SEMANTIC STRUCTURE ANALYSIS OF JAPANESE NOUN PHRASES 
WITH ADNOMINAL PARTICLES 
Akira SHIMAZU, Shozo NAITO, and Hirosato NOMURA 
Basic Research Laboratories, N.T.T. 
3-9-11, Midori-cho, Musashino-shi, Tokyo 180, Japan 
Abstract 
Japanese has many noun phrase patterns of the 
type A no B consisting of two nouns A and B with an 
adnominal particle no. As the semantic relations 
between the two nouns in the noun phrase are not made 
explicit, the interpretation of the phrases depends 
mainly on the semantic characteristics of the nouns. 
This paper describes the semantic diversity of A no B 
and a method of semantic analysis for such phrases 
based on feature unification. 
1. Introduction 
Japanese has many noun phrase patterns of the 
type A no B. The noun phrase pattern, which consists 
of two nouns A and B with an adnominal particle no, 
and which has at least the same ambiguity as B of A 
(and some additional ambiguities not found with the 
equivalent English construction), does not express any 
explicit semantic relations between the two nouns. 
Consequently, its interpretation depends mainly on 
the semantic characteristics of the nouns. Further- 
more, phrase patterns NI no N2 no ... no Nn often 
appear. Because the number of possible dependencies 
between the constituents is 2 "'I (2n-3)l! / n!, semantic 
analysis of such phrases is necessary to resolve the 
ambiguities. To date, there have been no adequate 
analyses for this linguistic phenomenon, nor have 
there been any clear methodological proposals for its 
semantic analysis. 
This paper describes a) the semantic diversity of A 
no B, b) the analysis of the semantic structure for A no 
B by a unification-based method of semantic function 
application, c) typical semantic structures of A no B, d) 
the possibility of paraphrasing A no B as a noun phrase 
with a relative clause by the addition of a verb, and e) 
the resolution of ambiguities using contextual informa- 
tion from the viewpoint of relation between A no B and 
its corresponding relative clause. 
Although A no B is a simple fo~n, it is interesting 
in two respects. First, A no B represents a general 
linguistic problem for semantic processing. The reason 
is that, in some cases, A or B is a noun form derived 
from a verb or adjective, thus necessitating the seman- 
tic processing of verbs and adjectives. Second, A no B 
can be paraphrased as a noun phrase with a relative 
clause, in just the same way as some English complex 
nominals \[3, 5\]. Putting it another way, as information 
is condensed into a simple expression, there are 
ambiguities as to the semantic relations between the 
two nouns. Consequently, contextual analysis plays a 
crucial part in the resolution of the ambiguities. 
2. Semantic Diversity of A no B 
A no B is frequently found in Japanese sentences. 
An exsmlnation of scientific and newspaper articles 
showed that the occurrence of A no B accounts for about 
half the total number of noun phrases in a text ill\]. The 
other occurrences are noun phrases with relative 
clauses, and coordinated noun phrases. In construc- 
tions of the type A no B, A or B can represent either a 
simple noun, as in Taroo no ie ("raro's house"), NP of 
the same A no B pattern, as in kariforunia no shuto no 
jinko ("the population of the capital of California"), or 
NP with a relative clause, as in Watashi ga atta hito no 
na ("the name of the person who I met"). There is also a 
fourth pattern involving an additional particle such as 
kara, made, de and so on, as in Tookyoo kara no 
densha ("the train from Tokyo"). This paper deals 
mainly with constructions of the first type, though the 
method presented here is also applicable recursively to 
patterns of the second and third types: this is possible 
because in such constructions, the semantic features of 
A (i.e. X no Y, or SY) derive from its head (Y). In the 
fourth type, analysis is slightly less straightforward, 
because the particle does provide some additional 
useful information. 
A no modifies a head B to restrict or clarify the 
referencetl. 21 of B. In the example Sutanfoodo daigaku 
no kyooju ("professor at Stanford University"), Sutan- 
foodo daigaku ("Stanford University") restricts and 
clarifies the range of reference for kyooju ("professor"). 
Such A no B constructions can be classified seman- 
tically into five main groups according to the character- 
istics of A and B, as shown in Table 1. The five main 
groups can be further classified into a total of about 80 
semantic relations. In the study mentioned above \[III, 
the authors examined about ten thousand examples of 
A no B occurrences, and checked the semantic relations. 
The appendix shows the semantic relations together 
with examples. It is necessary to analyze these seman- 
123 
Table I Five main groups by the semantic classi.qcation of A no B 
1. B functions as a predicate semantically, and A is its 
argument. 
