| | | Identifying Phrase Types |
The syntactic metalanguage used in the FrameNet project is not intended as a framework for the complete syntactic description of sentences. Rather, it is intended as a framework for describing the syntactic valence properties of individual lexical items. In choosing the grammatical functions and phrase types to use, the major criterion was whether or not a particular label might figure into a description of the grammatical requirements of one of the target words of the project.
The emphasis on what is relevant to lexical descriptions means that we limit ourselves, for the most part, to those phrase type labels which might appear in subcategorization frames in more theoretically oriented syntactic descriptions. One way in in which the FrameNet syntax differs from traditional treatments of subcategorization, however, is in its inclusion of certain modifiers. For example, the FrameNet description of a noun like clinic makes reference to the types of nouns which can modify this noun in compounds like allergy clinic. In theoretical treatments, modifiers of this sort are typically assumed to be outside the realm of subcategorization. We include them because they frequently express the same semantic roles (or frame elements) with respect to the modified heads as complements express with respect to their governors. For example, the frame associated with the verb treat includes a role for the Disease which is treated, and this role is typically expressed as the object of treat. Thus you can treat an allergy, treat the flu, and so forth. Modifiers occurring with the noun treatment often express the same role; thus there are allergy treatments, flu treatments, etc. We consider observations like this to be of lexicographic interest, and our syntactic descriptions reflect this perspective.
Nonreferential Noun PhraseThere (Expletive there)It (Expletive it)
Two types of Prepositional Phrases are assigned the phrase type PP.
Standard Prepositional Phrase (with NP object)PPing (Preposition with gerund object)Particle (with no object)
VPbrst (Bare Stem Verb Phrase)VPto (To-Marked Infinitive Verb Phrase)
VPing (Gerundive Verb Phrase)
Sfin (Finite Clause (with or without that))
Swh- (Wh-Clause)
Swhether (Whether/if-Clause)
Sing (Gerundive Clause)Sto (To-marked Clause)
Sforto (For-to-marked Clause)
Sbrst (Bare Stem Clause)
The first distinction to worry about with NP types is that between referential and nonreferential NPs. Expletive it and there are the two kinds of nonreferential NPs. These are marked with separate tags (It, There) because they occur in special syntactic contexts which are only licensed by certain predicators, and because they need to be distinguished from the locative proform there and the pronoun it, whose semantic properties they do not share. Some examples are given below.
[It] is clear that we won't finish on time.[It] is odd that George is winning.
[There] are more cookies in the jar.
[There] is a fly in my soup.
Referential NPs are either possessive NPs (marked Poss) or standard (nonpossessive) NPs (marked NP). Possessive NPs, which may either be possessive pronouns or noun phrases marked with 's, often express frame elements of predicating nouns. For example, in the Speech Communication domain, possessive nouns express THE Speaker role when they are the determiners of target nouns such as claim, remark, reply, etc.:
I question [your] claim that the car was already damaged. [The President's] remarks surprised the reporters. [Leslie's] reply was well-timed.
Note: The label `possessive' is not restricted to NPs denoting actual possessors. It is a morphosyntactic type rather than a semantic type.
In some situations it is necessary to tag nominal expressions which are not complete (i.e. maximal) noun phrases. For example, consider nominal modifiers of target nouns, or the modified nouns in sentences showing target adjectives used attributively in what follows here.
The judge dismissed the [forgery] allegations.[Cancer] treatments are advancing rapidly.
Allergic [patients] benefit from this medicine.
The senator gave a polemical [speech].
These non-maximal nominal expressions are given the grammatical function N (for `nominal').
Notice that head nouns that are frame elements of postnominal modifiers are not treated as non-maximal nominals. Rather they are treated as if the postnominal modifier was used with a copula, i.e. they are treated as full NPs with respect to Phrase Type, and as External arguments with respect to Grammatical function.
The problem seems to affect [people] sensitive to primulas.
With the exception of possessive and of referential noun phrases, all noun phrases are marked with the phrase type NP. The sections below discuss special circumstances which arise with the tagging of NPs.
I heard [a story about a man named Jed].I dropped [the lid of my vitamin jar]
[The fact that moles are blind] is totally irrelevant.
