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<?xml version="1.0" standalone="yes"?> <Paper uid="P89-1014"> <Title>ON REPRESENTING GOVERNED PREPOSITIONS AND HANDLING &quot;INCORRECT&quot; AND NOVEL PREPOSITIONS</Title> <Section position="4" start_page="0" end_page="0" type="metho"> <SectionTitle> SEMANTIC PREDICATE CLASSES. The </SectionTitle> <Paragraph position="0"> system uses hierarchical knowledge sources; all general &quot;class-level&quot; characteristics of a semantic predicate class, including the number, type, and marking of their arguments, are put in the NLKB. This leads to increased efficiency in a number of system aspects, e.g., the lexicon is more compact and easier to modify since it only contains idiosyncratic information. This representation allows us to distinguish between Icxically and semantically determined ARGUIVIENT MAPPING and to formulate general class-level constraint relaxation mechanisms.</Paragraph> </Section> <Section position="5" start_page="0" end_page="0" type="metho"> <SectionTitle> I.I CLASSIFYING PREPOSITION USAGE </SectionTitle> <Paragraph position="0"> Preposition usage in English in positions governed by predicating elements, whether adjectival, verbal, or nominal, may be classified as (I) lexically determined, (2) syntactically determined, or (3) semantically determined. Examples are:</Paragraph> </Section> <Section position="6" start_page="0" end_page="0" type="metho"> <SectionTitle> LEXICALLY DETERMINED: </SectionTitle> <Paragraph position="0"> laugh at, afraid of</Paragraph> </Section> <Section position="7" start_page="0" end_page="0" type="metho"> <SectionTitle> SYNTACTICALLY DETERMINED: </SectionTitle> <Paragraph position="0"> by in passive sentences</Paragraph> </Section> <Section position="8" start_page="0" end_page="0" type="metho"> <SectionTitle> SEMANTICALLY DETERMINED: </SectionTitle> <Paragraph position="0"> move to~from Preposition usage in idiomatic phrases is also considered to be lexically determined, e.g., ~ respect to.</Paragraph> </Section> <Section position="9" start_page="0" end_page="110" type="metho"> <SectionTitle> 1.2 A TYPOLOGY OF ERRORS IN PREPOSITION USAGE </SectionTitle> <Paragraph position="0"> We have classified our corpus of examples of the use of non-standard prepositions into the following categories: (1) substitution of a semantically appropriate preposition -- either from the same class or another -- for a semantically determined one, (2) substitution of a semantically appropriate preposition for a lexically determined one, (3) false starts, (4) blends, and (5) substitution of a semantically appropriate preposition for a syntactically determined one. A small percentage of the non-standard use of prepositions appears to be random.</Paragraph> </Section> <Section position="10" start_page="110" end_page="111" type="metho"> <SectionTitle> 1.3 COMPUTATIONAL APPLICATIONS OF THIS WORK </SectionTitle> <Paragraph position="0"> In a theoretical linguistics forum (Blejcr and Flank 1988), we argued that these examples of the use of non-standard prepositions to mark arguments (1) represent the kind of principled variation that underlies language change, and (2) support a semantic analysis of government that utilizes thematic roles, citing other evidence for the semantic basis of prepositional case marking from studies of language dysfunction (Aitchison 1987:103), language acquisition (Pinker 1982:678; Mcnyuk 1969:56), and typological, cross-linguistic studies on case-marking systems. More theoretical aspects of our work (including diachroniC/ change and arguments for and against particular linguistic theories) were covered in that paper; here we concentrate on issues of interest to a computational linguistics forum. First, our natural language knowledge representation and processing strategies take into account the semantic basis of prepositional case marking, and thus facilitate handling non-standard and novel use of prepositions to mark arguments. The second contribution is our typology of errors in preposition usage. We claim that an NLP system which accepts naturally occurring input must recognize the type of the error to know how to compensate for it. Furthermore, the knowledge representation scheme we have implemented is an efficient representation for English and lends itself to adaptation to representing non-English case-marking as well.