[developers] Trigger rules still being requested
Ann Copestake
aac10 at cl.cam.ac.uk
Mon Feb 15 20:20:15 CET 2016
It's an expanded version of the mrscomp grammar which I've just checked
in to the LKB svn repo. I created it to mirror the dmrscomp grammar and
just thought I'd check that it's still possible to avoid trigger rules
since I wasn't sure whether the code still allowed it.
In terms of whether or not you need trigger rules for a particular
grammar, I would suggest just trying it. The additional edges will only
explode the search space if the lexical items with null semantics can
combine relatively freely with some of the semantically licensed edges.
Of course this can happen even if you have trigger rules, if they can't
be defined tightly. But I think of trigger rules as a particular form
of nastiness that I would be happy not to inflict on grammar writers
unless it's essential.
oe has offered to fix the warning messages
Ann
On 15/02/16 19:03, Emily M. Bender wrote:
> Hi Ann,
>
> What kind of small grammar though? There are a few things (argument
> composition
> auxiliaries, free word order) that can drastically expand the search
> space for the generator.
> I haven't tested this, but I wouldn't be surprised if even right out
> of the customization
> system box I could come up with a place where trigger rules are
> needed. But at any
> rate, I'd be happy if the warnings that did show up were legitimate
> ones (and will
> try applying Dan's patch).
>
> Emily
>
> On Mon, Feb 15, 2016 at 12:57 PM, Ann Copestake <aac10 at cl.cam.ac.uk
> <mailto:aac10 at cl.cam.ac.uk>> wrote:
>
> I just want to confirm that with a small grammar with a small
> number of null semantics entries (five of them), trigger rules are
> not required to generate with the LKB. So I think that no
> warnings about the `missing' trigger rules should be produced by
> default with small grammars, though I don't know what the criteria
> for switching on the warnings should be.
>
> Ann
>
>
> On 11/02/16 00:05, Ann Copestake wrote:
>> The comment about construction from corpora was really about big
>> grammars - i looked at the ERG trigger rules about a year ago,
>> and was a bit horrified ...
>>
>> For small grammars, is it really hopelessly inefficient to just
>> run in the mode where all the empty semantics items are added to
>> the chart? Does it simply not work if you have no trigger
>> rules? (I admit not having tried this for years.)
>>
>> However, if not, it seems to me that the extract from a corpus
>> technique could work with small grammars assuming you've got a
>> suitable set of test sentences before you start to generate.
>> i.e., you'd parse those and accumulate trigger rules
>> automatically from the parsed set, repeating as you expand the
>> grammar. It doesn't matter if the trigger rules are very
>> liberal, after all.
>>
>> Ann
>>
>> On 10/02/2016 23:14, Emily M. Bender wrote:
>>> The tdl output is helpful to the extent that it shows people
>>> what the value of TRIGGER should
>>> be, but that's about it. It's particularly unhelpful when the
>>> trigger rules are actually there... Also,
>>> learning trigger rules from parsed/treebanked data sounds
>>> interesting, but won't help at all
>>> in the case of starter grammars, which we *do* want to be able
>>> to generate.
>>>
>>> Emily
>>>
>>> On Wed, Feb 10, 2016 at 3:00 PM, Ann Copestake <aac10 at cam.ac.uk
>>> <mailto:aac10 at cam.ac.uk>> wrote:
>>>
>>> Hmm - does anyone find the TDL output for the trigger rules
>>> helpful? because, having looked at the code, I would prefer
>>> to remove that facility completely unless it has support,
>>> since it's hardwiring type and feature names into the code.
>>> i.e., I would rather go back to the original behaviour
>>> which meant that warning messages were output (if there were
>>> no appropriate existing trigger rules) without the TDL being
>>> suggested. I believe oe may feel the same way.
>>>
>>> The trigger rule mechanism is a mess, in fact. Learning
>>> trigger rules from parsed/treebanked data is feasible, but
>>> too big a project for me to take on.
