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<Paper uid="C90-2068">
  <Title>FR EE ADJUNCTS NATURAL LANGUAGE INSTRUCTIONS*</Title>
  <Section position="3" start_page="0" end_page="0" type="metho">
    <SectionTitle>
3 Free Adjuncts
</SectionTitle>
    <Paragraph position="0"> In the previous section, we noted that multiple clauses may be involved in specifying an intended action, using this as evidence for our view of an indirect relationship between instructions and behavior. Here, we discuss one multiple-clause construct in more detail the free adjunct - since it also provides evidence for our claim that the representation driving narrated animations should embody the same conceptualization of tasks, actions and events as Natural Language itself.</Paragraph>
    <Paragraph position="1"> A free adjunct is defined as a nonfinile predicative phrase with the function of an adverbial subordinate clause \[10\]. It may be headed by a noun, adjective, prepositional phrase, or verb 3. Here we focus on free adjuncts headed by progressive gerundives, as they are quite common in instructions - e.g., the underlined clause in Ex. 1: Ex. 1 Pour mixture over cheese in casserole, .slgreading evenly.</Paragraph>
    <Paragraph position="2"> Stump notes of free adjuncts that their logical connection with the clause they modify is not overtly specified \[10\] 4. Here we argue that (1) instructions exploit three 3Constructions headed by subordinating conjunctions and containing a nonfmite verb, such as while fightin9 in France, he wan $aken prisoner are not considered to be free adjuncts by Stump \[10\], who calls them augmented adjuncts.</Paragraph>
    <Paragraph position="3"> 4Free adjuncts are just one kind of a larger class of syntactic forms, absolute constructions, that have this property: for a more thorough discussion, see \[10\].</Paragraph>
  </Section>
  <Section position="4" start_page="0" end_page="0" type="metho">
    <SectionTitle>
3 397
</SectionTitle>
    <Paragraph position="0"> logical connections between a gerundive adjunct and its matrix clause; and (2) to represent these relations requires a representation with a temporal ontology at least as rich as that proposed in \[6\], as well as support for generation relations \[5\] (defined below) and abstraction. We conclude by showing that the role adjuncts play in instructions differs from the role they play in narratives.</Paragraph>
    <Section position="1" start_page="0" end_page="0" type="sub_section">
      <SectionTitle>
3.1 Data Analysis
</SectionTitle>
      <Paragraph position="0"> We collected 97 consecutive instances of gerundive adjuncts (here called simply &amp;quot;adjuncts&amp;quot;) in instructionsfl The syntactic structure of sentences containing these adjuncts is generally limited to a main clause, preceded and/or followed by an adjunct. The main clause describes an action, which we call amain; #a~ will refer to the semantic content of the adjunct. We found that our corpus divided into three classes, depending on the logical connection between the adjunct and amain:  1. it may augment the description of amain; 2. it may describe a second action aa~0 that generates or is generated by amain; 3. it may describe an independent action aa~ that  should be performed simultaneously with areal,.</Paragraph>
      <Paragraph position="1"> It is important to remember, in the following discussion, that (following Pollack \[7, 8\]) an action, like an act-type, is a descripiion, not something in the world.</Paragraph>
    </Section>
    <Section position="2" start_page="0" end_page="0" type="sub_section">
      <SectionTitle>
3.1.~ Augmentation
</SectionTitle>
      <Paragraph position="0"> About half the adjuncts in our corpus supply features of amain, such as its starting point; necessary tool(s) or material(s); objects tha~ amain may create, etc. Thus, Cemain is a less specific version (i.e., an abstraction) of the intended action c~ that results from combining C~main and #and. For example, in Ex 2, the adjunct specifies the tool to use: Ex. 2 Using a coping or back saw, carefully cut all pieces to the dimensions given in the materials list.</Paragraph>
      <Paragraph position="1"> Alternatively, the adjunct can provide features of the world that have to either remain or become true after executing amain.</Paragraph>
      <Paragraph position="2"> Ex. 3 Sew the head front to back, leaving the neck edge open.</Paragraph>
      <Paragraph position="3"> The adjunct can alternatively specify a constraint on the execution of amain , including: * a manner constraint, that amain be executed in such a way that a state is brought about which continues to hold during its execution. In the following example, while the agent executes the cutting action, s/he has to stay to the outside of the line: 5Data were collected from five magazines - two of which describe wood projects, and the other three, &amp;quot;crafts&amp;quot; - and one chapter of a &amp;quot;how to&amp;quot; book on installing wall coverings. Ex. 4 Transfer pattern to top back board A and using a jig or a scroll saw carefully cut out pattern staying to the outside of the line.</Paragraph>