/care no renhi (:0~ ¢) ~, ~is love") 
B: ren'ai (.~,~, "love ~) ... action, 
A: kate (~. "he") ... agent of the action 
2. B functions as a case role such as location, and is restricted 
relatively by A. 
gakkoo no nine (.-----~ ¢) ~. "front of a school') 
B: nine (~, "front"/"oefore'} ... location/time, 
A: gakkoo (~. "school') ... object 
3. B is an attribute of A. 
hako no omosa (;U ¢3 t ~ , "weight of a box') 
B: omosa(lt ~, "weight"} ... attribute, 
A: kako(R, 'q0ox-) ... object 
4. B is an argument of a predicate functioned semantically by A. 
sanpo no him (~ ¢) ~,, "man who strolls') 
B: Aim (/~, "man') ... agent, 
A: sanpo (\['~. "strolls") ... action 
5. A is a kind of an attribute value orB. 
kooennoki(~--~o)YK, "tree in a park') 
B: ki (~, "Wee') ... object, 
A: kooen (~ \[\], "park") 
... value of an object's attribute location 
tic relations in such detail in order to produce good 
quality machine translation from Japanese into Eng- 
Lish among other tasks. To date, linguistic processing 
has not entailed such a detailed classification. 
The semantic structure of A no B is generally a 
function of the meanings of A and B, but the processing 
is not just a simple computation based on the semantic 
contents of A and B. For instance, when B functions as 
a predicate semantically, there is a case relation 
between A and B. However, there are no syntactic 
clues such as a case particle, unlike in full sentences. 
Hence, it is necessary to consider the semantic 
characteristics of A and B in order to analyze the 
semantic structure. 
Processing of context \[12\] is generally necessary to 
determine the correct semantic structure of A no B 
uniquely, as A no B is often ambiguous if considered 
out of context. For instance, in the case of Ft~ransujin 
no hanashi ("speech of a Frenchman"), there are two 
possible semantic relations for Furansujin ("French- 
man"): i.e. as agent or content of hanashi ("speech"). 
3. Semantic Structure Analysis of A no B 
3.1 Analysis by Function Application 
The semantic structure of A no B is generally 
analyzed from A and B by "semantic function 
application", which is similar to the idea of function 
application in the CUG framework (categorial 
unification grammar) 14. za\], viewing either A or B as a 
functor, and the other as its argument. 
(functor left/right) = (argument) 
(functor result) = (semantic-structure) 
From a different viewpoint, this is a generalization of 
the method of case frame analysis in which the analysis 
of the semantic structure of a verb-plus-noun phrase is 
based on the case-frame of the verb. That is, when a 
verb as a functor is applied to a noun phrase as its 
argument, if the noun phrase and a slot of the case- 
frame unify, the semantic structure is obtained as a 
result of assigning the relevant information from the 
noun phrase to the slot- So, the analysis is a kind of 
semantic treatment using the unification-based 
method. In this view, the case frames correspond to 
subcategorization frames, and the analysis corresponds 
to unifications applied to a subcategorization frame Is, s\] 
Characteristics of the function-based analysis are 
mainly to express input-output relations clearly, and to 
put stress on a lexical-based method. 
As the meaning of A no B depends on the individual 
A and B, it follows that each lexical entry must have 
information regarding its "functionality". This is also 
the method adopted in CUG. Furthermore, these 
functors, arguments, and resulting semantic structures 
are represented as sets of at1~ribute-value pairs, again 
as in CUG. This is also similar to frame representa- 
tions found in AI. The set of attribute-value pairs 
associated with a functor noun and an argument noun 
are generally represented as in Figure 1, and will be 
called a "semantic structure". The characteristics of 
these structures are described in Section 3.3. In the 
representation, the attributes left and right indicate 
an argument for a functor word and a position (direc- 
tion), and the values represent conditions imposed on 
the argument. Syncat, semcat and sense indicate syn- 
tactic, semantic and head word meaning respectively. 
Marker indicates the case particle found as a post-posi- 
tion with the noun phrase. Pred gives semantic condi- 
tions which restrict and clarify the relation between A 
syncat: < syntactic.features :> 
semcat~ < semarUic-feoJures :> 
sense: < word.senae > 
marker. < c~e-partic\[e :> 
leR: NONE 
right: syncat: <~ syntactic.features > 
semcat: < semantic-features > 
sense: \[\] 
pred: < cuae.rmme >: 
syncat: (syncat) 
semcat: (semcac) 
sense: (sense) 
case: < syntactic -cc~se-name :> 
marker: (marker) 
result: syncat: <: syntactic-\[eatures ~> 
semcat: <semarutic-features > 
sense: < word-senae 
marker: \[\] 
pred: (right pred) 
Figure la Format for a functor noun having an argument at 
its right 
124 
syncat: 
semcat: 
sense: 
marker: 
left: 
right: 
pred: 
< syntactic-features > 
< semantic-features > 
< word-sense > 
< case.particle > 
NONE 
NONE 
rel: 
argl: 
<predicate-name > 
syncat: < syntactic-features > 
semeat: < semantic-features > 
sense: \[\] 
default-marker: 
< default.case.particle > 
marker: < case.particles > 
argn: syncat: < syntactic-features > 
semcat: < semantic-features > 
sense: \[\] 
default-marker: 
< default.case.particle > 
marker. < case.particles > 
Figure lb Format for an argument noun 
and B. Result shows sets of attribute-value pairs 
obtained by the semantic function application. In the 
representation, words in parentheses such as (syncat) 
and (right pred) are path notations and are used to 
point to a value in the manner of an index notation Isl. 