If the target word is inside the relative clause, include the relative pronoun or relativizer inside the square brackets with the head nominal, as in the following examples:
[the doctor who] cured my insomnia[the joke that] got repeated over and over
If the target word is not inside the relative clause, include the whole relative clause modifier along with the nominal head, as in the following examples. (Relative clauses are in italics.)
[The acupuncturist I saw last month] cured my insomnia.
Other postnominal modifiers should also be included inside NPs. These include `reduced relative clauses' headed by prepositions and participial forms of verbs:
[The cat in the corner] likes celeryI have [a cat with orange stripes]
[The cat running down the hall] is my favorite
I'm talking about [the cat bitten by a mouse]
If there is more than one postnominal modifier, they should all be included inside the NP:
Stop [that cat with orange stripes running down the hall]
The passengers looked [at the monitors]. PPThe players began to spread [out]. PP
The fog prevented us [from seeing anything]. PPing
Particles like those in the following examples are treated as prepositions without objects and are assigned the Phrase Type PP.
Did you figure the problem [out]?Look the number [up] in the phone book.
He took his hat [off] and put it on the table.
Note that particles of this kind may occur before NPs and therefore give the appearance of being the heads of regular PPs with NP objects:
Did you figure [out] the problem?Look [up] the number in the phone book.
He took [off] his hat and put it on the table.
However, given the fact they are separable, as shown in the earlier examples, they cannot plausibly be treated as the heads of PPs in contexts like this. Therefore they are enclosed by themselves in brackets and assigned the label PP. Lexicographers are likely to be informed in advance of the particles which can appear with particular target words.
Test: If you are uncertain about whether or not to treat a word W as a particle, perform this test:
1. Think of a simple VP of the form V W NP.2. Transpose the W and the NP: V NP W.
3. If the transposed version is an acceptable paraphrase of the original VP, then the word W is a particle.
While some particles, like the ones above, are equivalent in form to prepositions and may therefore misleadingly appear to head PPs in certain contexts, other particles do not resemble prepositions and are therefore less likely to be misanalyzed that way:
Throw [away] those old things!The librarian told me to put [back] the books.
There is no syntactic reason to distinguish these particles from the ones which resemble prepositions, and they are therefore given the same label (PP).
Some verb-preposition combinations are clearly conventional, e.g.
The passengers looked at the information monitors.Let me know if you come across that reference I asked you about.
Though these verb-preposition combinations are units in the lexicon, we do not capture their unitary status in terms of constituent structure. That is, we do not analyze look at and come across as syntactic constituents. Rather, we analyze the prepositions in expressions like this as heading PPs:
The passengers looked [at the information monitors]Let me know if you come [across that reference].
In accordance with the Construction Grammar analysis of these expressions, their unitary status is captured in the valence representations of lexical entries. For example, there will be a lexical entry for look at which states that the verbal head look requires a PP headed by the preposition at.
Some prepositions function as individual lexical units but consist, orthographically, of more than one word (complex prepositions shown in italics):
Put the birthday cake next to the other desserts.
We had tofu instead of veal.
Expressions of this kind are treated as single complex prepositions which head normal PPs. The PPs in the above sentences should be tagged in the following way:
Your birthday cake is [next to the other desserts].We had tofu [instead of veal].
A preposition and its complement may be separated from each other, with the preposition appearing in a canonical post-verbal position and its complement noun phrase appearing a in a pre-verbal position higher in the clause.
[John] we laughed [at].[The man] you screamed [at] is my father.
Since allowing for preposition stranding is not lexically relevant information, annotators are discouraged from marking such sentences. If, however, sentences with preposition stranding have been annotated, then the two parts are assigned their normal phrase type values, NP and PP.
If the target word is inside the relative clause and one of its frame elements is a prepositional phrase containing the relative pronoun, then we include the phrase containing the relative pronoun or relativizer inside the square brackets with the head nominal, as in the following examples:
[the house out of which] I was evictedNotice that the bracketed constituent is treated as a PP.[the operator to whom] he had spoken
If preposition stranding occurs within the relative clause, we mark the antecedent and relativizer as well as the stranded preposition.
