Rolesandthecompositionalsemanticsofrole-denotingrelationaladjectives
CurtAndersonandSebastianLöbnerSFB991,Heinrich-Heine-Universität Düsseldorf
12th InternationalTbilisiSymposiumonLanguage,LogicandComputationLagodekhi,18−22September2017
(Slidesalsoatbit.ly/2xrZTpp)
Anderson&Löbner:Rolesandrelationaladjectives 0.Introduction 2
0.Introduction0.1Theproject• Somenominalssuchaspresident showanambiguitybetweenreadingsrelated toanofficialrole,andtoreadingsonapersonallevel.
Thepresidentvisitedhismother. (personalvisitpreferred)ThepresidentvisitedNetanyahu. (officialvisitpreferred)
• Thesereadingsaredriveninlargepartbyourunderstandingofsocial rolesintheworld:headsarestatearevisitedinthecourseofofficialdutiesofleadingacountry,whileparentsarenot.
• Puzzle:thesesamenominalsadmitforonly arole-related readingwhenusedasadjectives.Thepresidentvisitedhismother.Doesnotentail:Therewasapresidential visittothepresident’smother.
• Findthatdistinctionarisesnotjustwithverbalpredication,butpossessives aswell.thepresidentialdesk apresidentialadvisor (onlyofficial)thepresident’sdesk thepresident’sadvisor (personalorofficial)
Anderson&Löbner:Rolesandrelationaladjectives 0.Introduction 3
0.1Theproject• Presidential(inthisexample) isarelationaladjective (RAs).Otherexamples:
Ukrainiancrisis,technical architect,nuclearwar,dental care,semanticsconference
• Inthistalk,wecallpresidential (andotherlikeadjectives)role-denotingrelational adjectives.Examples:president ::presidential mayor::mayoralsenator::senatorial pope::papal
• Theserole-denoting relational adjectivesforma(semi-)productivesubclassofRAs inEnglish.• Oftenderived fromanoun,butinsomecasesthisisonlyapparentdiachronically(e.g.,royal fromLat.rex ‘king’)
Anderson&Löbner:Rolesandrelationaladjectives 0.Introduction 4
0.1Theproject
Questionsaddressedtoday
1. Howarerelationaladjectives,especiallythoseofthepresidential-type,represented?
2. Howarerolessemanticallyrepresentedanddistinguishedfromordinaryindividuals?
Anderson&Löbner:Rolesandrelationaladjectives 0.Introduction 5
0.1TheprojectOuranswer
• Enrichontology withlevelsofaction (official andpersonal)
• Lexicallydecompose role-denoting nouns. They encode anevent atanofficial level ofaction.
• Role-denoting RAsrelatemeaningofmodified nominal totheofficial actions encoded intheadjective.
• Rolesarederived fromthematicroles ofeventsatanofficial levelofaction.
Bigpicture
• Howadjectives compose withthenouns thattheymodify
• Howworldknowledge andcontextinteractwithlexicalmeaning
• Howournaturallanguageontology isorganized,andwhatkinds ofthingswefind init(e.g.theprojectofnaturallanguagemetaphysics)
Anderson&Löbner:Rolesandrelationaladjectives 0.Introduction 6
0.2Roadmapforthistalk
• Section1:Basicdataonrelationaladjectives
• Section2:PreviousaccountsofRAsandsomecritiques
• Section3:Ontologicalbackgroundforroles
• Section4:Analysisofpresidency,president,presidential
• Section5:Expandingontheanalysis
• Section6:Discussionandconclusion
Note:• Wefocusonpresidential asthebestandclearestexamplecaseinouranalysis.• Butthebasicanalysiscanbeextendedtootherexamplesoftheserole-denotingRAs.
Anderson&Löbner:Rolesandrelationaladjectives 1.Relationaladjectives 7
1.Relationaladjectives1.1Variantsofadnominalnon-propertyadjectiveuseClassificatoryuseSemanticsofA+N:Modifyinganounwithaclassificatoryadjectiveyieldsanexpressionforasubclassoftheclassdenotedbythemodifiednounalone.