3.2 Semantic Structure Analysis of A no B 
The noun phrase A no B is regarded as a composi- 
tion of A no and B. Therefore, A no B is composed of A 
no and B by the function role of either A no or B. Which 
of A no or B has a function role depends on syntactic 
and semantic characteristic as described in section 3.3. 
Then A no is regarded as being constructed from A and 
no. Accordingly, the semantic structure of A no B is 
analyzed as follows: First, the functor no gets argu- 
ment A, and makes a noun phrase A no with the 
semantic characteristics inherited from A. Secondly, 
the functor A no or B gets an argument B or A no 
respectively and makes a noun phrase A no B with the 
semantic characteristics inherited from B. The analy- 
sis process is shown as follows. 
(1) functor: no, argument: A, result: Ano 
(2) functor: Ano, argument: B, result: AnoB, or 
functor: B, argument: Ano, result: AnoB 
In the case of A p no B (where p is an additional par- 
ticle), A and p are combined first. The semantic struc- 
ture of A p is almost the same as that of A no except for 
the additional information derived from the marker p. 
After this, the final semantic structure is composed in 
the same way as for A no B. This paper focuses mainly 
on the analysis process after constituents of A no B 
have been found, and does not pay specific attention to 
the method of how constituents are found, for which 
purpose the active chart parsing method is used. 
With regard to the composition of A no, we take the 
choice giving no the functor role from the viewpoint of 
generality, although it is possible to view A as having 
this role. No has a functor role that shifts character- 
istics and functions of A to the semantic structure of A 
no, and adds a marker feature to the semantic structure 
of A no. The representation of no is shown in Figure 2. 
In the analysis of A no B, the semantic characteris- 
tics and functions of A and B weigh heavily, because 
although there is an adnominal case particle no, it is 
semantically rather neutral compared with other case 
particles. To put it another way, case particles usually 
function as explicit indicators of the preferred semantic 
interpretation. This fact suggests the significance of 
studying the method of analysis of A no B. 
When A no has a functor role, the functor must get B 
as its argument and extract a semantic relation 
between A and B. For example, in guruupu no shuukai 
("meeting of a group"), guruupu no modifies an action 
nominal and makes a result semantic structure 
indicating the semantic relation (agent) as in Figure 3. 
In the representation >pred indicates a constraint 
that an argument must have a pred feature. 
The main semantic category of A no B is generally 
taken from the head B of A no" B. However, in some 
cases the semantics of B are different from those of A no 
B, and it is necessary to change the semantic cate- 
syncat: p 
sense: no(c), no) 
left: syncat: {n np} 
semcat: \[\] 
sense: \[\] 
marker: no 
left: NONE 
right: \[\] 
result: \[\] 
right: NONE 
result: syncat: np 
semcat: (left semcat) 
sense: (left sense) 
marker: no 
left: NONE 
right: (left right) 
result: (left result) 
Figure 2 
syncat: 
semcat: 
sense: 
left: 
right: 
result: 
Figure 3a 
Semantic structure of a particle no 
n 
animate 
guruupu ( ~" ~t~ - -f , group) 
NONE 
syncat: 
semcat: 
sense: 
> pred: 
{np n} \[\] 
\[\] 
\[\]: syncat: 
semcat: 
sense: 
np 
(right semcat) 
(right sense) 
(right pred) 
syncat: 
semcat: 
sense: 
pred: 
np 
animate 
(sense) 
Semantic structure of gruupu ("group"\] 
125 
syncat~ 
semcat: 
sense: 
marker. 
left 
right: 
result: 
Figure 3b 
np 
loc 
• gruupu(~'%,- "/, group) 
no 
NONE 
syncat: 
~mcat: 
senso-" 
>pred: 
syncat~ 
Semcat: 
Sense: lz~l: 
~p~ 
{action thing} \[\] 
\[\]: syncat: 
semca~ 
sen6e: 
default-marker: 
marker, no 
np 
(fight semeat) 
(right sense) 
(right pred) 
Semantic structure of gru~pu no 
np 
foe 
(sense) 
de 
syncat: 
Semcat. 
Sense: 
marker. \[\] 
left: NONE 
right~ NONE 
pred: reh 
agent: 
Figure 3e 
n 
action 
shuuAai (~ ~, meeting) 
held-meeting 
syncat" {np n} 
semcar animate 
sense: \[\] 
case: stlbj 
dei'ault-marker: ga 
marker:. {ga no *} 
Semantic structure of shuukai ('meeting") 
syneat: 
Semcat~ 
sense: 
pred: 
np 
action 
shsuAa/(~ =, ~ meeting) 
reh held-meeting 
agent: syncat: np 
semcat: animate 
sense: &uruupu ( ~" ;t, -- "t , group) 
case: suhj 
default-marker: ga 
marker:, no 
Figure 3d Semantic structure of gruupu no shuuAai 
('meeting of a group') 
gories. For example, heita," ("soldier") is animate, but 
oraocka no heitai ("toy soldier") is not. Therefore 
omocAa no has the function of changing the semantic 
category of the head which it modifies. Such a function 
is obtained by a kind of overwriting unification 19! 
