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

[Michael Wayne Goodman]

Forgot to CC the list...

On Wed, Jul 25, 2018 at 10:53 AM, Michael Wayne Goodman <goodmami at uw.edu>
wrote:

> On Wed, Jul 25, 2018 at 2:21 AM, Guy Emerson <gete2 at cam.ac.uk> wrote:
>
>> For "It was in January that Browne was hired", is the MRS correct?  I was
>> surprised to see both _in_p_temp and loc_nonsp mediating between mofy(Jan)
>> and _hire_v_1.  Is there a reason to have both?  It would seem more
>> consistent to have just _in_p_temp, which takes the intrinsic variable of
>> _hire_v_1 as its ARG1.  This would match the MRS for "Brown was hired in
>> January".  Adding the it-cleft seems to have the side effect of adding
>> loc_nonsp.
>>
>
> Hmm, good point (this is relevant, for those following along:
> http://moin.delph-in.net/ErgSemantics/ImplicitLocatives). I think this
> version of the ERG is simply unable to link up the ARG1 of _in_p_temp to
> the index of _hire_v_1. Notice that the ARG1 of _in_p_temp is
> underspecified, so the loc_nonsp is required, then, to establish the
> relationship. Other analyses that do not have loc_nonsp don't actually get
> us a _in_p_temp that hooks up with _hire_v_1; rather, the "in January" is
> modifying the "was" (i.e., not an it-cleft analysis). Also, if I remove
> the loc_nonsp and change the ARG1 of _in_p_temp to select the ARG0 of
> _hire_v_1, the MRS no longer generates. I'm not sure if the original
> selected analysis is an underspecification of some valid ambiguity or a
> technical compromise to deal with limitations in our rules of composition.
>
>
>> The reason this is relevant is that, without the loc_nonsp, there would
>> be no need to look at TENSE.
>>
>
> I'm not following here. What would change in the graph to make _hire_v_1
> stand out as the representative EP?
>
>
>> 2018-07-24 23:18 GMT+01:00 Michael Wayne Goodman <goodmami at uw.edu>:
>>
>>> 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.
>>>
>>
>>
>
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