</Paragraph> <Paragraph position="1"> There is wide variation in computational strategies for mapping from the actual natural language expression to some sort of PREDICATE-ARGUMENT representation. At issue is how the system recognizes the arguments of the predicate.</Paragraph> <Paragraph position="2"> At one end of the spectrum is an approach which allows any marking of arguments if the type of the argument is correct for that predicate. This approach is inadequate because it ignores vital information carried by the preposition. At the other extreme is a semantically constrained syntactic parse, in many ways a highly desirable strategy.</Paragraph> <Paragraph position="3"> This latter method, however, constrains more strictly than what humans actually produce and understand. Our strategy has been to use the latter method, allowing relaxation of those constraints, under certain well-specified circumstances.</Paragraph> <Paragraph position="4"> Constraint relaxation has been recognized as a viable strategy for handling ill-formed input. Most discussion centers around orthographic errors and errors in subject-verb agreement. Jensen, Heidorn, Miller, and Ravin (1983:158) note the importance of &quot;relaxing restrictions in the grammar rules in some principled way.&quot; Knowing which constraints to relax and avoiding a proliferation of incorrect parses however, is a non-trivial task. Weischedel and Sondheimer .(1983:163ff) offer cautionary advice on this subject.</Paragraph> <Paragraph position="5"> There has been some discussion of errors similar to those cited in our paper. Carbonell and Hayes (1983:132) observed that &quot;problems created by the absence of expected case markers can be overcome by the application of domain knowledge&quot; using case frame instantiation. We agree with these authors that the use of domain knowledge is an important element in understanding ill-formed input. However, in instances where the preposition is not omitted, but rather replaced by a non-standard preposition, we claim that an understanding of the linguistic principles involved in the substitution is necessary.</Paragraph> <Paragraph position="6"> To explain how constraint relaxation is accomplished, a brief system description is needed. Our system uses a parser based on Tomita (1986), with modifications to allow constraints and structure-building. It uses context-free phrase structure rules, augmented with morphological, contextual, and semantic constraints. Application of the phrase structure rules results in a parse tree, similar to a Lexical-Functional Grammar (LFG) &quot;c-structure&quot; (Bresnan 1982). The constraints are unified at parse time to produce a functionally labelled template (FLT). The FLT is then input to a semantic translation module. Using ARGUMENT MAPPING rules and other operator-operand semantic rules, semantic translation creates situation frames (SF).</Paragraph> <Paragraph position="7"> SFs consist of a predicate and entity frames (EF), whose semantic roles in the situation are labeled. Other semantic objects are relational frames (e.g. prepositional phrases), property frames (e.g. adjective phrases), and unit frames (measure phrases). During the semantic interpretation and discourse analysis phase, the situation frame is interpreted, resulting in one or more instantiated knowledge base (KB) objects, which are state or event descriptions with entity participants.</Paragraph> </Section> <Section position="11" start_page="111" end_page="111" type="metho"> <SectionTitle> 2.0 REPRESENTING ARGUMENT MAPPING IN AN NLP SYSTEM </SectionTitle> <Paragraph position="0"> In our lexicons, verbs and adjectives are linked to one or more predicate classes which are defined in the Natural Language Knowledge Base (NLKB). Predicates typically govern one or more arguments or thematic roles. All general, class-level information about the thematic roles which a given predicate governs is represented at the highest possible level. Only idiosyncratic information is represented in the lexicon. When lexicons are loaded the idiosyncratic information in the lexicon is unified with the general information in the NLKB. Our representation scheme has certain implementational advantages: lexicons are less error-prone and easier to modify, the data are more compact, constraint relaxation is facilitated, etc.</Paragraph> <Paragraph position="1"> More importantly, we claim that such semantic classes are psychologically valid.