3.3 Semantic Structures in Five Main Groups 
The characteristics of the semantic structures in the 
f~ve ma/n groups are as follows. 
\[Case 1\] In this case, B, which is the nominal form of 
a predicate (a verb or an adjective), functions as an 
ar~ument~ and A, which is a semantic case argument 
of B, functions as a functor. Notice that when B 
functions semantically as a predicate, there are two 
alternatives for the assignment of the functor role. The 
first is that the predicate word functions as the functor. 
The second is the reverse L41. This paper adopts the 
latter way mainly because of the characteristic of free 
word order in a Japanese sentence. 
The semantic structure of A and A rw is almost the 
same except for a marker feature, and has the following 
functor role: when A no is an obligatory case (argu- 
ment) of the predicate B, A no unifies with the 
argument feature of" B. When A no is an optional case 
(adjunct), the semantic structure of A no is added to 
that of B as an optional case by unification. The functor 
role is added to A by a kind of lexical rule. Ez~mples 
are shown in Figures 3 and 4. 
\[Case 2 and Case 3\] In these cases, B represents a 
kind of case role or attribute respectively, which 
functions as a predicate. So, functionality is given to A 
in the same way as described above. Examples are 
shown in Figures 5 and 6. 
\[Case 4\] The reverse case of Case 1, that is, A is the 
nominal Form of" a predicate, and B is the semantic case 
element of the predicate. So B is a functor and A no is 
its argument in the reverse way. The example is shown 
in Figure 7. Kooen ("park") in the example gets an 
argument in the opposite direction to that of example 4. 
The phrase in this case corresponds to a noun phrase 
with a relative clause. So, a feature embedded is used 
in the representation, that is, it means that the pred 
feature is introduced from the complement. 
\[Case 5\] Semantic relations in this case are classified 
mainly into three types : a) relational restriction such 
as a human relation, b) attributive restrict/on such as a 
kind relation and c) situational restriction such as a 
location relation. 
(a) relational restr/ction: This case includes the rela- 
tionships between humans, organizations, and whole- 
part relations. Generally a predicate role is given to B 
and a functor role is given to A in the same way as Case 
1. An example is shown in Figure 8. In the example, 
sensei ("teacher") has a pred feature and is an argu- 
ment of the functor watasA~ ('I"). 
(b) attributive restriction: A has attributive character- 
istics such as quantity, kind, degree, and property, and 
B is generally a thing. As A functions as a kind of pred- " 
icate, a predicate feature is assigned to A. An example 
is shown in Figure 9 with kooshifima r~o n,,no Ccheck- 
ered-pattern cloth"), where kooshijurna has a pred fea- 
ture and is an argument of the functor ~,,no ("cloth"). 
(c) situational restriction: A has situational meanings 
such as location, time, source, destination, purpose, and 
method, and restricts B by the situation. Like the 
relational restriction case, B is assigned a predicate 
feature, and A a functor role as shown in Figure 10. In 
the example, doozoo ("oronze statue") has a pred fea- 
ture and is an argument of the functor kooen ("park"). 
126 
Akira SHIMAZU 
syncat: 
semcat: 
sense: 
marker: 
left~ 
right: 
result: 
Figure 4a 
syncat: 
semcat: 
sense: 
pred: 
Figure 4b 
n 
loc 
kooen (~ \[~, park) 
\[\] 
NONE 
syncat: {n rip v vp} 
semcat: \[\] 
sense: \[\] 
right: \[\] 
> pred: Io¢: syncat: np 
semcat: Io¢ 
sense: (sense) 
default-marker. 
marker:. (marker) 
syncat: np 
semcat: (right semcat) 
sense: (right sense) 
pred: (right pred) 
de 
Semantic structure of kooen ("park') 
np 
action 
shuukai (~1~ ~, meeting) 
tel: held-meeting 
agent: syncat: np 
semcat~ animate 
sense: \[\] 
case: subj 
default-marker, ga 
marker:. {ga no *} 
loc: syncat: np 
semcat: 1o¢ 
sense: kooen (~Y. ~, park) 
default-marker, de 
marker: no 
Semantic structure of kooen no shuukai 
("meeting in a park") 
syncat: 
semcat: 
sense: 
pred: 
np 
loc 
mae ('~, front) 
rel: be 
object: syncat: 
semcat: 
sense: 
case: 
default-marker: 
marker: no 
np 
loc 
biru ( ~ Jt~, building) 
subj 
ga 
Figure 5 Semantic structure of biru no mae ("front of a building") 
3.4 Organization of Lexical Information 
To assign an appropriate semantic structure to a 
noun, the following characteristics must be considered: 
a) A or B which works as a predicate in some cases 
works as a modifier (argument or adjunct) of a predi- 
cate in the other cases, as with kenkyuu ("research", 
"study") in the example gengo no kenkyuu ("study of 
language") and kenkyuu no kaishi ("start of the 
research"). Therefore, A or B generally has both roles 
of a predicate and a modifier. 
