Aspectual Modifications to a LCS Database for NLP Applications
Aspectual Modifications to a LCS Database for NLP Applications
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Date
1998-10-15
Authors
Dorr, Bonnie J.
Olsen, Mari Broman
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Abstract
Verbal and compositional lexical aspect provide the underlying
temporal structure of events. Knowledge of lexical aspect, e.g.,
(a)telicity, is therefore required for interpreting event sequences in
discourse (Dowty, 1986: Moens and Steedman, 1988; Passoneau, 1988),
interfacing to temporal databases (Androutsopoulos, 1996),
processing temporal modifiers (Antonisse, 1994), describing
allowable alternations and their semantic effects (Resnik, 1996; Tenny,
1994), and selecting tense and lexical items for natural language generation
((Dorr and Olsen, 1996; Klavans and Chodorow, 1992), cf. (Slobin and Bocaz,
1988)). We show that it is possible to represent lexical aspect---both
verbal and compositional---on a large scale, using Lexical Conceptual
Structure (LCS) representations of verbs in the classes cataloged by
Levin (1993). We show how proper consideration of these universal pieces
of verb meaning may be used to refine lexical representations and derive a
range of meanings from combinations of LCS representations. A single
algorithm may therefore be used to determine lexical aspect classes and
features at both verbal and sentence levels. Finally, we illustrate how
knowledge of lexical aspect facilitates the interpretation of events in
NLP applications.
(Also cross-referenced as UMIACS-TR-97-21)
(Also cross-referenced as LAMP-TR-007)