</Paragraph> <Paragraph position="2"> Our representation scheme is based on the principle that ARGUMENT MAPPING is generally determined at the class-level, i.e., predicates group along semantic lines as to the type of ARGUMENT MAPPING they take. Our work draws from theoretical linguistic studies of thematic relations (e.g., Gruber 1976, Jackendoff 1983, and Ostler 1980).</Paragraph> <Paragraph position="3"> We do not accept the &quot;strong&quot; version of localism, i.e., that all form mirrors function -- that ARGUMENT MAPPING classes arise from metaphors based on spatial relations. Unlike case grammar, we limit the number of cases or roles to a small set, based on how they are manifested in surface syntax. We subsequently &quot;interpret&quot; roles based on the semantic class of the predicate, e.g., the GOAL of an ATTITUDE is generally an animate &quot;experiencer'.</Paragraph> <Paragraph position="4"> For example, in the NLKB the</Paragraph> </Section> <Section position="12" start_page="111" end_page="111" type="metho"> <SectionTitle> ARGUMENT MAPPING of predicates </SectionTitle> <Paragraph position="0"> which denote a change in spatial relation specifies a GOAL argument, marked with prepositions which posit a GOAL relation (to, into, and onto) and a SOURCE argument, marked with prepositions which posit a SOURCE relation (from, out of, off of). A sub-class of these predicates, namely Vendler's (1967) achievements, mark the GOAL argument with prepositions which posit an OVERLAP relation (at, in).</Paragraph> <Paragraph position="1"> The entries for these verbs in SRA's lexicon merely specify which semantic class they belong to (e.g., SPATIAL-RELATION), whether they are stative or dynamic, whether they allow an agent, and whether they denote an achievement. Their ARGUMENT MAPPING is not entered explicitly in the lexicon. The verb reach, on the other hand, which marks its GOAL idiosyncratically, as a direct object, would have this fact in its lexical entry.</Paragraph> </Section> <Section position="13" start_page="111" end_page="112" type="metho"> <SectionTitle> 2.1 GROUPING SEMANTIC ROLES </SectionTitle> <Paragraph position="0"> Both on implementational and on theoretical grounds, we have grouped certain semantic roles into superclasses. Such groupings arc common in the literature on case and valency (see Somers 1987) and are also supported by cross-linguistic evidence. Our grouping of roles follows previous work. For example, the AGENT SUPERCLASS covers both animate agents as well as inanimate instruments. A GROUND SUPERCLASS (as discussed in Talmy 1985) includes both SOURCE and GOAL, and a GOAL SUPERCLASS includes GOAL, PURPOSE, an'd DIRECTION.</Paragraph> <Paragraph position="1"> Certain semantic roles, like GOAL and SOURCE, as well as being sisters are &quot;privatives&quot;, that is, opposites semantically. Our representation scheme differentiates between lexically and semantically determined prepositions. We will show how this representation facilitates recognition of the type of error, and therefore principled relaxation of the constraints. Furthermore, a principled relaxation of the constraints depends in many instances on knowing the relationship between the non-standard and the expected prepositions: are they sisters, privatives, or is the non-standard preposition a parent of the expected preposition.</Paragraph> <Paragraph position="2"> In the following section we present examples of the five types of preposition usage errors. In the subsequent section, we discuss how our system presently handles these errors, or how it might eventually handle them.</Paragraph> </Section> <Section position="14" start_page="112" end_page="112" type="metho"> <SectionTitle> 3.0 THE DATA </SectionTitle> <Paragraph position="0"> We have classified the variation data according to the type of substitution. The main types are: (1) semantic for semantic (Section 3.1), (2) semantic for lexical (Section 3.2), (3) blends (Section 3.3), (4) false starts (Section 3.4), and (5) semantic for syntactic (Section 3.5). The data presented below are a representative sample of a larger group of examples. The current paper covers the classifications which we have encountered so far; we expect that analysis of additional data will provide further types of substitutions within each class.