• Examples:nuclearwarmusicalinstrumentdentalcare pediatricconferencepublicuniversity
• Mostclassificatoryadjectivesaredenominal,orthereisasemanticallyrelatednounmusical musicpediatric pediatricspublic publicdental teeth
• Classificatoryadjectivesarenotgradable.
• Propertyadjectivescanusuallynotbeusedpredicatively,butexceptionsarepossible#thecarewasdental#thisinstrumentismusical??thisconferenceispediatricthisuniversityispublic
• Outofcontext,classificatoryadjectivesdonotdefineaclassintheirownright.
Anderson&Löbner:Rolesandrelationaladjectives 1.Relationaladjectives 8
1.1Variantsofadnominaladjectiveuse
Thematicuse
TheadjectiveisdenominalorotherwiselexicallycorrespondingtoanounNA.
SemanticsofA+N:ModifyinganounwithathematicadjectiveamountstothecharacterizationofaneventargumentoftheheadnounasacaseofNA.
• Examples: presidentialvisitFrenchpolicysemanticsworkshop
• Thematicadjectivesarenotgradable.
• Thematicadjectives canusuallynotbeusedpredicatively#thisvisitispresidential#thispolicyisFrench??thisworkshopissemantics
• Outofcontext,thematicadjectivesdonotdefineaclassintheirownright.
Anderson&Löbner:Rolesandrelationaladjectives 1.Relationaladjectives 9
1.2Relationaladjectivesproper
RelationalA+Ncompositionally resultsinasense thatrelatesthesense ofNtoNA.
Therearethreenear-equivalent waysofsemantically joining twoNsenses:
English German Russian
deNA +N presidential visit prezidentN-skijA visit
NNcompound Präsidentenbesuch
possessive NN president’s visit Besuch desPräsidenten visitprezidentN-aGEN
deNA +N Ukrainian crisis
NNcompound UkraineNkrise
possessive NN
Anderson&Löbner:Rolesandrelationaladjectives 2.Previousaccounts 10
2.Previousaccounts2.1 PreviousaccountsI:Recoverablepredicates,thematicandclassificatoryadjectives
• Levi(1978)analyses compounds andRAsasbeingtransformationally derived frompredications thatmakeuseof asetofabstract“RecoverablyDeletable Predicates.”
CAUSE,HAVE,MAKE,USE,BE,IN,FOR,FROM,ABOUT
stresscausedbyheat->heatstress->thermalstress
• Raisesquestions ofwherethesepredicates comefrom, andwhyonly thesepredicates.
• Previous syntacticaccounts(Bosque andPicallo 1996,Alexiadou andStavrou 2011, a.o.)assumeadistinctionbetweenthematic andclassificatory uses ofRAs.
• Inthese accounts, thematicRAssyntactically saturateanargumentposition. Classificatory RAsaretrueadjectives (inmanyaccounts) andnotargument-saturating.
• Arsenijevic etal.(2014) provide argumentsagainstthis viewandforaviewthatRAsarealwaystrueadjectiveswithout syntacticargument-saturatingbehavior.
• Argument-saturatingbehavior isonly apparent.Product ofsemanticcomposition.
AndersonandLöbner:RelationalAdjectives2.Previousaccounts 11
2.2PreviousaccountsIIMcNally andBoleda (2004) arguethatrelationaladjectives areproperties of kinds andnotindividuals.
• Propose anintersective analysis ofRAs,adapting Larson’s (1998) analysis ofcertainevent-relatedadjectives(e.g.beautiful dancer,skillful surgeon), successfully capturingentailment patterns.
