Decision Trees for Sense Disambiguation of Prepositions:  
Case of Over 
 
 
Yukiko Sasaki Alam 
Dept. of Digital Media Science 
Hosei University, Tokyo 
sasaki@k.hosei.ac.jp 
 
 
 
 
 
 
Abstract 
This paper proposes two decision trees for de-
termining the meanings of the prepositional 
uses of over by using the contextual informa-
tion. It first examines the meanings of the 
prepositional uses of over and then aims at 
identifying the contexts for interpreting the 
meanings. Some contexts are complementary 
features, and that makes the decision trees sim-
ple. The trees have been tested on a corpus, and 
the results are encouraging. 
1 Introduction 
Prepositions have been studied from a variety of per-
spectives. The syntactic status has been probed by such 
linguists as Jackendoff [77], Emonds [85], Rauh [93] 
and Pullum and Huddleston [02]. Cognitive theorists 
have paid attention to the polysemous nature of preposi-
tions and explored the conceptual relationships of the 
polysemy, often proposing the graphical mental images 
(Lakoff and Johnson [80], Brugman [81, 88], Herskovits 
[86], Langacker [87], Tyler and Evans [01]). Pragmatic 
aspects of prepositions have been studied by such schol-
ars as Fauconnier [94] and Visetti and Cadiot [02]. The 
deictic properties of spatial prepositions have been ex-
amined by Hill [82], while the geographical information 
provided by them was an interest of computational re-
search (Xu and Badler [00], Tezuka et al [01]). A prac-
tical study of the usage of prepositions was carried out 
for the purpose of teaching English as a second lan-
guage (Wahlen [95], Lindstromberg [97], Yates [99]). 
In the fields related to natural language processing, 
prepositional phrase attachment has been a topic for 
research for quite a long time, and in recent years, the 
problem was explored with a neural network-based ap-
proach (Sopena, LLoberas and Moliner [98]) and with a 
syntax-based trainable approach (Yeh and Valin [98]). 
Although past research has revealed various aspects of 
prepositions, to my knowledge there is not much seman-
tic research of prepositions available for computational 
use, which requires a vigorous formalization of repre-
senting the semantics. 
A recent semantic study of prepositions for computa-
tional use is found in Voss [02], with a focus on spatial 
prepositions. Spatial prepositions are divided into three 
categories according to which one of the two thematic 
meanings between place and path they acquire when 
they are in argument, adjunct and non-subcategorized 
positions of particular types of verbs. The semantics of 
spatial prepositions dealt with in Voss [02] is not lexical 
but thematic. 
The present study places more focus on the lexical 
meanings of prepositions rather than on the thematic 
meanings because it is intended for use in machine 
translation (MT), where the meaning of a sentence, a 
phrase or a lexical entry of a source language must be 
preserved in the target language, even though it may 
take a different syntactic form in the source and target 
languages. The preservation of meaning is even more 
important at an Interlingua-based MT, because meaning 
is a medium of translation between source and target 
languages. 
The current research deals with the prepositional 
uses of over, but not with the uses of over in different 
syntactic categories such as the use as adjective (as in 
The initial test is over), as part of a phrasal verb (as in 
He handed over his notes to me), as part of an idiomatic 
phrase (as in She said it over and over) and as a modi-
fier of a quantity (as in  over forty years ago). These 
uses could be identified in terms of their syntactic char-
acteristics. On the other hand, the prepositional uses are 
grouped under the same syntactic category, but exhibit 
different meanings in different semantic contexts, re-
quiring semantic treatments as well for the disambigua-
tion of the senses. 
This paper examines the meanings of the preposi-
tional uses of over, identifies the semantic contexts, and 
proposes two decision trees for interpreting the different 
meanings. The second section will divide the preposi-
tional uses of over into two groups according to which 
one of the two functional units between Head and Com-
plement is likely to identity the meanings. It will also 
