Encodinl~ and Acquiring Meanings for-Figurative Phrases * 
Michael G. Dyer 
Uri Zernik 
Artificial Intelligence Laboratory 
Computer Science Department 
3531 Boelter Hall 
University of California 
Los Angeles, California 90024 
Abstract 1.1 The Task Domain 
Here we address the problem of mapping phrase meanings 
into their conceptual representations. Figurative phrases are 
pervasive in human communication, yet they are difficult to 
explain theoretically. In fact, the ability to handle idiosyncrat- 
ic behavior of phrases should be a criterion for any theory of 
lexical representation. Due to the huge number of such 
phrases in the English language, phrase representation must be 
amenable to parsing, generation, and also to learning. In this 
paper we demonstrate a semantic representation which facili- 
tates, for a wide variety of phrases, both learning and parsing. 
1. Introduction 
The phrasal approach to language processing \[Backer75, 
Pawley83, Fillmore86\] emphasizes the role of the lexicon as a 
knowledge source. Rather than maintaining a single generic 
lexical entry for each word, e.g.: take, the lexicon contains 
many phrases, e.g.: take over, take it or leave it, 
take it up with, take it for granted, etc. Although 
this approach proves effective in parsing and in generation 
\[Wilensky84\], there are three problems which require further 
investigation. First, phrase interaction: the lexicon provides 
representation for single phrases, such as take to task and 
make up one' s mind. Yet it is required to analyze complex 
clauses such as he made up his mind to take her to 
task. The problem lies with the way the meanings of the two 
phrases interact to form the compound meaning. Second, 
phrase ambiguity: \[Zernik86\] phrasal parsing shifts the task 
from single-word selection to the selection of entire lexical 
phrases. When a set of lexical phrases appear syntactically 
equivalent, i.e.: he ran into a friend, he ran into an 
1986 Mercedes, he ran into the store, and he ran 
into trouble again, disambiguation must be performed by 
semantic means. The conditions which facilitate phrase 
discrimination reside within each lexical entry itself. Third, 
phrase idiosyncracy: the meaning representation of phrases 
such as: lay down the law VS. put one' s foot down, 
must distinguish the special use of each phrase. This paper is 
concerned in the representation of phrase meanings and the 
process of acquiring these meanings from examples in context. 
* This research was supported in part by a grant from the ITA Foundation. 
Consider the figurative phrases in the sentences below, as 
they are parsed by the program RINA \[Zernik85a\]. 
Sh The Democrats in the house carried the water for 
Reagan's tax-reform bill.** 
$2: The famous mobster evaded prosecution for 
years. Finally, they threw the book at him 
for tax evasion. 
Depending on the contents of the given lexicon, the program 
may interpret these sentences in one of two ways. On the one 
hand, assuming that the meaning of a phrase exists in the lexi- 
con, the program applies that meaning in the comprehension of 
the sentence. In S1, the program understands that the Demo- 
cratic representatives did the "dirty" work in passing the bill 
for Reagan. On the other hand, if the figurative phrase does 
not exist in the lexicon, an additional task is performed: the 
program must figure out the meaning of the new phrase, using 
existing knowledge: First, the meanings given for the single 
words carry and water are processed literally. Second, the 
context which exists prior to the application of the phrase, pro- 
vides a hypothesis for the formation of the phrase meaning. A 
dialog with RINA proceeds as follows: 
RINA: They moved water? 
User: No. The Democrats carried the water for 
Reagan. 
RINA: They helped him pass the bill? 
Thus, RINA detects the metaphor underlying the phrase, 
and using the context, it learns that carry the water means 
helping another person do a hard job. Consider encounters 
with three other phrases: 
Jenny wanted to go punk but her father 
$3: laid down the law. 
$4: put his foot down. 
$5: read her the riot act. 