• Assume thatcommonnouns haveanargumentforaCarlsonian kind𝑥" inaddition toanargumentforanordinary individual 𝑦$ .Ordinary individual andkind relatedviaCarlson’s R(ealization) relation.
architect = 𝜆𝑥"𝜆𝑦$[𝑅 𝑥", 𝑦$ ∧ architect 𝑥" ]
• RAsareproperties ofkinds.
technical = 𝜆𝑥"[technical 𝑥" ]
• Intersectivemodification viathekind argument.
technicalarchitect = 𝜆𝑦$∃𝑥"[𝑅 𝑥", 𝑦$ ∧ architect 𝑥" ∧ technical 𝑥" ]
AndersonandLöbner:RelationalAdjectives2.Previousaccounts 12
2.3 Objection:Paraphraseswithkind
• Givenakind-based analyses, wemightexpectparaphraseswithkind tobepossible withroleadjectives(e.g.anAkind ofN).
• Generally, paraphrases ofthissortarenotpossiblewithroleadjectives ordon’tcapturetherole-relatedmeaning.presidential election electionofthepresident (THEME) #presidential kind ofelectionpresidential office office [position] ofbeingpresident #presidential kind ofofficepresidential office office [room]usedbythepresident #presidential kind ofofficepresidential desk desk usedbythepresident #presidential kind ofdeskpresidential advisor advisor ofthepresident (GOAL) #presidential kind ofadvisorpresidential visit(1) visit bythepresident #presidential kind ofvisitpresidential visit(2) visit tothepresident #presidential kind ofvisitpresidential order orderissued bythepresident (AGENT) #presidential kind oforderpresidentialmotorcade motorcadeescorting thepresident #presidential kind ofmotorcade
• This suggeststhatkinds arenottheontological sortrelevantforananalysis ofadjectives likepresidential.
AndersonandLöbner:RelationalAdjectives2.Previousaccounts 13
2.4 Objection:Relationsencodedintheadjective
• Arsenijević etal.(2014) propose thatcertainadjectives (French,Danish)domorethansimple intersectivemodification, butalsoencode anOrigin relation, relatingakind toalocation.
• But,therearemanypossible relations involved withpresidential.
presidential election electionwiththeaimofdeterminingthenext presidentincumbent (“thematic”)presidential office (1) theoffice of presidentrolepresidential office (2) office forcertaintypes ofofficial actionby thepresidentpresidential advisor advisor tothepresident forofficial actionpresidential visit (1) visitby thepresidentasthepresident (“thematic”)presidential visit (2) visitto thepresidentasthepresident (“thematic”)presidential order orderby thepresidentaspartofexecutingpresidentialrights (“thematic”)presidentialmotorcade motorcade[for] escorting thepresident onofficial travel
• Encoding therelationwithin theadjective istoostrong.Notageneralstrategyforrole-denoting RAs.
• Therelationmustcome fromthemodified noun and/or abridging relationprovided bycontext.
AndersonandLöbner:RelationalAdjectives2.Previousaccounts 14
2.5 Objection:Predicationswithrelationaladjectives
• Theaccountofrelationaladjectives asproperties ofkinds predicts thattheyshould beabletotakekind-denoting DPsasarguments(such asBPsorkind-denoting indefinites) whenused predicatively.
This ispossible, thoughnotalwaysso.
Forwomenconcernedabouttheirfuturefertilityforreasonsthat aremedical, socialorfinancial…
*Doctors/*Adoctorcanbemedical.
• Additionally, RAsusedpredicatively cansometimespredicateofnon-kind-denoting DPs,which should resultinatypemismatch.
Thisuniversity ispublic, butprivateuniversities and collegesarealso ontheisland.
Anearlygoalofdiagnosis istodeterminewhetherthe condition isviral or bacterial.
• This distribution isn’t straightforwardlypredictedbyRAsaspredicatesofkinds; otherpragmaticandsemantic propertiesmustbeinvolved.
Anderson&Löbner:Rolesandrelationaladjectives 3.Ontologicalbackground 15
3.Ontologicalbackground3.1Socialontology
• Asocial ontology provides forsocial entitiessuch aspersons andinstitutions, roles, offices, functions, andactions bysocial agents(e.g.voters, politicians, police, parents,spouses, teachers,etc.).