bring into light the semantic features of the Head and 
Complement components that make the interpretations 
of the uses possible. The third section will discusses the 
two decision trees proposed in this paper, and the fourth 
section gives an evaluation of the trees, before conclud-
ing this paper. 
2 Meanings of the prepositional uses 
Prepositional uses of over could be divided into two 
groups: those whose meaning is likely to be identified 
by the Complement noun phrases and those that need 
semantic information in the Head components. The 
noun phrase following a preposition is the Complement 
of the preposition, whereas the verb, verb phrase, noun 
or noun phrase governing a preposition or a preposi-
tional phrase is the Head. 
2.1  Over identified by its Complement 
Unlike the uses of over governed or required by the 
Head verb or noun, over the weekend in They have been 
unwell over the weekend can appear with almost all se-
mantic classes of verbs, as illustrated below. 
(1) a.  I heard over the weekend of a terrible fuss. 
 b.  He thought about it over the weekend 
        and accepted. 
 c.  Talks with bankers were taking place 
        over the weekend. 
 d.  It probably began over the weekend  
        of March 27. 
 e.  His father had died over the weekend. 
 f.  American diplomats arrived here over 
       the weekend. 
The phrase over the weekend appears with a sensation 
verb (1a), a cognition verb (1b), an occurrence verb (1c), 
an aspectual verb (1d), a change of state verb (1e) and a 
movement verb (1f). This suggests that over the week-
end is not required by a particular semantic class of 
verbs. At the same time, it is likely to be identified from 
the semantic features of the Complement noun phrase, 
which denotes a definite period of time in discourse 
during which an event takes place. This use of over is 
called over_during because it is similar to the usage of 
during. 
On the other hand, over can appear with the Com-
plement denoting an indefinite period of time in dis-
course, as in:  
(2)  Altogether, tutorials take place over a period of 
about twenty-four weeks. 
The Complements of over_during in (1) and this use 
share the semantic characteristic by referring to time of 
duration, but differ in that the former refers to a specific 
period of time in discourse while the latter only a length 
of time over which an event continues. This use is 
named over_duration. 
Another use that denotes a length of time is as fol-
lows: 
(3)  Skimming a chapter for its main ideas  
may be done over coffee. 
Unlike the other two we have seen above, the Comple-
ment does not refer directly to a space of time, but still 
the prepositional phrase implies an interval of time, in 
particular the duration of drinking coffee. Like the use 
of over_duration, the Complement does not refer to a 
definite period in discourse because the semantic func-
tion is to indicate a length of time. The Complement in 
this type is characterized by its meaning denoting meal 
or drink as well as by referring to a nonspecific meal or 
drink in discourse. This use is termed over_coffee. 
Like the three uses we have seen above, the follow-
ing is also likely to be identified by the syntax and se-
mantics of the Complements: 
(4)   We heard the news over the radio at lunch 
      break. 
The phrase over the radio indicates a means of hear-
ing the news. The Complement in this use is often a 
sequence of the definite particle the followed by a noun 
denoting a device of communication such as radio and 
telephone. Although the Head verb or noun tends to 
refer to a communicative act, as this use takes a Com-
plement with distinctive semantic features, it should 
belong to this group. It is called over_means. 
Another use of over that could belong to this group 
is the following: 
(5)  You can go all over the place. 
The Complement denotes a place in many cases, but 
sometimes a physical object, and this use of over is al-
ways preceded by all. Although the Head verb or noun 
tends to denote movement, this use also appears with 
other types of predicates, as illustrated below: 
(6)  a.  Paint all over the studio. 
 b.  He is known all over Europe. 
 c.  Tapes crash all over my desk. 
The following is a list of the prepositional uses of 
over that are likely to be identified by the semantic fea-
tures of the Complements: 
 