In all these cases, it is understood from the context that 
Jenny's father objected to her plan of going punk (aided by the 
word but which suggests that something went wrong with 
Jenny's goals). However, what is the meaning of each one of 
the phrases, and in particular do all these phrases convey ident- 
ical concepts? 
** This sentence was recorded off the ABe television program Nightline, 
December 12, 1985. 
106 
1.2 The Issues 
In encoding meanings of figurative phrases, we must ad- 
dress the following issues. 
Underlying Knowledge 
What is the knowledge required in order to encode the 
phrase throw the book? Clearly, this knowledge includes the 
situation and the events that take place in court, namely the 
judge punishing the defendant. 
The phrase carry the water, for example, requires two 
kinds of knowledge: 
(a) Knowledge about the act of carrying water which can 
support the analysis of the phrase metaphor. 
(b) Knowledge about general plans and goals, and the way 
one person agrees to serve as an agent in the execution of 
the plans of another person. This knowledge supports the 
analysis of the context. 
While the phrases above could be denoted in terms of 
plans and goals, other phrases, i.e.: rub one's nose in it, 
climb the walls, and have a chip on one's shoulder 
require knowledge about emotions, such as embarrassment 
and frustration. Unless the program maintains knowledge 
about resentment, the phrase have a chip on the should- 
er, for example, cannot be represented. Thus, a variety of 
knowledge structures take place in encoding figurative phrases. 
Representing Phrase Meanings and Connotations 
The appearance of each phrase carries certain implica- 
tions. For example, John put his foot down implies that 
John refused a request, and on the other hand, John read the 
riot act implies that he reacted angrily about a certain event 
in the past. John gave Mary a hard time implies that he re- 
fused to cooperate, and argued with Mary since he was an- 
noyed, while John laid down the law implies that John im- 
posed his authority in a discussion. The representation of each 
phrase must account for such implications. 
Three different phrases in sentences $3-$5 are applied in 
the same context. However, not any phrase may be applied in 
every context. For example, consider the context established 
by this paragraph: 
$6: Usually, Mary put up with her husband's cook- 
ing, but when he served her cold potatoes 
for breakfast, she put her foot down. 
Could the phrase in this sentence be replaced by the other two 
phrases: (a) lay down the law, or (b) read the riot act? 
While understandable, these two phrases are not appropriate in 
that context. The sentence she read him the riot act 
does not make sense in the context of debating food taste. The 
sentence she laid down the law does not make as much 
sense since there is no argument between individuals with 
non-equal authority. Thus, there are conditions for the appli- 
cability of each lexical phrase in various contexts. These con- 
ditions support phrase disambiguation, and must be included 
as pan of a phrase meaning. 
Phrase Acquisition 
Phrase meanings are learned from examples given in con- 
text. Suppose the structure and meaning of put one' s foot 
down is acquired through the analysis of the following sen- 
tences: 
$6: Usually, Mary put up with her husband's cook- 
ing, but when he served her cold potatoes 
for breakfast, she put her foot down. 
S7: Jenny was dating a new boyfriend and started 
to show up after midnight. When she came 
at 2am on a weekday, her father put his foot 
down: no more late dates. 
58: From time to time I took money from John, and 
I did not always remember to give it back 
to him. He put his foot down yesterday when I 
asked him for a quarter. 
Since each example contains many concepts, both appropriate 
and inappropriate, the appropriate concepts must be identified 
and selected. Furthermore, although each example provides 
only a specific episode, the ultimate meaning must be general- 
ized to encompass further episodes. 
Literal Interpretation 
Single-word senses (e.g.: the sense of the panicle into in 
run into another ear), as well as entire metaphoric actions 
(e.g.: carry the water in the Democratic representa- 
tives carried the water for Reagan's tax-reform 
bill) take pan in forming the meaning of unknown figurative 
phrases. Can the meaning of a phrase be acquired in spite of 
the fact that its original metaphor is unknown, as is the case 
with read the riot act (what act exactly?) or carry the 
water (carry what water)? 