• Essential tothesocial ontology aresocial actsperformed bysocialagentsthatproduce social factsby acting,implementing social roles, etc.
• Entitiesinthesocial ontology are(ultimately) implemented byentities inaphysical ontology:persons areimplemented byhuman animals, andsocial actsareimplemented bydoings thatunderappropriate circumstances countas particularsocialacts(Searle1995).
• Thesocial ontology ofourworld isinitselfmulti-level.Forexample, persons aresocialentities thatmaytakeinsocial roles(ahigherlevel).
• Thesocial ontology isgroundedby anddependent onthephysical ontology.
Anderson&Löbner:Rolesandrelationaladjectives 3.Ontologicalbackground 16
3.2Officeandpersonlevelsofaction• Asocial office, like‘president oftheUS’, isdefined atanon-basic, abstractlevelofsocial ontology.Thereisanincumbent oftheoffice, aperson.
• Certaintypes ofactsareconsidered actsbytheoffice(ratherthantheindividual).
• Beinganabstractinstitution, theoffice cannotexecutetheact.
• Official actshavetobeimplemented by theperson in office.
• Whatoffice-holders dowhentheyimplement anofficial actisnot theofficial actbecause theofficial actisanactby theoffice, notbyitsincumbent.
office
incumbent
AGENT
implementationofofficialactAGENT
office level
person level
officialact
Anderson&Löbner:Rolesandrelationaladjectives 3.Ontologicalbackground 17
3.3Connectionsbetweenlevels
• Thereisafunction INC thatreturns theincumbent fortheoffice.
• Thereisafunction IMPL thatreturns theimplementing actA↧ fortheofficial actA.AandA↧havethesametemporalextension τ.
• Thereisa(partialfunction) CONST thatreturnstheimplemented actA↥ fortheimplementary act.This relationisGoldman’s (1970) “level-generation”.
office
incumbent
AGENT
implementationofofficialactAGENT
officialactoffice level
person level
INC IMPLCONST
Anderson&Löbner:Rolesandrelationaladjectives 3.Ontologicalbackground 18
3.3Anoteonnotation• FrameSemantics asformalizedbyPetersen(2007) andLöbner (2014).
• Frameisarecursive attribute–valuestructure.
• Model lexicalandworld-knowledge within thesamerepresentation.
• Frameattributesarefunctions.
• Wemovebackandforthbetweenusing first-orderformalizations of framesandgraph-theoretic framediagrams.But,nothing crucial isgainedorlostwitheitherformalization.
• Arcsrepresentattributes, nodes representvalues.
• Distinguished node (in yellow) represents thereferentialargumentoftheframe.
baATTRIBUTE
A
𝜆𝑎.𝐀 𝑎 ∧ ATTRIBUTE 𝑎 = 𝑏
Anderson&Löbner:Rolesandrelationaladjectives 4.Presidency–president- presidential 19
4.Presidency−president−presidential4.1*Presideandpresidency• Thenotions of‘president’ and‘presidency’ aredefined (by socialregulation) attheofficelevel.
• Weassume thatthebasic notion istheoneof ‘presidency’.
• Apresidency isaneventwithtwoarguments, anORG[ANIZATION] andaHEAD.We introduce ahypothetical verb*preside forthistypeofevent.
• Likeforanyevent, thereisatemporal extension τ foreverypresidency. We assume thatpresidencies aretemporally uninterrupted.
λe(*preside(e) ˄ HEAD(e)=p ˄ ORG(e)=o ˄ τ(e)=t)
peHEAD
officeleveloORG
t
τ
*preside
Anderson&Löbner:Rolesandrelationaladjectives 4.Presidency–president- presidential 20
4.1*Presideandpresidency
• Evidenceforanevent*preside fromderivationalmorphology.
