Based on the qualia structure and semantic type proposed in the Generative Lexicon Theory (GLT), we annotated the disyllabic metaphorical noun-noun compounds in Mandarin Chinese to explore the qualia roles involved in the process of metaphor and the correlation between the semantic type of the wnstituent morphemes and that of the compounds. We found that: the formal role is the most frequently involved in the process of metaphor, which is motivated by the nature of human cognition. On the other hand, natural types tend to involve the constitutive role and the artifactual types are likely to involve the telic role. Moreover, the semantic type of morphemes can predicate the semantic type of compounds.

In text information processing, clause is regarded as the basic unit and sentence the compound unit. Thus far, a lack of operational definitions for these two concepts hinders the development of Chinese information processing. This research defines sentence as Sufficient Generalized Topic Structure roughly and clause as Topic Sufficient Clause based on it. Both definitions are put forward with linguistic and cognitive foundations.