</Paragraph> <Section position="1" start_page="112" end_page="112" type="sub_section"> <SectionTitle> 3.1 SEMANTIC FOR SEMANTIC 3.1.1 To/From </SectionTitle> <Paragraph position="0"> The substitution of the goal marker for the source marker cross-linguistically is recognized in the case literature (e.g., lkegami 1987). In English, this appears to be more pronounced in certain regional dialects. Common source/goal alternations cited by Ikegami (1987:125) include: averse from/to, different from/to, immune from/to, and distinction from/to. The majority of examples involve to substituting for from in lexical items which incorporate a negation of the predicate; the standard marker of GROUND in this class of predicates is a SOURCE marker, e.g., different from. The &quot;positive&quot; counterparts mark the GROUND with GOAL, e.g., similar to, as discussed in detail in Gruber (1976). Variation between to and from can only occur with verbs which incorporate a negative, otherwise the semantic distinction which these prepositions denote is necessary.</Paragraph> <Paragraph position="1"> (1) The way that he came on to that bereaved brother completely alienated me TO Mr. Bush. 9/26/88 MCS (2) At this moment I'm different TO primitive man. 10/12/88 The Mind, PBS Communication and transfer of knowledge can be expressed either as a process with multiple, equally involved participants, or as an asymmetric process with one of the participants as the &quot;agent&quot; of the transfer of information. Our data document the substitution of the GOAL marker for the CO-THEME marker; this may reflect the tendency of English to prefer &quot;agent&quot; focussing. The participants in a COMMUNICATION situation are similar in their semantic roles, the only difference being one of &quot;viewpoint.&quot; By no means all communication predicates operate in this way: e.g., EXPLANATION, TRANSFER OF KNOWLEDGE are more clearly asymmetric. The system differentiates between &quot;mutual&quot; and &quot;asymmetric&quot; communication predicates. (3) The only reason they'll chat TO you is, you're either pretty, or they need something from your husband. 9/30/88 MCS (4) 171 have to sit down and explore this TO you. 10/16/88</Paragraph> </Section> <Section position="2" start_page="112" end_page="112" type="sub_section"> <SectionTitle> 3.2 SEMANTIC FOR LEXICAL </SectionTitle> <Paragraph position="0"/> <Paragraph position="2"> Goal and purpose are frequently expressed by the same case-marking, with the DIRECTION marker alternating with these at times. The standard preposition in these examples is lexically determined. In example (6), instead of the lexically determined to, which also marks the semantic role GOAL, another preposition within the same superclass is chosen. In example (5) the phrasally determined for is replaced by the GOAL marker. There is abundant cross-linguistic evidence for a</Paragraph> </Section> </Section> <Section position="15" start_page="112" end_page="113" type="metho"> <SectionTitle> GOAL SUPERCLASS which includes </SectionTitle> <Paragraph position="0"> GOAL and PURPOSE; to a lesser extent DIRECTION also patterns with these crosslinguistically. null (5) It's changing TO the better. 8/3/88 MCS (6) Mr. Raspberry is almost 200 years behind Washingtonians aspiring FOR full citizenship. 10/13/88 WP Several examples involve lexical items expressing knowledge or cognition, for which the standard preposition is lexically determined. This preposition is uniformly replaced by on, also a marker of the semantic role of REFERENT.</Paragraph> <Paragraph position="1"> Examples include abreast of, grasp of, an idea of, and knowledge of. We claim that the association of the role REFERENT with knowledge and cognition (as well as with transfer-of-information predicates) is among the more salient associations that language learners encounter.</Paragraph> <Paragraph position="2"> (7) Terry Brown, 47, a truck driver, agreed; &quot;with eight years in the White House,&quot; he said, &quot;Bush ought to have a better grasp ON the details.&quot; 9/27/88 NYT p. B8 (8) I did get an idea ON the importance of consistency as far as reward and penalty are concerned. 11/88 ETM journal</Paragraph> <Section position="1" start_page="113" end_page="113" type="sub_section"> <SectionTitle> 3.2.3 With/From/To </SectionTitle> <Paragraph position="0"> In this class, we believe that &quot;mutual action verbs&quot; such as marry and divorce routinely show a CO-THEME marker with being substituted for either to or from.</Paragraph> <Paragraph position="1"> Such predicates have a SECONDARY-MAPPING of PLURAL-THEME in the NLKB. Communication predicates are another class which allows a PLURAL-THEME and show alternation of GOAL and CO-THEME (Section 3.1.2).