b) When there are several no's in a noun phase such as 
syncat: 
semcat: 
sense: 
pred: 
Figure 6 
np 
attribute 
takasa ( ~ ~, height) 
rel: have 
object: syncat: np 
semcat: animate 
sense: yama (ILl, mountain) 
case: subj 
default-marker: ga 
marker: no 
attribute: syncat: " (np) 
semcat: (semcat) 
sense: (sense) 
case: obj 
default-marker: o 
marker. * 
Semantic structure ofyama no takasa ("height of a 
mountain") 
syncat: 
semcat: 
Sense: 
marker: 
embedded: 
Figure 7 
np 
loc 
kooen ( ~ \[\], park) 
\[\] 
pred: rel held-meeting 
agent: syncat: {n np} 
semcat: animate 
sense: \[\] 
case: subj 
default-marker: ga 
marker: {ga no .} 
loc: syncat: np 
semcat: loc 
sense: (sense) 
default-marker: ga 
marker: • 
Semantic structure of shuukai no kouen ("park 
where people meet") 
syncat: np 
semcat: animate 
sense: sen,sei (~: ~__., 
marker: \[\] 
pred: rel: 
agent: 
teacher) 
teach 
syncat: (syncat) 
semcat: (semcatJ 
sense: (sense) 
case: subj 
default-marker: ga 
marker: * 
recipient: syncat: np 
semcat: animate 
sense: watash~ (~L, I) 
case: dative 
default-marker: ni 
marker: no 
object: syncat: {n np} 
semcat: \[\] 
sense: \[\] 
case; obj 
default-marker: o 
marker: no 
Figure 8 Semantic structure of watashi no sertsei ("my teacher") 
A no B no C, there are several possibilit/es as to the 
word dependency structure. There are two principal 
127 
s),ncat: 
semcat: 
selIse" 
marker. 
embedded: 
Figure 9 
tl 
state 
n~nc (~,., cloth) \[\] 
pred: rel: 
object: 
checkered-pattern 
syucat: np 
semcat: thing 
sense: (sense) 
default-marker: ga 
marker. * 
Semantic structure of ~olhijima no nuno 
('¢.heckered-pattarn cloth ~) 
syncat: 
semcat: 
sense: 
marker: 
pred: 
Figure 10 
np 
thing 
doozoo (~ ~, bronze statue) 
\[l 
tel: be 
object: syneat: np 
semcat: th/ng 
sense: (sense) 
case: subj 
default*marker: ga 
marker.. * 
loc: syncat: np 
semcat: loc 
sense: kooen ('~\[~, park) 
case: dative 
default-marker: ni 
marker:, no 
Semantic structure of kooen no doozoo ('bronze 
statue in a park') 
possibilities: ((Ano B) no C) as in, for example, jiyuu 
no raegami no shashin ("photograph of the Statue of 
Liberty"), and (Ano (Brm C)) as Kariforunia.san no 
jooshitsu no kome ("rice of fine qaulaity from 
California"). Thus, the middle noun (B) may relate to 
the words on either side (A and C), or to only the right- 
hand word (C). In the ~rst case, the middle noun may 
be an argument of the predicate on both sides. In the 
latter case, the right,hOSt word C may be an argtunent 
of each predicate to the left, the number of which is not 
in general restricted. 
c) There are two cases of (A no (B no C)). When C is a 
nominal predicate, A and B might be separate 
arg~nents as in Kinoo no Taroo no Sanpo ("raro's walk 
of yesterday"). When C is an ordinary noun, however, 
the analysis is further complicated by the fact that 
implicit predicates such as location, possession, 
attribution etc., are involved, For example, in 
Tookyoo no NTT no biru ('~rrr's building in Tokyo"), 
the inner predicate structure for NTT no bits ("NTT 
has a building") is attached to the appropriate 
argument of the outer predicate Tookyoo no biru 
Cbuilding is in Tokyo"). 
From the characteristics described above and the 
method for assigning a functor role to an axg~nent of a 
predicate, we adopt the method that a funcmr role is 
added to a constituent by a kind of lexical rule before 
function application. In general, several candidate 
constituents are made by ~he feature structure pre- 
formation. For example, at the stage ofAnoB - Ano B, 
when B is a functor and has a meaning such as location, 
time and so on, two solutions for B are offered as 
candidates: one as an argument of Ano, which works 
as a predicate, and the other as an adjunct. 
4 Correspondence between A no B and 
the Sentence 
4.1 Paraphrase of A no B as a Noun Phrase 
with a Relative Clause 
The expression A no B can be paraphrased into A p 
V B or A' B, adding an appropriate particle p and 
verb / adjective V, or reforming A to a verbal form A' if 
appropriate. Both A p V and A' are relative clauses. 
