UniBO at MWE-2026 PARSEME 2.0 Subtask 2: A Cross-lingual Approach to Multiword Expression Paraphrasing
Abstract
AbstractThis paper describes MISP (Multilingual Id-iomatic Sentence Paraphrasing), a system sub-mitted to the PARSEME 2.0 MultilingualShared Task on Identification and Paraphras-ing of Multiword Expressions (MWEs). Weparticipated in Subtask 2 on MWE para-phrasing and developed our system based onQwen3-4B-Instruct fine-tuned on syntheticPortuguese MWE paraphrases. We appliedMISP not only to Portuguese, but also to Frenchand Romanian, aiming to leverage cross-lingualtransfer within related languages, with ours be-ing the only submission for Portuguese. Ourresults indicate that MISP struggles to generateparaphrases that both rephrase and preserve theoriginal meaning of the MWE. Additionally,instruction fine-tuning does not appear to im-prove performance. Overall, our findings high-light the challenges of paraphrasing MWEs,particularly in a cross-lingual setting