• president->presidency.Shiftfrompresidentindividualattheofficeorpersonalleveltothe*preside eventattheofficelevel.
BarackObama’spresidencylastedeightyears.
BecausehispresidencyoccurredbetweenthoseofGroverClevelandandTheodoreRoosevelt,McKinley’saccomplishmentshaveoftenbeenoverlooked.
• Note:Notcrucialforouranalysisthatpresidencyitself denoteanevent.
• But,wedoneedaneventincorporatedintothemeaningofpresident.
• SimilarmoveismadebyLarson(1998)fornouns likeking thatalsodonotobviouslyhaveanevent.
Anderson&Löbner:Rolesandrelationaladjectives 4.Presidency–president- presidential 21
4.2President• Thenounpresidentisindiscriminately used attheofficeand theperson level.
• Wederiveitsmeaning fromthe*presideframe,aseithertheheadorincumbent.
• Assumption: Foreverytimet,every organizationo, thereisatmostonepresidency obtaining.
presidentoffice(t, o) =def HEAD (ιe(*preside(e) ˄ tin τ(e)˄ ORG(e)=o)presidentperson(t, o) =def INC (HEAD (ιe(*preside(e) ˄ tin τ(e)˄ ORG(e)=o)
peHEAD
officeleveloORG
τ
*preside
p↧
INC
personlevel
president:
Anderson&Löbner:Rolesandrelationaladjectives 4.Presidency–president- presidential 22
4.3Presidential• Theadjectivepresidential, inthemeaningunderlying itsRAuse, relatestotheoffice level.
• ItIsalsobasedontheconcept*preside.
• ItappearstolacktheORG andtheτ arguments.
peHEAD officelevel
*preside
presidential:
Anderson&Löbner:Rolesandrelationaladjectives 5.Compositionalanalysis 23
5.Compositionalanalysis5.1Reminder:Possiblereadingsforvisiting-presidentconstructions
officialreading personalreading
(1) TheUSpresidentvisitstheRussianpresident. available* available
(2) TrumpvisitsPutin. worldknowledge:available available
(3) Trumpvisitshisson. worldknowledge:notavailable available
(4) presidentialvisit available notavailable
(5) thepresident’svisit available available
NoteThe“official”readingisalso possible witharbitrarydenotations oftheoffice-holders ifsupportedbyworldknowledge (cf.(2)and(3)).
Anderson&Löbner:Rolesandrelationaladjectives 5.Compositionalanalysis 24
5.1Possiblereadingsforvising-presidentsconstructionsNote
• OnlytheNposs N variantallowsforboththepersonreadingandtheofficereading.
• TheNposs Nvariantistheonly onewherethefirstN refers.
• Nroots ofdenominal words donotrefer.
• Comparepresidential advisor regularadvisor forofficial presidentialmattersvs.president’s advisor advisor ofthepresident inarbitrarymatters
(including suchunrelated topresident’s office)
presidential desk desk forthepresident forhis official usevs.president’s desk desk usedbythepresident foranypurpose
(possibly unrelated topresident’s office)
Anderson&Löbner:Rolesandrelationaladjectives 5.Compositionalanalysis 25
5.2Generalassumptionsoncomposition
Weassumethat…
• Thebasicmechanismofcompositionisunification,ratherthanfunctionapplication.
• Whentwomeaningsareunified,theremaybemorethanonpossibilityforunification.Compositionisnotnecessarilydeterministic.
• Expressionswithmulti-leveldenotationlendthemselvesforunificationatalllevelsinvolved.
• Semanticconceptsarebasedon,andembeddedin,ourgeneralontologyandknowledgeoftheworld.
• Contextualknowledgemayenableorpreventparticularchoicesforunification.
Anderson&Löbner:Rolesandrelationaladjectives 5.Compositionalanalysis 26
5.3OfficialvisitThepresident visitedNetanyahu.