>>>
>>> Ann
>>>
>>>
>>> On 10/02/2016 18:47, Dan Flickinger wrote:
>>>>
>>>> Hi Emily -
>>>>
>>>>
>>>> I ran into this behavior too when doing the SWB-oriented
>>>> grammars for the grammar engineering course I taught with
>>>> Tom last quarter. The culprit turns out to be the function
>>>> index-lexicon(), which right at its end cheerfully emits
>>>> those warning/advice messages for all semantically empty
>>>> entries regardless of whether trigger rules have been
>>>> defined. Since the same shortcoming is repeated in the
>>>> separate function reindex-lexicon(), it proved to be easier
>>>> for me to correct this by changing the function
>>>> make-trigger-tdl() which they both call, so that the global
>>>> mt::*transfer-triggers* is checked before emitting the
>>>> warning for each semantically empty lexical entry. Here is
>>>> the patched version of this function analogous to what I
>>>> added to my grammars' user-fns.lsp file:
>>>>
>>>>
>>>> (defun make-trigger-tdl (empty-semantics-lexical-entries)
>>>> (let ((empty-no-trigger-entries
>>>> (loop for id in empty-semantics-lexical-entries
>>>> unless (or #+:mt
>>>> (gethash id mt::*transfer-triggers*)
>>>> nil)
>>>> collect id)))
>>>> (loop for x in empty-no-trigger-entries
>>>> do
>>>> (format t "~%~%~a_gr := generator_rule &
>>>> [ CONTEXT.RELS <! [ PRED \"non_existing_rel\" ] !>,
>>>> FLAGS.TRIGGER \"~a\" ]."
>>>> (string-downcase x)
>>>> (string-downcase x)))))
>>>>
>>>>
>>>> I expect that Ann or Stephan could see a more elegant way
>>>> to achieve this effect, but this patch might be a useful
>>>> temporary expedient.
>>>>
>>>>
>>>> Dan
>>>>
>>>>
>>>> ------------------------------------------------------------------------
>>>> *From:* developers-bounces at emmtee.net
>>>> <mailto:developers-bounces at emmtee.net>
>>>> <developers-bounces at emmtee.net>
>>>> <mailto:developers-bounces at emmtee.net> on behalf of Emily
>>>> M. Bender <ebender at uw.edu> <mailto:ebender at uw.edu>
>>>> *Sent:* Wednesday, February 10, 2016 7:43 AM
>>>> *To:* developers
>>>> *Subject:* [developers] Trigger rules still being requested
>>>> Dear all,
>>>>
>>>> In the Matrix derived grammars, we have the following in
>>>> lkb/script:
>>>>
>>>> ;;;
>>>> ;;; SSH 2012-03-27 This invokes trigger rules for
>>>> semantically empty
>>>> ;;; lexical entries. The trigger rules themselves should be in
>>>> ;;; trigger.mtr in the grammar directory. The documentation
>>>> on trigger
>>>> ;;; rules:
>>>> <http://moin.delph-in.net/LkbGeneration>http://moin.delph-in.net/LkbGeneration
>>>> ;;;
>>>> ;;; SSH 2013-05-23 The semi.vpm file needs to be loaded
>>>> *before* the
>>>> ;;; trigger.mtr file in lkb/script for correct interaction.
>>>> ;;;
>>>>
>>>> (mt:read-transfer-rules
>>>> (list
>>>> (lkb-pathname (parent-directory) "trigger.mtr"))
>>>> "Generation trigger rules"
>>>> :filter nil :task :trigger :recurse nil :edges 200
>>>> :subsume nil)
>>>>
>>>> ;;;
>>>> ;;; Matrix-derived grammars often have stable enough semantic
>>>> ;;; representations that the grammar can usefully be tested
>>>> ;;; by generating from them. The function
>>>> index-for-generator()
>>>> ;;; must be called for generation to be enabled. In
>>>> grammars with
>>>> ;;; small lexica, this takes a trivial amount of time. If
>>>> ;;; generation is not being used regularly, and the indexing
>>>> ;;; is taking too long, comment out the following.
>>>> index-for-generator()
>>>> ;;; can also be run from the expanded LKB top menu, under
>>>> ;;; Generate.
>>>> ;;;
>>>>
>>>> (index-for-generator)
>>>>
>>>> It is my understanding that (index-for-generator) is what
>>>> is behind the messages
>>>> suggesting trigger rules for semantically empty lexical
>>>> entries, but even though
>>>> we call it after loading the trigger rules, we still get
>>>> messages such as the following:
>>>>
>>>>
>>>>
>>>> Is there something else we're supposed to do so that we
>>>> only see those messages
>>>> when an entry truly lacks a trigger rule?
>>>>
>>>> Thanks,
>>>> Emily
>>>>
>>>> --
>>>> Emily M. Bender
>>>> Professor, Department of Linguistics
>>>> Check out CLMS on facebook!
>>>> <http://www.facebook.com/uwclma>http://www.facebook.com/uwclma
>>>
>>>
>>>
>>>
>>> --
>>> Emily M. Bender
>>> Professor, Department of Linguistics
>>> Check out CLMS on facebook! http://www.facebook.com/uwclma
>>
>
>
>
>
> --
> Emily M. Bender
> Professor, Department of Linguistics
> Check out CLMS on facebook! http://www.facebook.com/uwclma
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