Layering Semantics

(Putting meaning into trees)

Treebank Workshop
Martha Palmer
April 26, 2007

Outline

Semantic role labeling, verbs and nouns

Treebank/PropBank discrepancies
Treebank/NomBank discrepancies
Dependencies vs. Phrase Structure

Treebank Workshop/NAACL07

A TreeBanked phrase
Marcus, et al, 1993

A GM-Jaguar pact would give the

U.S. car maker an eventual 30% stake
in the British company.
S
NP
a GM-Jaguar
would
pact

VP

VP

give
NP
NP
the US car
an eventual
maker
30% stake

Treebank Workshop/NAACL07

NP
PP-LOC
in

NP
the British
company

The same phrase,PropBanked*

A GM-Jaguar pact would give the U.S.
car maker an eventual 30% stake in the
British company.
give(GM-J pact, US car maker, 30% stake)
Arg0

a GM-Jaguar
pact

would give
Arg2

the US car
maker

Treebank Workshop/NAACL07

Arg1

an eventual 30% stake in the

British company

Frames File example: give

Roles:
Arg0: giver
Arg1: thing given
Arg2: entity given to
Example:
double object
The executives gave the chefs a standing ovation.
Arg0:
The executives
REL:
gave
Arg2:
the chefs
Arg1:
a standing ovation

Treebank Workshop/NAACL07

NomBank Frame File example: gift

(nominalizations, noun predicates, partitives, etc.
Roles:
Arg0: giver
Arg1: thing given
Arg2: entity given to
Example:
nominalization
Nancys gift from her cousin was a complete surprise.
Arg0:
her cousin
REL:
gave
Arg2:
Nancy
Arg1:
gift
Treebank Workshop/NAACL07

Status of TB/PB merge

Extracted and classified mismatch examples

Reconciled different policy decisions

An example of TB changes:

An example of PB changes:

Modified list of verbs which take small clauses and sentential

complements (e.g. keep their markets active)
A different approach to annotation of empty categories:
John seems [*T* to know the answer]-Arg1

Some mismatches require manual adjudication

(e.g. PP-attachment ambiguity): The region lacks

necessary mechanisms for handling the aid and accounting items.

Unresolved issues: gapping

Treebank Workshop/NAACL07

Treebank-PropBank Reconciliation
Problem: One PropBank arg can involve many parse nodes
Solution: Single argument single parse node analysis

Problem: Different semantic analyses

Solution: Reconcile semantic assumptions

Treebank Workshop/NAACL07

NomBank Issues

Treebank has no structure for noun phrases

Many nominal event arguments do not
correspond to tree nodes

Treebank Workshop/NAACL07

Dependency Trees vs Phrase Structure

CATEGORY

DT

Finding constituent boundaries

Noun phrase structure

Empty categories

Coordination what is the head?

Phrasal verbs

Discontinuous constituents

Treebank Workshop/NAACL07

PST

Dependency Trees vs Phrase Structure

Really depends on choices with respect to

guidelines and the annotation tool display

Penn Treebank chose not to bracket NPs

Dependency trees can be displayed visually to
clarify constituent structure
Empty categories can be a help or a hindrance
depending on the annotators task
Coordination heads are defined in the guidelines
Penn Treebank could define phrasal verbs

Treebank Workshop/NAACL07