2. The Program 
The program RINA \[Zernik85b\] is designed to parse sen- 
tences which include figurative phrases. When the meaning of 
a phrase is given, that meaning is used in forming the concept 
of the sentence. However, when the phrase is unknown, the 
figurative phrase should be acquired from the context. The pro- 
gram consists of three components: phrasal parser, phrasal lex- 
icon, and phrasal acquisition module. 
2.1 Phrasal Parser 
A lexical entry, a phrase, is a triple associating a linguistic 
pattern with its concept and a situation. A clause in the input 
text is parsed in three steps: 
(1) Matching the phrase pattern against the clause in the text. 
(2) Validating in the context the relations specified by the 
phrase situation. 
(3) If both (1) and (2) are successful then instantiating the 
phrase concept using variable bindings computed in (1) 
and (2). 
107 
For example, consider the sentence: 
$9: :Fred wanted to marry Sheila, but she ducked 
the issue for years. Finally he put her on the 
spot. 
The figurative phrase is parsed relative to the context esta- 
blished by the first sentence. Assume that the lexicon contains 
a single phrase, described informally as: 
phrase 
pattern: Personl put Person2 on the spot 
situation: Person2 avoids making a certain tough decision 
concept: Personl prompts Person2 to make that decision 
The steps in parsing the clause using this phrase are: 
(1) The pattern is matched successfully against the text. 
Consequently, Personl and person2 are bound to Fred 
and Sheila respectively. 
(2) The situation associated with the pattern is validated in 
the context. After reading the first phrase the context 
contains two concepts: (a) Fred wants to marry Sheila, 
and (b) she avoids a decision. The situation matches the 
input. 
(3) Since both (1) and (2) are successful, then thepattern it- 
self is instantiated, adding to the context: 
Fred prompted Sheila to make up her mind. 
Phrase situation, distinguished from phrase concept, is intro- 
duced in our representation, since it help solve three problems: 
(a) in disambiguation it provides a discrimination condition for 
phrase selection, (b) in generation it determines if the phrase is 
applicable, and (c) in acquisition it allows the incorporation of 
the input context as pan of the phrase. 
2.2 Phrasal Lexicon 
RINA uses a declarative phrasal lexicon which is imple- 
mented through GATE \[Mueller84\] using unification \[Kay79\] 
as the grammatic mechanism. Below are some sample phrasal 
patterns. 
PI: ?x <lay down> <the law> 
P2: ?x throw <the book> <at ?y> 
These patterns actually stand for the slot fillers given below: 
PI: (subject ?x (class person)) 
(verb (root lay) (modifier down)) 
(object (determiner the)(noun law)) 
P2: (subject ?x (class person)) 
(verb (root throw)) 
(object ?z (marker at) (class person))) 
(object (determiner the)(noun book)) 
This notation is described in greater detail in \[Zernik85b\]. 
2.3 Phrase Acquisition through Generalization and 
Refinement 
Phrases are acquired in a process of hypothesis formation 
and error correction. The program generates and refines hy- 
potheses about both the linguistic pattern, and the conceptual 
meaning of phrases. For example, in acquiring the phrase 
carry the water, RINA first uses the phrase already existing 
in the lexicon, but it is too general a pattern and does not make 
sense in the context. 
?x carry:verb ?z:phys-obj <for ?y> 
Clearly, such a syntactic error stems from a conceptual error. 
Once corrected, the hypothesis is: 
?x carry:verb <the water> <for ?y> 
The meaning of a phrase is constructed by identifying salient 
features in the context. Such features are given in terms of 
scripts, relationships, plan/goal situations and emotions. For 
example, carry the water is given in terms of agency goal 
situation (?x executes a plan for ?x) on the background of 
rivalry relationship (?x and ?y are opponents). Only by 
detecting these elements in the context can the program learn 
the meaning of the phrase. 
3. Conceptual Representation 
The key for phrase acquisition is appropriate conceptual 
representation, which accounts for various aspects of phrase 
meanings. 