</Paragraph> <Paragraph position="2"> (9) Today Robin Givens said she won't ask for any money in her divorce WITH Mike Tyson. 10/19/88 ATC</Paragraph> </Section> <Section position="2" start_page="113" end_page="113" type="sub_section"> <SectionTitle> 3.3 FALSE STARTS </SectionTitle> <Paragraph position="0"> The next set of examples suggests that the speaker has &quot;retrieved&quot; a preposition from a different ARGUbIENT MAPPING for the verb or for a different argument than the one which is eventually produced. For example, confused with replaces confused by in (10), and say to replaces say about in (11). Such examples are more prevalent in oral language.</Paragraph> <Paragraph position="1"> Handling these examples is difficult since all sorts of contextual information -linguistic and non-linguistic -- goes into detecting the error.</Paragraph> <Paragraph position="2"> (10) They didn't want to be confused WITH the facts. 11/14/88 DRS (11) The memorial service was really well done. The rabbi did a good job. What do you say TO a kid who died fike that?</Paragraph> </Section> <Section position="3" start_page="113" end_page="113" type="sub_section"> <SectionTitle> 3.4 BLENDS </SectionTitle> <Paragraph position="0"> Here, a lexically or phrasally determined preposition is replaced by a preposition associated with a semantically similar lexical item. In (12) Quayle says he was smitten about Marilyn, possibly thinking of crazy about. In (13) he may be thinking of on the subject/topic of. The questioner in (14) may have in support/favor of in mind. In (15) Quayle may have meant we learn by making mistakes. In (16), the idiomatic phrase in support of is confused with the ARGUlVlENT MAPPING of the noun support, e.g., &quot;he showed his support for the president'.</Paragraph> <Paragraph position="1"> (12) I was very smitten ABOUT her... I saw a good thing and I responded rather quickly and she did too. 10/20/88 WP, p. C8 (13) ON the area of the federal budget deficit .... 10/5/88 Sen. Quayle in vp debate (& NYT 10/7/88 p. B6) (14) You made one of the most eloquent speeches IN behalf of contra aid. 10/5/88 Questioner in VP debate (& NYT 10/7/88 p.B6) (15) We learn BYour mistakes. 10/5/88 Sen. Quayle in vp debate (& NYT 10/7/88 p.</Paragraph> <Paragraph position="2"> B6) (16) We testified in support FOR medical leave. 10/22/88 FFS</Paragraph> </Section> </Section> <Section position="16" start_page="113" end_page="114" type="metho"> <SectionTitle> 3.5 SEMANTIC FOR SYNTACTIC -- WITH/BY </SectionTitle> <Paragraph position="0"> In the majority of the following examples, the syntactically governed by marking passives is replaced by WITH.</Paragraph> <Paragraph position="1"> This alternation of with and by in passives has been attested for hundreds of years, and we hypothesize that English may be in the process of reinterpreting by, as well as replacing it with with in certain contexts.</Paragraph> <Paragraph position="2"> On the one hand, by is being reinterpreted as a marker of &quot;archetypal&quot; agents, i.e, those high on the scale of AGENTIVITY (i.e., speaker * human * animate * potent * nonanimate, non-potent). On the other hand, a semantically appropriate marker is being substituted for by.</Paragraph> <Paragraph position="3"> We analyze the WITH in these examples either as the less agentive AGENT (namely the INSTRUlVlENT) in example (18), or the less agentive CO-THEME in example (17). The substitutions are semantically appropriate and the substitutes are semantically related to AGENT. * (17) All of Russian Hfe was accompanied WITH some kind of singing. 8/5/88 ATC (18) Audiences here are especially enthused WITH Dukakis's description of the Reagan-Bush economic policies. 11/5/88 ATC</Paragraph> </Section> <Section position="17" start_page="114" end_page="114" type="metho"> <SectionTitle> 4.0 THE COMPUTATIONAL IMPLEMENTATION </SectionTitle> <Paragraph position="0"> Of the five types of errors cited in Section 3, substitutions of semantic for semantic (Section 3.1), semantic for lexical (Section 3.2), and semantic for syntactic (Section 3.5) are the simplest to handle computationally.</Paragraph> </Section> <Section position="18" start_page="114" end_page="114" type="metho"> <SectionTitle> 4.1 SEMANTIC FOR SEMANTIC OR LEXICAL </SectionTitle> <Paragraph position="0"> The representation scheme described above (Section 2) facilitates handling the semantic for semantic and semantic for lexical substitutions.