 
Table 1. Uses identifiable by the Complements 
 
The following is a list of the features identifying the 
uses of over by the Complements. 
 
 
 
Table 2. The features of the Complements distinguish-
ing the meanings of over 
 
2.2   Over identifiable by its Head 
Unlike the prepositional uses of over that are likely to 
be identified by the semantics of the Complements 
alone, the following are the uses that would require the 
semantic information of the Heads as well for identifica-
tion.  
2.2.1    Head denoting a physical event 
When the Head of over denotes movement and the 
Complement a place or a physical object, the over-
prepositional phrase indicates a place above which and 
across which an object moves, as given below: 
(7) a.  The bullet goes flying over my head  
and lands in the field behind me. 
 b.  Safe, efficient movement over snow and  
 ice is impossible without suitable  
 crampons. 
The prepositional phrase indicates a path over which an 
object moves, and therefore it is termed over_path. 
Another use of over indicating place is illustrated by 
the following example: 
(8)   After spreading her napkin over her lap,  
Alice began to eat. 
The prepositional phrase implies a place on which or 
above which an object sits. In this example, her napkin 
is placed over her lap. This use is called over_locus. The 
Head refers to an event denoted by a verb or noun be-
longing to the put verb class  (cf. Levin [93]) while the 
Complement a place or a physical object. 
In addition, this use is also used with a Head verb 
denoting the presence of an object as in: 
 (9)  An occasional loop stays over the needle  
after knitting the row. 
Indeed, this use is more complex than it appears. In a 
sentence with the BE verb, we find the following exam-
ples: 
(10)  a.  My painting is over the sofa. 
 b.  There were no taps over the sink. 
The use of over in this construction is tricky because it 
is difficult to distinguish from the use of over meaning 
about, as illustrated below: 
(11)  The disagreement here is over the substitutabil-
ity of assets. 
As complex as such, this construction would need a 
special syntactic treatment separately from other uses. 
That is, in this construction, the subject noun phrase is 
the Head of over, and thus the semantics of the subject 
along with that of the Complement must be examined 
for proper identification.  
Another special syntactic treatment should be given 
to an over-prepositional phrase modifying a noun phrase 
or noun, as in: 
(12) I can just see the light over the door from 
where I’m standing. 
In this example, the Head is a noun phrase the light and 
the Complement the door. Since the Head is a physical 
object, and the Complement a physical object, the use of 
over is over_locus, which means that the Head entity is 
located at the Complement entity. When the Head in 
this nominal modifier construction denotes an event or 
state, as in his return flight over the North Sea, there 
would be no special treatment required. It can be treated 
in the same manner as when the verb is the Head. 
A special pragmatic knowledge should come into 
play  in the use of over_locus. It is not straight-forward, 
in fact, to determine this use only by the semantics of 
the Head and Complement. In every construction for 
this use, there is a possibility that the prepositional 
phrase indicates the meaning of across, as illustrated in: 
(13) a.  His apartment is over my flat. 
 b.  His apartment is over the river. 
Although both sentences have the same syntactic struc-
ture, they have noun phrases referring to different places. 
meanings examples 
over_during Over the next decade a global 
approach is going to be essen-
tial. 
over_ 
duration 
Their flowers appear over sev-
eral weeks in summer. 
over_coffee There’s a lot for you to talk 
about over lunch. 
over_means Lewd songs are sung over the 
microphone. 
over_many- 
parts 
The dog ran all over the parking 
lot. 
meanings features of 
the Heads 
features of the Com-
plements 
over_ 
during 
 time 
+definite, +duration, 
over_ 
duration 
 time 
-definite, +duration 
over_ 
coffee 
 