      <Paragraph position="4"> a side-effect constraint, that a possible side effect of amain should be avoided. Verbs like take care, be careful, make sure etc. followed by not to ..., are often used: Ex. 5 Cut under eaves of cabin 'with chisel, b.ein~ care\[ul not to chip ,,oo~ The need to represent the result of augmentation and the relation between amain and a is one reason for requiring our system to have a representational capacity at least rich enough to represent partial descriptions of actions and an abstraction relation between them.</Paragraph>
      <Paragraph position="5"> Partial description is not meant to imply partial with respect to some fully specified description. On the contrary, we do not assume that there is an a priori fixed set of features belonging to an action. To say that an adjunct conveys additional features of amain, does not mean that one can specify beforehand what all those features might be.</Paragraph>
      <Paragraph position="6"> To a first approximation, the relation between descriptions could be stated in terms of the amount of information that a description conveys. Note that this does not have to be new information: in Ex 2, the inforomation conveyed to an expert carpenter by the adjunct is probably redundant, given that he knows what kinds of saws to use.</Paragraph>
      <Paragraph position="7"> ~.1o~ Generation Goldman \[5\] defines generation as that relation between actions intbrmally conveyed by the preposition by in expressions such as &amp;quot;agent G does fl by doing 3'&amp;quot; e.g., &amp;quot;John turns on the light by flipping the switch&amp;quot;. Free adjuncts can specify a generation relation between actions amai,~ and an4/ in either direction, without an overt by - for example, Ex. 6 As you work, clean the surface thoroughly each time you change grits, vacuum!n 9 off all.t.h.e _dust and wiping the wood with a rag dampened with .turpentine or paint .thinner.</Paragraph>
      <Paragraph position="8"> \[aa~ GEN amain\] Ex. 7 Cut one 7xT-inch square from foil. Fold corners to center of square; cut in half on the diagonal creating two triangles.</Paragraph>
      <Paragraph position="9"> \[amain GEN aa~/\] Ex. 8 Sew bottom canvas bag to bottom of front and back, makin~l a long rectanfle.</Paragraph>
      <Paragraph position="10"> \[amain GEN aa~\] 4 398 In the case of generation, only one action is executed per se, generating the other as a result.</Paragraph>
      <Paragraph position="11"> One natural question to ask is why two different descriptions are given of the same action. The reasons are the same as in any text: to make explicit the purpose of ~Jt action or a salient feature. For example, in Ex. 6, clean provides a unifying description for the two actions expressed in the adjuncts, and by doing so, indicates their purpose. In Ex. 7, the result of amain (the two triangles) is mentioned explicitly, in order to introduce these new referents in the agent's discourse model. In Ex. 8, the description a long rectangle provides a visual clue to the result to be achieved. (This may be an additional purpose for the generate relation in Ex. 7 as well.) Again, Ex. 6 shows the need for abstraction in our representation, in the form of one or more abstraction hierarchies of action descriptions: to understand this example, we need to know that both vacuum and wipe are specializations of clean.</Paragraph>
      <Paragraph position="12">  If the adjunct describes an action oza4/ that is independent of oqnai,, it is meant that both are to be executed simultaneously: Ex. 9 Soak paper in water for 1 hour; remove paper, then smooth onto board, squeezing out excess .~d ir~ble_~ Staple paper to board along the edges. Mix rose madder and water; pour onto wet paper, tilting board to spread color.</Paragraph>
      <Paragraph position="13"> :Ex. 10 Unroll each strip onto the wall, the foil into place vertically (not side to sidS_ to avoid warping and curlinq__at the edq~es.</Paragraph>
    </Section>
    <Section position="3" start_page="0" end_page="0" type="sub_section">
      <SectionTitle>
3.2 Aspect and Event Structure
</SectionTitle>
      <Paragraph position="0"> Earlier, we claimed that the representation driving narrated animations should en'lbody the same conceptualization of ~asks, actions and events as Natural Language itself. We take the conceptualization of actions and C/;vents to be the tripartite event structure described by Moens and Steedman (hereafter, M~S) in \[6\].</Paragraph>
      <Paragraph position="1"> The goal in \[6\] is to provide a single explanation of aspectual profiles, of changes in aspectual profile related to the use of adverbial and prepositional modifiers, and of the purported temporal &amp;quot;ambiguity&amp;quot; of when-clauses. The explanation makes use of a tripartite event structure which M~S call a nucleus. A nucleus consists of a preparatory process, a culmination and a consequent state. Within this framework, an event de.'~cription interpreted as a PROCESS corresponds simo ply to a preparatory process, while a CULMINATED PROCESS corresponds to an entire nucleus. CULMI-NATIONS (Vendler's achievements \[12\]) correspond to a culmination followed by its consequent state.</Paragraph>
      <Paragraph position="2"> Within this framework, M~S attribute changes in ~!~spectual profile brought about by modifiers (viewed as functions from event description to event description) to two factors: (1) The modifier, viewed as a function, may have a different output type than its input type.</Paragraph>