Consider the phrase to throw the book in the following 
paragraph: 
$2: The famous mobster avoided prosecution for 
years. Finally they threw the book at him for 
tax evasion. 
We analyze here the components in the representation of this 
phrase. 
3.1 Scripts 
Basically, the figurative phrase depicts the trial script 
which is given below: 
(a) The prosecutor says his arguments to the judge 
(b) The defendant says his arguments to the judge 
(c) The judge determines the outcome, either: 
(I) to punish the defendant 
(2) not to punish the. defendant 
This script involves a Judge, a Defendant, and a Prosecutor, 
and it describes a sequence of events. Within the script, the 
phrase points to a single event, the decision to punish the de- 
fendant. However, this event presents only a rough approxi- 
mation of the real meaning which requires further refinement. 
(a) The phrase may be applied in situations that are more 
general than the trial script itself. For example: 
Sl0: When they caught him cheating in an exam for 
the third time, the dean of the school de- 
cided to throw the book at him. 
Although the context does not contain the specific trial 
script, the social authority which relates the judge and the 
defendant exists also between the dean and John. 
(b) The phrase in $2 asserts not only that the mobster was 
punished by the judge, but also that a certain prosecution 
strategy was applied against him. 
108 
3.2 Specific Plans and Goals 
In order to accommodate such knowledge, scripts incor- 
porate specific planning situations. For example, in prosecuting 
a person, there are three options, a basic rule and two devia- 
tions: 
(a) Basically, for each law violation, assign a penalty as 
prescribed in the book. 
(b) However, in order to loosen a prescribed penalty, mitigat- 
ing circumstances may be taken into account. 
(c) And on the other hand, in order to toughen a prescribed 
penalty, additional violations may be thrown in. 
In $2 the phrase conveys the concept that the mobster is pun- 
ished for tax evasion since they cannot prosecute him for his 
more serious crimes. It is the selection of this particular 
prosecution plan which is depicted by the phrase. The phrase 
representation is given below, 
phrase 
pattern ?x:person throw:verb 
<the book> <at ?y:person> 
situation ($trial (prosecution ?x) 
(defendant ?y)) 
concept (act (select-plan 
(actor prosecution) 
(plan(ulterior-crime 
(crime ?c) 
(crime-of ?y))))) 
(result (thwart-goal 
(goal ?g) 
(goal-of ?y))) 
where ulterior-crime is the third prosecution plan above. 
3.3 Relationships 
The authority relationship \[Schank78, Carbonel179\] is per- 
vasive in phrase meanings, appearing in many domains: 
judge-defendant, teacher-student, employer-employee, parent- 
child, etc. The existence of authority creates certain expecta- 
tionsi if X presents an authority for Y, then: 
(a) X issues rules which Y has to follow. 
(b) Y is expected to follow these rules. 
(c) Y is expected to support goals of X. 
(d) X may punish Y if Y violates the rules in (a). 
(e) X cannot dictate actions of Y; X can only appeal to Y to 
act in a certain way. 
(,9 X can delegate his authority to Z which becomes an au- 
thority for Y. 
In S10, the dean of the school presents an authority for John. 
John violated the rules of the school and is punished by the 
dean. More phrases involving authority are given by the fol- 
lowing examples. 
511: I thought that parking ticket was unfair so I 
took it up with the Judge. 
S12: My boss wanted us to stay in the office until 
9pm every evening to finish the project on 
time. Everybody was upset, but nobody stood 
up to the boss. 
513: Jenny's father lald down the law: no more late 
dates. 
The representation of the phrase take it up with, for exam- 
ple, is given below: 
phrase 
pattern ?x:person <take:verb up> 
?z:problem <with ?y:person> 
situation (authority (high ?y) (low ?x)) 
concept (act (auth-appeal(actor ?x) 
(to ?y) (object ?z)) 
(purpose (act (auth-decree 
(actor ?y) 
(to ?x) 
(object ?z))) 
(result (support-plan 
(plan-of ?x)))) 
The underlying situation is an authority relationship between 
X and Y. The phrase implies that X appeals to Y so that Y 
will act in favor of X. 