 
{meal, drink} 
-definite 
over_ 
means 
 communication tool, 
+definite 
over_ 
many-
parts 
 {place, physical object}
 [syntactic features: all 
over + NP] 
As an apartment can be located over a flat in the real 
world, the meaning of the prepositional phrase in (13a) 
implies a place where an object is located (i.e. 
over_locus). On the other hand, as an apartment is usu-
ally not located above the river, the meaning in (13b) 
implies a place across where an object is situated. This 
latter use of over is named over_across. To distinguish 
between over_locus and over_across requires more than 
the semantics of the Head and Complement components. 
The distinction would require encyclopedic world 
knowledge. Without having such a knowledge system, 
this paper will treat both over_locus and over_across  in 
the same manner except for the fact that the default 
choice between the two is over_locus due to the much 
higher frequency in its use. 
2.2.2   Head denoting a nonphysical event 
There are four uses of over whose Head denotes a non-
physical event. The use we examine at first is illustrated 
in the following examples: 
(14)  a.  Marcos ruled over the Philippines for 20  
 years. 
 b.  He has considerable control over her      
 activities. 
 c.  He had one huge advantage over everyone 
                 else. 
The Head denotes an act of control or having more 
power. Among verbs of such a class are preside, rule, 
win, excel, dominate and tower. This use metaphorically 
implies that an object is above the other object in terms 
of power. 
The next use of over is found in: 
(15)  A general dictionary was preferred over  
the domain-specific dictionaries. 
The Head is a verb or noun denoting selection. Among 
them are prefer, choose, select, favor and the deverbal 
nouns.  This use is called over_prefer.  The noun coun-
terpart of a verb in this class, however, should be treated 
with care, because the over may imply the meaning of 
about, as in  
(16)  They are organized to allow the users  
choice over what to see, in the correct  
time sequence. 
What is going on is that over_prefer requires two enti-
ties in order to choose one over the other. When there 
are no such two entities between which to choose, as in 
(16), the meaning of over turns out to be that of about. 
On the other hand, when there are, the meaning is 
over_prefer, as illustrated in: 
(17)  One of the most basic freedoms anywhere  
is the right to peace, and the choice of  
quiet over noise. 
Since verbs of this family are transitive verbs requiring 
the Object, when the sentence contains both the Object  
noun phrase and an over-prepositional phrase, the mean-
ing of over_prefer obtains. In the proposed decision tree 
involving this use, the Head is limited to a verb, not a 
noun because of this syntactic freedom of a noun in this 
category. (To handle cases involving such a noun, a 
question as to the number of the arguments governed by 
the noun must be added.) 
A final discussion is about two uses named 
over_about and over_because. The use of over_because 
is illustrated in the following examples: 
(18) a.  Teachers were suspended over war posters. 
 b.   He quit over a bribery scandal. 
The over-prepositional phrase implies a cause of the 
event or state. It seems that the meaning of 
over_because requires a punctual event as in (18a) and 
(18b). On the other hand, over with durational verbs in 
this class gives rise to the meaning of over_about,  as 
illustrated by the following examples: 
(19) a.  He talked over the issue for three hours. 
 b.  Disputes over authorship are fiercely  
fought. 
 c.  There is growing concern over his illness. 
 d.  They thought over all the possible errors. 
The Head of this use denotes events of communication 
(such as hear and chat), agree events (such as disagree 
and fight), psychological events or states (such as worry, 
cry and agonize) and cognitive events or states (such as 
think and know). 
Table 3 shows the uses of over the meanings of 
which are identified mainly by the semantics of the 
Head. 
 
 
Table 3. The meanings of over identified by its Head 
 
Table 4 lists the semantic features in the Head that 
contribute to identifying the meanings of the preposi-
tional uses of over. 
meanings examples 
over_path Let the eye move over it. 
over_across The gallery is over the front door. 
I admit that part of the ball was over 
the line, but that’s not enough. 
over_locus Jessica sprayed paint over the furniture.
over_control It was Prime Minister Yoshida who 
presided over Japan’s post-war eco-
nomic boom. 
over_prefer I would prefer coffee over tea. 
over_about He’s mulling over an offer from NBC 
to star in his own series. 
At the counter, a couple puzzled over 
which lottery numbers to choose. 
over_ 
because 
Teachers were suspended over war 
posters.  
He quit over a bribery scandal. 
 