      <Paragraph position="3"> The modified form will thus have the same aspectual type as the function's output. (2) When a function demands a different aspectual type for its input than it has been given, a mechanism called coercion maps the input to the needed type. This may change semantic features of the input, before function application.</Paragraph>
      <Paragraph position="4"> What we shall show here (rather briefly) is that this same tripartite nucleus can ground the possible interpretations of augmentation (Section 3.1.1) and simultaneity (Section 3.1.3), and in fact, account for ambiguities in interpretation. We start with the following minimal pair: Ex. 11 Starting with this mark, make another mark, leaving exactly P inches between marks.</Paragraph>
      <Paragraph position="5"> Ex. 12 Starting with this mark, make a series of marks, ~c_tly_ 2 i nche_s between marks.</Paragraph>
      <Paragraph position="6"> In M&amp;S's framework, making a (single) mark (Example 11) could be considered a CULMINATION. The plural &amp;quot;series of marks&amp;quot; in Example 12 would then map this singular interpretation to a CULMINATED PROCESS through iterating mark-making. (Iterated mark-making culminates when there is no more room to make marks.) The augmentation in Example 11 constrains the distance between the single pair of marks, that in Example 12, the distance between each pair of marks produced during the iteration.</Paragraph>
      <Paragraph position="7"> Now consider the following example of simultaneity: Ex. 13 Wire vines together at one end. Twine vines into an 8.inch diameter wreath, fastening with wire to hold.</Paragraph>
      <Paragraph position="8"> The second sentence mentions two independent actions - twining the vines into a wreath (amain) and fastening (aa~/). In M~cS's framework, the action amain can be taken to be a CULMINATED PROCESS in two different ways: a single homogeneous twining process, which culminates when one has used up all the vines, or (as above) an iteration of individual twinings, cuhninating for the same reason. In the first case, fastening happens at the single point of culmination - its purpose being to prevent the two ends of the wreath from coming apart.</Paragraph>
      <Paragraph position="9"> In the second, fastening happens at the end of each iteration - its purpose being to keep the strands together. To capture both these interpretations (and decide between them) requires a representation such as M~S's rich enough to capture the required event structure.</Paragraph>
    </Section>
    <Section position="4" start_page="0" end_page="0" type="sub_section">
      <SectionTitle>
3.3 Relation to Previous Work
</SectionTitle>
      <Paragraph position="0"> The most extensive analysis of the semantics of free adjuncts (in English) that we are aware of is that done by Greg Stump \[10\]. However, all his examples come from narrative text, and as a result, he focusses on their truth-conditional properties. For example, he draws a distinction between strong and weak adjuncts: 5 399 Ex. 14 a) Having unusually long arms, John can touch the ceiling.</Paragraph>
      <Paragraph position="1"> b) Standing on the chair, John can touch the ceiling.</Paragraph>
      <Paragraph position="2"> Ex. 15 a) Being a businessman, Bill smokes cigars. b) Lying on, the beach_, Bill smokes cigars.</Paragraph>
      <Paragraph position="3"> Stump calls the adjuncts in both a sentences strong, because their actual truth is uniformly entailed. He calls those in the b sentences weak, because their actual truth can fail to be entailed.</Paragraph>
      <Paragraph position="4"> Related to this, Stump also notes a Causal flavor in strong adjuncts. Consider the adjuncts in the a sentences in both Exs. 14 and 15. The sense is that in both cases, the main clause assertion is true because the adjunct is. Weak adjuncts, on the other hand, have a conditional sense: it is (only) when the condition described in the adjunct is true that the main clause assertion is true.</Paragraph>
      <Paragraph position="5"> While these observations appear to be both correct and relevant in narratives, this strong/weak distinction appears :irrelevant for instructions, which do not concern themselves with truth conditions in the same way as narratives. The only thing in instructions that comes close to the conditional sense of weak adjuncts is the perfective gerundive adjunct, as in Ex. 16 Having..basted the seams, check again for fit. Such adjuncts do convey a similar sense that it (only) when the action described in the adjunct is complete that the main clause command is relevant.</Paragraph>
      <Paragraph position="6"> In Section 3.1, we essentially tried to show that in instructions, gerundive adjuncts play a role in further specifying intended action. They may do this through augmenting amain, through providing an alternative description of Otrnai n through generation, or through specifying another (independent) action that must be performed simultaneously with Otmainin some way. Thus we conclude that gerundive adjuncts (if not all free adjuncts) play a different role in instructions than they do in narrative text. This emphasizes the importance of analysing constructions in situ, rather than assuming that conclusions based on narrative text will hold equally of instructions.</Paragraph>
    </Section>
  </Section>
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