</Paragraph> <Paragraph position="1"> Semantic for semantic substitutions are allowed if (i) the predicate belongs to the communication class and the standard CO-THEME marker is replaced by a GOAL marker, or (ii) the predicate incorporates a negative and GOAL is substituted for a standard SOURCE, or vice versa.</Paragraph> <Paragraph position="2"> Semantic for lexical substitutions are allowed if (iii) the non-standard preposition is a nonprivative sister of the standard preposition (e.g., in the GOAL SUPERCLASS), (iv) &quot;the non-standard preposition is the NLKB-inherited, &quot;default&quot; preposition for the predicate (e.g., REFERENT for predicates of cognition and knowledge), or (v) in the NLKB the predicate allows a SECONDARY-MAPPING of PLURAL-THElvIE (e.g., marital predicates as in the divorce with example).</Paragraph> <Paragraph position="3"> Handling the use of a non-standard preposition marking an argument crucially involves &quot;type-checking', wherein the &quot;type&quot; of the noun phrase is checked, e.g. for membership in an NLKB class such as animate-creature, time, etc. Type-checking is also used to narrow the possible senses of the preposition in a prepositional phrase, as well as to prefer certain modifier attachments.</Paragraph> <Paragraph position="4"> Prepositional phrases can have two relations to predicating expressions, i.e., a governed argument (PREP-ARG) or an ADJUNCT. During parsing, the system accesses the ARGUMENT MAPPING for the predicate; once the preposition is recognized as the standard marker of an argument, an ADJUNCT reading is disallowed. The rule for PREP-ARG is a separate rule in the grammar. When the preposition does not match the expected preposition, the system checks whether any of the above conditions (i-v) hold; if so, the parse is accepted, but is assigned a lower likelihood. If a parse of the PP as an ADJUNCT is also accepted, it will be preferred over the ill-formed PREP-ARG.</Paragraph> </Section> <Section position="19" start_page="114" end_page="115" type="metho"> <SectionTitle> 4.2 SEMANTIC FOR SYNTACTIC </SectionTitle> <Paragraph position="0"> The substitution of semantic marking for syntactic (WITH for BY) is easily handled: during semantic mapping by phrases in the ADJUNCTS are mapped to the role of the active subject, assuming that &quot;type checking&quot; allows that interpretation of the noun phrase. It is also possible for such a sentence to be ambiguous, e.g., &quot;he was seated by the man'. We treat with phrases similarly, except that ambiguity between CO-THEME and PASSIVE SUBJECT is not allowed, based on our observation that with for by is used for noun phrases low on the animacy scale. Thus, only the CO-THEME interpretation is valid if the noun phrase is animate.</Paragraph> <Section position="1" start_page="114" end_page="115" type="sub_section"> <SectionTitle> 4.3 FALSE STARTS AND BLENDS </SectionTitle> <Paragraph position="0"> False starts are more difficult, requiring an approach similar to that of case grammar. In these examples, the preposition is acceptable with the verb, but not to mark that particular argument. The type of the argument marked with the &quot;incorrect&quot; preposition must be quite inconsistent with that sense of the predicate for the error even to be noticed, since the preposition is acceptable with some other sense. We are assessing the frequency of false starts in the various genres in which our system is being used, to determine whether we need to implement a strategy to handle these examples. We predict that future systems for understanding spoken language will need to accomodate this phenomenon.</Paragraph> <Paragraph position="1"> We do not handle blends currently.</Paragraph> <Paragraph position="2"> They involve a form of analogy, i.e., smitten is like mad, syntactically, semantically, and even stylistically; they may shed some light on language storage and retrieval. Recognizing the similarity in order to allow a principled handling seems very difficult.</Paragraph> <Paragraph position="3"> In addition, blends may provide evidence for a &quot;top down&quot; language production strategy, in which the argument structure is determined before the lexieai items are chosen/inserted. Our data suggest that some people may be more prone to making this type of error than are others. Finally, blends are more frequent in genres in which people attempt to use a style that they do not command (e.g., student papers, radio talk shows).</Paragraph> </Section> </Section> class="xml-element"></Paper>