The paraphrased expression is more informative and 
some of the ambiguity is resolved. Paraphrases of A no 
B in Case 1 - Case 4 are rather easy, as added 
verbs/adjectives do not depend so much on context as 
compared with Case 5. Noun phrases with a relative 
clause for each case in the A no B classification are 
shown in Table 2. 
Such paraphrases are obtained by a change from a 
verb-centered to a noun-centered view. A no B is gener- 
ally related to some event or state in a discourse, and 
the event or state is represented by an appropriate 
predicate: pred(A, B). By taking a noun-centered view, 
the representation is transferred into a representation 
A \[pred(A(*), B)\], that is, A in pred(A, B). 
The expression that gives the corresponding predi- 
cate is taken from the value of the pred attribute in the 
semantic structure. A noun phrase paraphrased with a 
relative clause is generally constructed as follows: 1) 
the head B is put first, 2) a verb is chosen based on the 
rel attribute, and put to the left orB, 3) a noun phrase 
corresponding to the appropriate case role as given by 
the argument structure of the predicate, is constructed 
from A and the particle indicated by a default-marker. 
and put to the left of the verb. For instance, in zoo no 
omosa ("weight of an elephant"), first, the head omosa 
is taken; second, verb rnotsu ("nave") is taken from a 
value of rel, and put to the left of omosa; third, the 
agent zoo ga ("elephant") is put to the left of omosa. In 
this way, the desired complex noun phrase zoo ga motsu 
omosa ("weight that an elephant has") is arrived at. 
4.2 On Disambiguation by Contextual Information 
Although A no B is semantically ambiguous, it can 
generally be disambiguated by contextual information. 
Although inferences including association and analogy 
are generally necessary, this paper briefly mentions the 
possibility of the disambiguation method by unification 
128 
Table 2 Noun phrase with a relative clause for each case in the A 
no B classification 
\[Case1\] ..* ApVB 
p: ga / o / de / ni (case particles), 
V: suru ("do") I ohonau ("do") / okoru ("happen") 
hare no hehhon ("his marriage") -~ 
bare ga suru kehkon ('marriage that he performs") 
\[Case2\] --, A p V B 
p: ga / o (case particles), 
V: aru ("be') / suru ('do") / shita ('done") 
/e no ma~ ('front of a house") --* 
iegaaru mae ("front of a place where a house is') 
\[Case3\] -* A ga motsu B ("B which has A") 
ishi no omosa ('weight of a stone") --* 
ishi ga motsu omosa ("weight which a stone has') 
\[Case4\] -* A o suruB ("B'whichdoA") 
sanpo no hito ("person who strolls") -~ 
sanpo o suru hito ("person who strolls") 
\[CaseS\] ~ ApVB 
p: n.i I ga I ham / no tame ni (particles), 
V: aru ("be in") / motsu ('have') / tsuhurareru ("be made') / 
ohosu ("cause") 
~oen no doozoo ("statue in a park") -b 
hoo~n ni aru doozoo ("statue which is in a park') 
between a predicate structure in A no B semantic 
structure and the related event structure in the 
discourse. A sequence of related events is described in 
a discourse. On the other hand, the semantic structure 
is represented by an appropriate predicate feature. 
From these, the correct structure can be obtained by 
unifying an event semantic structure with a predicate 
feature in A no B as follows. 
event-semantic-structure-in-context 
- pred-structure-in-semantic-structure-of-A no B 
Here, "-" means that the left hand side unifies 
with the right hand side. 
Ambiguities of A no B may result from amibiguities 
regarding the predicates that could be added, 
ambiguities in the words themselves, or ambiguous 
case relations. The disambiguation process is 
illustrated below using an example in which the added 
predicates are ambiguous. Generally, a verb-centered 
semantic structure is extracted from a sentence. For 
the sentence, 
(sl) Hanako wa kyonen e o k.aita. 
('~Hanako painted a picture last year.") 
the following semantic structure is obtained. This 
representation is simplified, showing only the 
information needed for the explanation. 
pred: \[reh paint agent: Hanako object: picture\] 
This semantic structure can be obtained also from the 
noun-centered semantic structure as follows. 
picture 
\[pred: reh paint agent: Hanako object: picture(*)\] 
Next, let us assume that the sentence (s2) occurs in the 
context of (sl). 
(s2) Hanako no e wa tenrankai de yuushoo shita. 
("The picture of Hanako/Hanako's picture 
won the first prize in an exhibition.") 
Hanako no e ("the picture of Hanako" or "Hanako's 
picture") is ambiguous when taken out of context, with 
a range of possible semantic relations including 
possession, purchase, producer, and content. 
However, the ambiguity is resolved by unifying the 
semantic structure of the previous sentence with each 
of the semantic structures representing the possible 
semantic relations: the only semantic structure which 
can be successfully unified has the producer relation. 