Table 4.  Semantic features in the Head identifying the 
meanings of over 
3 Decision Trees for Disambiguation 
How do we distinguish computationally the meanings of 
the prepositional uses of over listed in Tables 1 and 3? 
Based on Tables 2 and 4, which are lists of the semantic 
features in the Complements and Heads that are likely 
to identify the meanings of over, two decision trees are 
proposed.  One is used to identify the meanings of over 
from the semantic features of the Complements (Figure 
1 in the Appendix), and the other, from the semantic 
features of the Heads (Figure 2 in the Appendix). The 
first search for the meaning of over should start with the 
decision tree by its Complement (illustrated in Figure 1), 
because most prepositional uses of over characterized 
by the Complements denote time over event, and that 
means that they are the modifiers of events (at the level 
of verb phrases) rather than the modifiers of individual 
verbs (located inside verb phrases). After failing in the 
initial search at the decision tree by its Complement, 
another search for the meaning of over should take 
place at the decision tree by its Head in Figure 2. 
The decision tree in Figure 1 asks whether the Com-
plement of over refers and/or contains such features as 
listed in the diamonds, while in the decision tree in Fig-
ure 2, the question concerns the Head of over. 
The Head component of over can be a verb govern-
ing the over-prepositional phrase (as in I would 
PREFER coffee over tea), a verb phrase modified by the 
over-prepositional phrase (as in A BIG EARTHQUAKE 
OCCURED over the weekend) or a noun (as in He has 
considerable CONTROL over her activities). In the BE 
verb construction (such as The issue is over the election 
of the chairman), the subject is the Head of over. The 
Complement of over is a noun phrase governed by over 
(as in over THE SPRING BREAK).  
4 Evaluation 
An evaluation of the two decision trees was conducted 
manually by using 500 sentences containing over pro-
duced by the British National Corpus (BNC). Among 
the 500 instances of over, there are 382 prepositional 
uses. Among the remaining, fifty six (56) instances are 
those meaning more than or excess, which are located 
characteristically immediately before a quantity word or 
phrase. Examples are given below: 
     (20)  (a)  We have visited over 90 schools  
and reached 36,000 pupils. 
         (b)  Anything over this amount is, basically  
liable to inheritance tax at 40%. 
Twenty (20) instances of over are adjectives meaning 
completion, as in: 
     (21)  My war seemed to be over. 
Fifteen (15) instances are those used as adverb, an ex-
ample of which is illustrated: 
     (22)  … , and read the list over and over again. 
The sentences including over and over again are re-
peated twice in the data because of the two instances of 
over in the phrase. The data contains six such sentences, 
resulting in 12 counts of over and over again. Seven (7) 
instances are used right before the to-prepositional 
phrase or toward-prepositional phrase, as in: 
     (23)  She went over to the Cookery and  
Refreshments Tent, but … 
The distinction between such instances of over as in 
(21), (22) and (23) on one hand and prepositional uses  
on the other could be made by purely syntactic treat-
ments because of their different syntactic characteristics. 
Most of instances meaning more than or excess as illus-
trated in (20) are morphologically distinguishable from 
prepositional uses, because most of quantity nouns or 
noun phrases after over refer to something other than 
time. However, among the total 56 instances implying 
more than or excess, thirteen (13) quantity phrases refer 
to time. As such a phrase is composed of the same struc-
ture (over + noun/noun phrase) as an over-prepositional 
phrase, this appears to cause difficulty. But a careful 
examination of these constructions reveals otherwise. 
Such a phrase of quantity occurs in a syntactic position 
requiring a noun phrase, as illustrated in: 
     (24)  a.  … after 12 years of living in those  
conditions, I would probably want  
to die myself. 
meanings features of the-
Heads 
features of the 
Complements
over_ 
path 
move events {place, physi-
cal object} 
over_ 
locus 
put events, stay 
events,  be verb 
{place, physi-
cal object} 
over_ 
across 
put events, stay 
events, be verb 
{place, physi-
cal object} 
over_ 
control 
control events  
over_ 
prefer 
prefer verbs  
over_ 
about 
+duration  
communication 
events, agree 
events, psychologi-
cal events/states, 
cognitive 
events/states,   
 
over_ 
because 
-duration  
psychological  
events/states,  
cognitive 
events/states 
 
