[matrix] Pronoun Relations

[Ann Copestake]

ebender at u.washington.edu said:
> I think it follows that we don't lose much by going to a
> no-pronoun-rel strategy in the Matrix while keeping the pronoun_rels for the
> ERG: we're going to have differences between languages no matter what we do.

I would argue that it means that anyone using the Matrix to develop a grammar 
for a language with pronouns will have to adopt a more convoluted anaphora 
resolution strategy than is necessary.  It will also mean that code I 
incorporate into the LKB for anaphora resolution based on our ERG work can't 
be used for Matrix grammars without adaptation.

ebender at u.washington.edu said:
> It seems like taking the cfrom/cto from the selecting predicate should work.
> I tried for a bit to come up with some examples  in English that would tease
> the two apart, but without success (largely because it's hard to separate
> pronouns from their selecting predicates by enough material to stick in an
> antecedent).

`the selecting predicate'? -  for control cases, there will be multiple verb 
predicates.  I don't want to argue that there is no algorithm that will do 
this, just that it complicates things.

ebender at u.washington.edu said:
> Wouldn't it be possible to relate the pronouns to their indices by looking at
> the actual derivations, and going from pronouns to MRS, rather than the other
> way around?

I don't follow - you mean keep the feature structures around???  We could 
perhaps change the parsers to allow CFROM/CTO values to be placed on indices 
iff there was a pronoun - but it would be time-consuming and messy (especially 
if there's a treatment of binding theory in a grammar).

ebender at u.washington.edu said:
> Is this kind of variation relevant to anaphora resolution though? I think the
> best representation of politeness is through a separate relation predicated
> of that individual (perhaps in CTXT or Background, rather than in the CONT).
> If we look at reference resolution more generally (rather than just anaphora
> resolution) I think we'll have other reasons for taking more relations into
> account (beyond just the noun-relation introducing the index). 

I'm just asking if you want to force the position where every type of 
variation in pronouns has to be accounted for on the index or elsewhere in the 
MRS/information structure.  Maybe this is right in the long term but I see it 
as a potential source of problems.

ebender at u.washington.edu said:
> Would you count leaving out pronoun-rels in the Matrix-derived grammars as an
> overhaul of MRS?  It seems like a relatively trivial change to me (which
> doesn't effect overall well-formedness, etc).

I was talking about systematic language differences in general when I used the 
term `overhaul'.  But I think you may underestimate the effects that changes 
in the MRSs have for people who are using the grammars.  Whether all nominal 
indices associated with non-optional arguments are associated with relations 
or not is something that potentially matters.  I can't tell you for sure 
whether it's something I've assumed in code or not.  Obviously this is the 
sort of thing that I would be prepared to fix if it's necessary, but, as you 
well know, my fixes don't often happen quickly ...  Anyway, I am trying to 
make two general points:

1) a mechanism exists for avoiding complex transfer rules in the cases of 
systematic language differences (and will have to be used for some cases)

2) we have multiple users of MRSs with different needs and we need to try and 
reconcile these.  (I do not want to end up in a situation where code that 
operates on MRSs is usable only with ERG MRSs and not Matrix MRSs, but it 
seems to me that's what is liable to happen.)

Ann