5. Remarks 
This research concerns semantic structures, 
especially those of noun phrases, and was conducted as 
part of a series of research efforts in the LUTE 
(Language Understander, Translator, & Editor) project 
\[e, 7. I0, nl To date, ten thousand examples of A no B 
have been collected from scientific and newspaper 
articles, and the appropriateness of the classification of 
A no B investigated. In addition, as a preliminary 
experiment, a semantic relation analysis was tried 
with about a thousand examples, with rather 
satisfactory results. The meaning of A no B is 
generally ambiguous, and contextual information is 
needed to resolve the ambiguities. There seems to be 
variety of such ambiguities relating to contextual 
information, but in principle such ambiguities are 
considered to be resolved by assuming appropriate 
predicates as described in this paper. 
Acknowledgment The authors wish to thank 
Dr. Harold Somers for some helpful suggestions. 
References 
\[1\] Appelt, D. E., "Some Pragmatic Issues in the 
Planning of Definite and Indefinite Noun Phrases," 
in Proceedings of the 23rd Annual Meeting of the 
ACL, 1985. 
\[2\] Grosz, B.J., A. K. Joshi, and S. Weinstein, 
"Providing a Unified Account of Definite Noun 
Phrases in Discourse," in Proceedings of the 21st 
Annual Meeting of the ACL, 1983. 
\[3\] Isabelle, P., "Another Look at Nominal 
Compounds," in Proceedings of Coling '84, 1984. 
\[4\] Karttunen, L., "Radical Lexicalism," in M. Baltin 
and A. Kroch (eds.), Alternative Conceptions of 
Phrase Structure, 1986. 
\[5\] Levi, J. N., The Syntax and Semantics of Complex 
Nominals, Academic Press, 1978. 
129 
\[6\] Naito, S., A. Shimazu, and H. Nomura, "Classifi- 
cation of Modality Function and its AppLication to 
Japanese Language Analysis," in Proceedings of 
the 23rd Annual Meeting of the ACL, 1985. 
\[7\] Nomura, w., S. Naito, Y. Katagiri, and A. 
Shimazu, "Translation by Understanding: A 
Machine Translation System LUTE," in Proceed- 
ings of Coling '86, 1986. 
\[8\] Sells, P., Lectures on Contemporary Syntactic 
Theories: An Introduction to Gomzrnment.Binding 
Theory, Generalized Phrase Structure Grammar, 
and LericaI-Functional Grammar, CSLI Lecture 
Notes Series, No. 3, 1985. 
\[9\] Shieber, S. \]YL, ,An Introduction to Unification. 
Based Approaches to Grammar, CSLI Lecture 
Notes Series, No. 4, 1986. 
\[10\] Shimazu, A., S. Naito, and H. Nomura, "Japanese 
Language Semantic Analyzer based on an 
Extended Case Frame Model," in Proceedings of 
the Eighth International Joint Conference on 
Artificial Intelligence, 1983. 
\[11\] Shimazu, A., S. Naito, and \]=\[.Nomura, "B ~t~ 
~iR ¢)~- ~&~-\]~R • ~,t~, t: (Classifica- 
tion of Semantic Structures in Japanese Sentences 
with Special Reference to the Noun Phrase)," ~ 
~:~-_.~.-~, ~..~..~~r~~-~47-4 (Informa- 
tion Processing Society of Japan, Natural Lan- 
guage Special Interest Group Technical Report No. 
47-4), 1985. 
\[12\] Sidner, C. L., "Focusing and Discourse," Discourse 
Processes 6, pp. 107-130, 1983. 
\[18\]Uszkoreit, H., "Categorial Unification Gram- 
mars," in Proceedings of Coling '86, 1986. 
Appendix 
Semantic relations between St and 8 in St no 8 
\[Case1\] 
1. agent ... ssnmoaka no chyoosa ("study by experts"), 2. objects ... 
amamori no hoshuu ('repairs of roof leaks"), 3. tangent ... 
gaikokujin to no fureai ('contact with foreigners'), 4. donor .../~are 
no purezento ('his present'), 5. receiver ... hata no meiwaku 
("inconvenience to others'), 6. method ... den.sha no tsuugaku 
('attending school by train'), 7. instrument ... eigo no toi ("the 
English question"), 8. material ... sa~arm no ~-2oori ('cooking of 
fish"), 9. reason ... issanteatar#so no yogore ("carbon monoxide 
contamination"), 10. time ... haru no yakyuu.kenbutsu ('watching 
baseball in the spring'), 11. location ... kooen no deeto ('date in a 
park'), 12. source ... kuukoo kara no shuppat~u ('departure from 
an airport'), 13. destination ... jiyuu • no kikyuu ("desire for 
freedom"), 14. goal ... iruka no hogo no tame no seitai-choosa 
Cecological research to protect dolphins'), 15. situation ... warui 
teahi no ryokoo ("trip in bad weather'), 16. content ... kakkai 
seijooha no har~shiai ("talks for Diet normalization"), 17. role ... 