Reading1:Official visitofficial byvisitor inoffice tohost insomeoffice.• visitofficial requires agentandhost attheoffice level• Theagentnodeunifieswiththeoffice-level nodeofthe‘president’frame.• Theoffice ofcorresponding toNetanyahucomes fromworld knowledge.• ReferencetothepersonofNetanyahunecessitates elaboration ofthepersonal level.
pHEAD
oORG
τ
*preside
p↧
INC
e
visitofficial
INC
Netanyahu
HOST
e↧
IMPL
AGENT
HOSTAGENT
visitofficial↧
officelevel
personlevel
Anderson&Löbner:Rolesandrelationaladjectives 5.Compositionalanalysis 27
5.4PersonalvisitThepresident visitsNetanyahu.
Reading2:Personal visit.
• visit asaverbof non-institutional personal actionrequires agentandhostatthepersonal level
• Theagentnodeunifies withtheincumbentnodeof thepresident frame.
pHEADo ORG
τ
*preside
p↧
INC
NetanyahueHOSTAGENT
visit
officelevel
personlevel
Anderson&Löbner:Rolesandrelationaladjectives 5.Compositionalanalysis 28
5.5Presidentialvisitpresidential visit
• Theframeforpresidential does notprovide nodes attheperson level.
• Theonly targetforunification istheoffice-level president node.
Possible unifications: The‘president’ node canunifywitheither theagentorthehostnodeof‘visit’.
peHEAD
*preside
e
visitofficialHOSTAGENT officelevel
peHEAD
*preside
e
visitofficialHOSTAGENT
officelevel
Anderson&Löbner:Rolesandrelationaladjectives 6.Conclusion 29
6.Conclusions6.1Socialontology
• Theanalysis ofrole-denoting adnominal adjectives requiresarichontologythatincludes asocial ontologyandisabletodistinguish between levelsthatconstitute, orimplement eachothers.
• Roles, atleastsome, canbederived fromeventsofrole-incumbency atanappropriate levelinthesocialontology. Theyarethematicrolesinthistypeofevent.
• Rolesasabstractentitiesinthesocial ontology arelinkedbytheincumbentrelation toentitiesatthelevelofpersons inthesocial ontology.
• Theontology levelof rolesandoffices provides forroleandoffice acts by agentsatthislevel.These actsarelevel-generated (Goldman1970) bydoings ofagentsatlowerlevels.
• Referencetoactsatoffice levelnecessarily requires lowerlevelimplementary action bytheincumbent oftheoffice.
• Thereisnocommitment to‘kinds’ or‘roles’ asprimitive ontological types.Kinds arenotinvolved. Rolesarethematicrolesof incumbency events.
Anderson&Löbner:Rolesandrelationaladjectives 6.Conclusion 30
6.2Compositionalanalysis• Aframe-based lexicalsemantics allows theapplication ofunificationasthebasicmechanism ofcomposition.
• Composition allowsformultiple readings fromthesamelexicalinput, ifunification ispossible inmorethanoneway.Thus composition isnotnecessarily deterministic.
• Theontology connects lexicalconcepts toworldknowledge.
• Some lexicalconcepts involvemorethanoneontological level.
• Composition requires level-selectionforunification.
Anderson&Löbner:Rolesandrelationaladjectives Acknowledgments 31
Thankyou!
Acknowledgments
Theresearchreportedinthis presentationwassupported by theGermanScience Foundation (DFG),grantCRC991“TheStructure ofRepresentations inLanguage,Cognition, andScience”.
Thespeakersareobliged totheircolleaguesHenk Zeevat,Willi Geuder,Wiebke Petersen, Katja Gabrovska,GottfriedVosgerau,GerhardSchurz, andMarkusSchrenk forextendeddiscussion of thesemantic andontological issues involved.
Contact
CurtAnderson email:[email protected]
Sebastian Löbner email:[email protected]
CRC991ProjectC10 http://www.sfb991.uni-duesseldorf.de/en/c10/
Anderson&Löbner:Rolesandrelationaladjectives References 32
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