[developers] "Quite" problematic: MRS -> EDS conversion

[Michael Wayne Goodman]

Answering one of my own questions; see below...

On Fri, Jul 20, 2018 at 10:49 PM, Michael Wayne Goodman <goodmami at uw.edu>
wrote:
>
>
> If anyone has read this far, I have a question: both the ERG and Jacy have
> a [ TENSE untensed ] property, but is this a more widespread convention?
> I'm reluctant to rely on it because I want to avoid parametrizing my
> semantic conversion functions for grammar-specific values.
>

I surveyed some grammars, and noted that the following use [ TENSE untensed
]: ERG, Jacy, gg, SRG

The following do not: NorSource, Semitic Grammar (HeGram), BURGER, HaG,
KRG, INDRA, Zhong

Also note:
* HaG has [ TAM untensed ] exported in the VPM, but not [ TENSE untensed ]
* Zhong does not use the TENSE property at all

So I think it's safe to say that it's *not* a widespread convention among
medium-sized or larger grammars.

One alternative to this specific tense property is the pos field of
predicates, which is part of MRS and not grammar-defined. The idea is that
predicates of certain pos values are more likely to modify others, such as
verbs modifying nouns ("sleeping dog"), adpositionals modifying verbs ("ran
quickly", "ran in the park"), degree modifiers on adpositionals ("ran very
quickly", "the cat was very much in the bag"), etc. Abstract predicates
(which do not formally have a pos) would come last, I suppose. But I'm not
certain that such a gradation is not language-specific, and there are
probably counter-examples.
-------------- next part --------------
An HTML attachment was scrubbed...
URL: <http://lists.delph-in.net/archives/developers/attachments/20180724/07746135/attachment.html>