hahn toshite no hataraki {"role as a mother"), 18. manner ... guu.zen 
no itchi ("simple coincidence'), 19. frequency ... nijukkai no 
chuusha ('20 injections"), 20. ratio ... san wari no dageki ("batting 
at .300"), 21. degree ... ooguchi no kenkin (*large contributions"), 
22. number ... 9,700 man'en ao kikin ("¥97million in 
contributions"). 
\[Case2\] 
1. location ... yama no ue ("above the mountain"), 2. time :.. shokuji 
no ato ('after lunch"), 3. range ... hookoku no ruzka ('in a report"), 
4. direction ... fuae no shinto ('course of the ship"), 5. goal ... kane 
no tame ("for money"), 6. reason ... r~kki no sei ("due to the heat'), 
7. situation ... kinkyuu no baai ('in case of emergency'), 8. 
manner ... keakoa nojoota/("state of health') ,9. result ... soosenkyo 
ao kekka ("result of the general elections"), I0. object ... 
u~tashitaehi no boo \[wa...l (" ... on our part"). 
\[Case3\] 
1, size ... mona no fulcasa ('depth of things'), 2. color ... sh/zen no ira 
('natural colors'), 3. temparature ... rmzn~su no atsuaa ('the heat 
of mid-summer"), 4. form ... ningea no sugata ('human figure'), 5. 
function ... ~iazokulei no seiaoo ('performance of an artificial leg"), 
6. name ... mature-/no na ('name of a festival-},7, role ... sooch/no 
yakuwari ('the role of the device"), 8. age ... son, ha no aem'ei ('age 
of a player'), 9. number ... yes6/no aedan ('prices of vegetables"), 
10. order ... purosgto no shuppauu.jun~ ("Alain Prost's starting 
position"), 11. ratio ... nihoa no juubua'noichi ('one-tenth the 
population of Japan'). 
\[Case4\] 
1. agent ... chooleoku.shuuri no shokuaintachi ('artisans repairing 
sculptures'}, 2. object ... ka~i no banish/('hypothetical story"),3. 
method ... kaiket~u no shudan ('way to solve it'), 4. instrument ... 
seikai.koosaku no bu&i ('weapon for political transactions'), 5. 
material ... shooset$u no zQiryoo ('data for a novel"), 6. reason ... 
fiko no gen'in ('cause o£ an accident") ,7. location ,.. chuusha no 
basho ('parking space'), 8. time ... tsuki.chakuriku ao usa 
('morning of the lunar module landing on the moon'), 9. source ... 
shuppatsu no kuulcoo (=airport of departure'), 10. destination ... 
h/~n no yaomote ('target of criticism'), II. direction ... hazsha no 
hookoo ('launching direction"}, 12. goal ... kaitei no nerai ('aim of 
the revision"), 13. frequency ... shigeki no kaLsuu ('the number of 
times of stimulation'), 14. manner ... kyoodooseilmtsu no tanoshisa 
('enjoyment of community living'), 15. degree ... un'ei ao 
muzu/eazhisa ("dimculties of the operation'), 16. ratio ... daigaku- 
sotsu no wax/ai ('the percentage of college graduates'}, 17. number 
... shi~hutsu no gaku ("the sum of the expenses'). 
\[CaseS\] 
1. possesion ... taroo no hon ('Taro's book'), 2. belong-to ... 
~tanfoodo-daigaku no ttyooju ('professor at Stanford University"), 
3. human-relation ... seito no chichioya ('father of a student'), 4. 
whole-part ... hoteru no he3~ ('a room of a hotel"), 5. part-whole ... 
futa~u/¢i no hako ('box with a lid'), 6. number ... shichinin no 
shin.shi ('seven gentlemen'), 7. age ... juunisai no musume san 
('12-yearn old girl'}, 8. order ... saigo no hitori ('the last one"), 9. 
kind ... tennen no shiba ('natural turin), 10. role ... puroyakyuu no 
seashu ("professional baseball players'), 11. degree ... futsuu no 
hito ("an average person'), 12. characteristics ... yakoosei no mushi 
('nocturnal insects'), 13. material ... eakabiniiru sei no shibafu 
('vinyl chloride turf'), 14. reason ... tabako no gai ('effects of 
smoking'), 15. producer ... GM no jidoosha ("GM car"), 16. loca- 
tion ... gaikoku no tomodachi ('friends in a foreign country"), 17. 
time ... rnu/cashi no hitobito ('men of old times'), 18. source .. 
yuujin kaxa no tegami ("letter from a friend"), 19. destination ... 
kagaku e no aet~ui ('enthusiasm for sciences"), 20. situation ... 
aremoyoo no hibi ('days of stormy weather"), 21. goal ... koonyuu 
no tame no gaika ('foreign exchange needed to purchase ... "), 22. 
content ... haiku no hon ("a book of haiku"), 23. reference ... sorera 
no mondai ("problems of this kind", 24. specification ... tokutei no 
raise ("particular stores"). 
130 