3.4 Abstract Planning Situations 
General planning situations, such as agency, agreement, 
goal-conflict and goal-coincidence \[Wilensky83\] are addressed 
in the examples below. 
S1: The Democrats in the house carried the water for 
Reagan in his tax-reform bill. 
The phrase in S1 is described using both rivalry and agency. 
In contrast to expectations stemming from rivalry, the actor 
serves as an agent in executing his opponent's plans. The 
representation of the phrase is given below: 
phrase 
pattern ?x:person carry:verb 
<the water ?z:plan> <for ?y:person> 
situation (rivalry (actorl ?x) (actor2 ?y)) 
concept (agency (agent ?x) 
(plan ?z) 
(plan-of ?y)) 
Many other phrases describe situations at the abstract goal/plan 
level. Consider $14: 
S14: I planned to do my CS20 project with Fred. I 
backed out of it when I heard that he had 
flunked CS20 twice in the past. 
Back out of depicts an agreed plan which is cancelled by one 
party in contradiction to expectations stemming from the 
agreement. 
S15: John' s strongest feature in arguing is his 
ability to fallbaekon his quick wit. 
Fall back on introduces a recovery of a goal through an al- 
ternative plan, in spite of a failure of the originally selected 
plan. 
516: My standing in the tennis club deteriorated 
since I was bogged down wlth CS20 assignments 
the whole summer. 
In bog down, a goal competition over the actor's time exists 
between a major goal (tennis) and a minor goal (CS20). The 
major goal fails due to the efforts invested in the minor goal. 
109 
3.5 Emotions and Attitudes 
In text comprehension, emotions \[Dyer83, Mueller85\] and 
attitudes are accounted for in two ways: (a) they are generated 
by goal/planning situations, such as goal failure and goal 
achievement, and (b) they generate goals, and influence plan 
selection. Some examples of phrases involving emotions are 
given below. Humiliation is experienced by a person when 
other people achieve a goal which he falls to achieve. The 
phrase in S17 depicts humiliation which is caused when John 
reminds the speaker of his goal situation: 
S17: I failed my CS20 class. My friend John rubbed 
nlynose lnit by telling me that he got an A+. 
Resentment is experienced by a person when a certain goal of 
his is not being satisfied. This goal situation causes the execu- 
tion of plans by that person to deteriorate. The phrase in S18 
depicts such an attitude: 
S18: Since clients started to complain about John, 
his boss asked him if he had a chip on his 
shoulder. 
Embarrassment is experienced by a person when his plan 
failure is revealed to other people. The phrase in S19, depicts 
embarrassment which is caused when a person is prompted to 
make up his mind between several bad options. 
519: Ted Koppel put his guest on the spot when he asked 
him if he was ready to denounce appartheid 
in South Africa. 
In all the examples above, it is not the emotion itself which is 
conveyed by the phrase. Rather, the concept conveys a certain 
goal situation which causes that emotion. For example, in $20 
(rub one' s nose) a person does something which causes the 
speaker to experience humiliation. 
4. Learning Phrase Meanings 
Consider the situation when a new phrase is first encoun- 
tered by the program: 
User: The Democrats in the house carried the water 
for Reagan's tax-reform bill. 
RINA: They moved watery 
User: No. They carried the water for him. 
P~\[NA: They helped him pass the bill. 
Three sources take pan in forming the new concept, (a) the 
linguistic clues, (b) the context, and (c) the metaphor. 
4.1 The Context 
The context prior to reading the phrase includes two con- 
cepts: 
(a) Reagan has a goal of passing a law. 
(b) The Democrats are Reagan's rivals-they are expected to 
thwart his goals, his legislation in particular. 