b.  … I had heard nothing about my  
family for over ten years. 
              c.  … since they were written over 10 
                       years ago, … 
All these phrases of quantity are located either after a 
preposition such as for, in, within and after or in an ad-
verbial phrase ending with such a word as ago and late. 
Therefore, a good syntactic parser should be capable of 
distinguishing these quantity phrases with over from 
over-prepositional phrases.  
Two instances of over are found in quoted phrases in 
sentences. Eighteen (18) sentences are either incomplete 
(as in PUB REFURBISHMENTS – OVER THE LIMIT 
and Over the wrenched?) or difficult to parse (as in 
First part over, second part starts and … moved hard 
over in the direction of the spin). 
With the non-prepositional uses and anomalous in-
stances of over in the data aside, the next topic of dis-
cussion is about the three hundred and eighty two (382) 
prepositional uses found in the data. Among the 382, 
eighty seven (87) instances of over are parts of phrasal 
verbs or idiomatic phrases. Among the 87, fifty (50) 
instances of over do NOT govern a prepositional phrase, 
as illustrated below: 
     (25)  a.  And Dicky can take over as a footman. 
         b. She went over to fetch a cup of coffee. 
c.  I explain the position to the daughters  
and hand Mum over to them. 
              d.  … there is no reason for their practiced  
eyes to cloud over when … 
Thirty seven (37) instances of over are parts of phrasal 
verbs governing an over-prepositional phrase. Examples 
are given below: 
     (26)  a.  Go over the launch failure procedures  
after any long lay-off from flying. 
              b.  … and failed promptly to hand over  
detainees to the police - … 
With the lexicon containing sufficient information 
on such phrasal verbs, there would remain two hundred 
and ninety five (295) prepositional uses of over, the 
meanings of which must be distinguished. The decision 
trees proposed in this paper succeeded in determining 
the meanings of two hundred and seventy six (276) in-
stances, and failed to interpret the meanings of nineteen 
(19), resulting in a precision of 93.5 percent. However, 
if the system does not recognize phrasal verbs, the value 
of the precision will be lower. 
Some more problems and possible solutions are dis-
cussed here. It would be difficult to determine the use of 
over when the verbs in the sentence are conjoined, as in 
We finished our coffee and watched the seagulls whirl-
ing and shrieking over the harbour in the spring sun-
shine. When the verb shriek is categorized as a 
psychological verb, the use of over will be interpreted as 
over_about, which is a wrong interpretation in this case. 
The decision tree in Figure 1 will fail to recognize 
the following example because a search for the use of 
over_means requires the semantic feature +definite: … 
the cruel, brutal voices that bellow over loudhailers 
about injustice …. The Complement of over, loud-
hailers is not preceded by the definite article the, which 
is a requirement for identifying over_means. The feature 
+definite may be dispensable for sense identification, 
but it will be needed when the decision tree is used for 
generation, because the definite article often occurs in 
this type of prepositional phrase as in over the phone. 
A difficulty in determining whether a noun refers to 
a physical object or an abstract entity causes a problem. 
The example … with the lying motto over its gate … is 
hard to analyze. The use in this example is not 
over_about, but over_locus. With the correct interpreta-
tion of motto either as a physical object or a statement, 
the decision tree could lead to the right meaning of over. 
If motto refers to a physical object, the use of over is 
over_locus, whereas if it is not, the use is over_about. 
In the example such as The drag of the cable over 
one wing can make …, the deverbal noun drag must be 
properly parsed as the Head of over in order to interpret 
the meaning of over correctly. 
Based on the assumption (a) that a syntactic parsing 
is successful, (b) that the over in phrasal verbs are rec-
ognized beforehand, and (c) that verbs and nouns are 
properly categorized into classes, the two decision trees 
could identify the meanings of most prepositional uses 
of over in the corpus. In addition, information on 
whether the Head event refers to a durational event or 
not would enable the tree to distinguish between 
over_about and over_because. Table 5 gives a break-
down of the instances of over found in the data (PP 
stands for prepositional phrase): 
 
 over included in or used as No. 
PP  (over not in phrasal verbs) 295 
(19 
failed)
PP  (over in phrasal verbs) 37 
parts of phrasal verbs (not 
governing PP) 
50 
quantity modifier 56 
adjective, meaning completion 20 
adverb ( all over again, etc.) 15 
over followed by a directional 
PP (over other than parts of 
phrasal verbs) 
7 
inside quotes 2 
unable to parse 18 
 
Table 5. Breakdown of over in 500 instances 
5 Conclusion 
After examining the meanings, the prepositional uses of 
over have been divided into two groups: those whose 
meanings are identifiable by their Complements and 
those by their Heads. Previous studies have focused on 
the identification of the meanings of over, whereas the 
present paper not only on the meanings, but on the con-
texts for interpreting the meanings. 
Two decision trees have been proposed for determin-
ing the meanings of the prepositional uses of over by 
using the semantic features of the Head and Comple-
ment components. The decision trees are fairly simple 
and easy to implement in a system. The decision trees 
have been successful in identifying the meanings of the 
prepositional uses of over in data taken from BNC. 

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