <token postag="P?RP|NN.*" postag_regexp="yes"/>
+                <marker>
+                    <token regexp="yes">&ambiguous_past_tense_forms;</token>
+                </marker>
+            </pattern>
+            <message>Unless you mean to use the verb 'to \5', use the base form of the main verb after 'to do' as an auxiliary verb.<!-- Did you mean <suggestion><match no="5" postag="VB"/></suggestion>-->.</message>
+            <url>https://www.learnenglish.de/grammar/verbtodo.html</url>
+            <example correction="">Do you <marker>found</marker> the pen?</example>
+            <example>Do you find the pen?</example><!-- suggestion mandatorily trigger error and testrule does not accept this -->
+            <!-- TODO improve 'testrules' code to allow this-->
+        </rule>
5

@tiagosantos, I don’t understand your list of verbs: babysat, backlighted, backlit… Where do they come from?

The verbs should be a simple past form and an infinitive form at the same time with different lemmas, i.e. find/found vs. found/founded, see/saw vs. saw/sawed… Why babysat or backlighted?

(“Did you saw” is already detected by the rule DID_PAST because there is some disambiguation for “saw”.)

6

@jaumeortola

The message only related to this problem and a few other verbs, however, the list added contains all forms that do not trigger the main rules as they should. It was created semi-automatically considering if they were recognized by the speller and if they did not match their own verb base form. I have changed the message to reflect that.

It may have slipped QC in the test set, but I believe that with my tested sentences, all of them missed detection. Anyway, as long as it is flagged, it is irrelevant if it triggers two rules or just one.

7

Hi @tiagosantos,

as of today there are plenty sentences containing “can/cannot/could be found” flagged as false positive by our users. Is this intended?

Thanks in advance.

Kind regards,
Chris

8

First iteration of the rules. It is fixed already.

2 Likes