These concepts provide the phrase situation which specifies 
the context required for the application of the phrase. 
4.2 The Literal Interpretation 
The literal interpretation of carried the water as 
"moved water" does not make sense given the goal/plan situa- 
tion in the context. As a result, RINA generates the literal in- 
terpretation and awaits confirmation from the user. If the user 
repeats the utterance or generates a negation, then RINA gen- 
erates a number of utterances, based on the current context, in 
hypothesizing a novel phrase interpretation. 
4.3 The Metaphor 
Since the action of moving water does not make sense 
literally, it is examined at the level of plans and goals: Moving 
water from location A to B is a low-level plan which supports 
other high-level plans (i.e., using the water in location B). 
Thus, at the goal/plan level, the phrase is perceived as: "they 
executed a low-level plan as his agents" (the agency is suggest- 
ed by the prepositional phrase: for his tax-reform bill; 
i.e., they did an act.for his goal). This is taken as the phrase 
concept. 
4.4 The Constructed Meaning 
The new phrase contains three parts: 
(a) The phrase pattern is extracted from the example sen- 
tence: 
?x carry:verb <the water> <for ?y> 
(b) The phrase situation is extracted from the underlying 
context: 
(rivalry (actorl ?x) (actor2 ?y)) 
(c) The phrase concept is taken from the metaphor: 
(plan-agency (actor ?x) (plan ?z) (plan-of ?y)) 
Thus, the phrase means that in a rivalry situation, an opponent 
served as an agent in carrying out a plan. 
5. Future Work and Conclusions 
The phrasal approach elevates language processing from 
interaction among single words to interaction among entire 
phrases. Although it increases substantially the size of the lexi- 
con, this chunking simplifies the complexity of parsing since 
clauses in the text include fewer modules which interact in 
fewer ways. The phrasal approach does reduce the power of 
the program in handling non-standard uses of phrases. For ex- 
ample, consider the situation where a mobster kidnaps a judge, 
points the gun at him, and says: No funny book you could 
throw at me now would do you any good!*. Our current 
parser would certainly fail in matching the syntactic pattern 
and inferring the ironic meaning. The analysis of such a sen- 
tence would require that the program associate the two exist- 
ing phrases, the general throw something and the figurative 
throw the book, and make inferences about the pun meant by 
the mobster. Such examples show that it is difficult to capture 
human behavior through a single parsing paradigm. 
* This example is attributed to an anonymous referee. 
110 
Parsing text is a futile task unless it addresses the ultimate 
objective of language processing, namely mapping text into 
conceptual representation. To this end, we have shown the 
structure of a lexicon which provides the association between 
syntactic patterns with their semantic concepts. However, due 
to the huge size of the English language, not all phrases can be 
given at the outset. A parsing program is required to handle 
unknown phrases as they are encountered in the text. In RINA 
we have shown how new phrases can be acquired from exam- 
ples in context. 
Phrase acquisition from context raises questions regarding 
the volume of knowledge required for language processing. A 
phrase such as throw the book requires highly specialized 
knowledge involving sentencing strategies in court. Now, this 
is only one figurative phrase out of many. Thus, in order to 
handle figurative phrases in general, a program must ultimately 
have access to all the knowledge of a socially mature person. 
Fortunately, learning makes this problem more tractible. In the 
process of phrase acquisition, phrase meaning is elevated from 
the specific domain in which the phrase has originated to a lev- 
el of abstract goal situations. For example, once throw the 
book is understood as the act of authority-decree, then 
knowledge of the trial situation no longer needs to be accessed. 
The phrase is well comprehended in other domains: my boss 
threw the book at me, his parents threw the book at 
him, her teacher threw the book at her, etc. At that 
level, a finite number of goal situations can support the appli- 
cation of figurative phrases across a very large number of 
domains. 
\[Becker75\] 
\[Carbonel179\] 
\[Dyer83\] 
\[Fillmore86\] 
\[Kay79\] 
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111 
