[developers] More ACE/LKB divergences (underspecified generation)

[Emily M. Bender]

Possibly related here:

This year's 567 languages also include several with aspect marking and
adjectives as stand along predicates (including at least Chadian Arabic
[shu]
and Chuckchi [ckt]).  In order to cut back on the range of generator
outputs,
for these languages we are using the VPM to put in default values for
aspect.  In the case of the adjectival predicates, however, aspect is
systematically
unmarked (and underspecified).  Currently, with the default aspect inserted,
we're getting no generator outputs for adjective examples.  It seems like
the
more forgiving setting described for the LKB ought to allow that---is there
something I need to do to invoke this setting?

Thanks,
Emily


On Wed, Mar 4, 2015 at 10:54 PM, Francis Bond <bond at ieee.org> wrote:

> G'day,
>
> [snip]
>
> Hmm, you have led me to uncover a bug :-/.
>>
>
> JaEn, proudly triggering obscure bugs since 2003 :-).
>
>
>>
>> Here's what's going on.  As per the St. Wendel discussion you cited, the
>> status of that subsumption check is slightly murky, because there are a
>> couple of ways it could be done, specifically: using the grammar-internal
>> type hierarchy or using the SEMI hierarchy.  The objects to be compared are
>> MRSes, so the elements in question ought to be governed by the SEMI, but
>> traditionally the comparison has actually been made by a round-about
>> procedure involving VPM'ing into the grammar internal type hierarchy and
>> doing the subsumption tests there.  At some point I made the decision to do
>> the comparison without VPM'ing in ACE, but it seems I didn't get all the
>> way there, so at the moment the system seems to be comparing external
>> elements using the grammar internal hierarchy (a bad idea and perhaps
>> formally undefined, but apparently mostly functional).  The type m-or-f
>> does not exist in the ERG's internal hierarchy, so it is treated as
>> subsuming only itself.
>>
>> The plan is now to fix the post generation subsumption test to use the
>> SEMI hierarchy, which includes the m-or-f type, but I am a bit worried that
>> fixing that will cause the ship to spring a leak somewhere else... we'll
>> see :-)
>>
>
> We will be happy to test a new version and see what else we can bring to
> light, ...
>
> --
> Francis Bond <http://www3.ntu.edu.sg/home/fcbond/>
> Division of Linguistics and Multilingual Studies
> Nanyang Technological University
>



-- 
Emily M. Bender
Professor, Department of Linguistics
Check out CLMS on facebook! http://www.facebook.com/uwclma
-------------- next part --------------
An HTML attachment was scrubbed...
URL: <http://lists.delph-in.net/archives/developers/attachments/20150305/adef9263/attachment.html>