[the house that] I was evicted [out of][the operator that] he had spoken [to]
Every verb phrase has at least a head verb, which may be a main verb or an auxiliary. VPs headed by main verbs may also contain one or more auxiliaries. A verb phrase may also have a negative marker, an infinitive marker, a pre-verbal adverb phrase, one or more complements of the verb, and one or more post-verbal adjuncts. A VP may be headed by the main verb in a sentence or it may be embedded as a complement under another verb. The following examples show a variety of VPs:
I have. (In response to "Have you taken out the trash?")This book really stinks.
I didn't expect you to eat your sandwich so quickly.
Any VP containing a verb (including auxiliaries) which (1) expresses information about tense and (2) is not in a separate embedded clause is tagged as a finite VP. Finite VPs are not generally subcategorized for, but it is nonetheless necessary to tag them in certain contexts, e.g.
Who do you think [ate the sandwich]?What did you say [fell on your hat]?
This pattern seems to be limited to a fairly small number of verbs of belief and assertion which subcategorize for clausal complements: think, believe, say, claim, assert, etc.
Among non-finite VPs it is necessary to recognize bare stem infinitives (VPbrst), to-marked infinitives (VPto), and gerunds (VPing).
Bare stem infinitives are non-tensed verb phrases headed by verbs in the bare stem form without the infinitive marker to. Examples of bare stem infinitives (VPbrst) are given below.
We made the children [take naps].Management let the employees [set their own hours].
Note that the children take naps and the employees set their own hours are not treated as clauses in the FrameNet project, though that is how they are sometimes analyzed.
To-marked infinites are VPs that begin with the infinitive marker to. Otherwise they are identical to bare-stem infinitives. Examples of to-marked infinitives appear below.
The cat wants [to go outside].The mayors persuaded the President [to support the cities].
It is hard for infants [to tie their own shoes].
Gerundive VPs are VPs headed by verbs in the -ing form. They often occur in syntactic contexts in which nominal expressions also occur. Examples of Gerundive VPs are provided here.
My friend likes [running barefoot].[Inhaling pepper] makes most people sneeze.
We watched the dogs [playing].
Expression types that are treated as clauses in some syntactic theories are treated in the FrameNet syntax as combinations of smaller constituents. For example, the sequence Pat leave in a sentence like They made Pat leave is sometimes analyzed as a `small clause,' but in the FrameNet metalanguage it is treated simply as an NP followed by a bare stem infinitive VP. This strategy has been adopted for two reasons. First, it simplifies the lexicographers' task of annotation, making it unnecessary to decide in certain cases which combinations of constituents should be treated as clausal and which should not. Second, it makes the lexical descriptions produced by the FrameNet project relatively theory-neutral. While the question of which verbal complements are clausal and which are not is answered differently in different syntactic theories, the analysis of clauses into their major constituents is in most cases uncontroversial.
Pat knew [Kim would never agree]Pat knew [that Kim would never agree]
Structurally, a wh-interrogative clause may be a sentence or a verb phrase. Although not full clauses, these phrases only occur in constructions which allow a full Swh and therefore a single PT is used for both. Note that we treat how as a wh-expression. Wh-expressions are included in the tag for the clause.
I heard [what you said].I forgot [what to say].
I know [how you feel]. I don't know [how to react].
I asked [who came]. She told me [who to invite].
I wonder [whether the Indian restaurant delivers]He wondered [whether to turn back]
Kim didn't know [if Pat liked the show]
I don't like [him being here all the time]Notice that similar-looking gerundive forms with a possessive subject are treated as noun phrases:[*He] wasn't liked [being there all the time]
I don't like his being here all the time.
I'd like [you to meet my mother] Certainly , but I should hate [you to forget that he has scored more runs in Test cricket than any other Englishman].
In sentences like the above example, you cannot be the subject of a passive and therefore is treated as part of the non-finite clause.
*[You] would be liked [to meet my mother]
I'd like [for you to meet my mother] I would prefer [for John to stay in the 250 class].
The manager demanded [that employees be on time]
Certain clauses introduced by subordinators can be frame elements and consequently need to be tagged. Such clauses receive the PT value Ssub (Subordinate Clause) rather than Sfin (finite complement clause). In the following sentence, the because-clause expresses the Reason frame element of the target word admire, which belongs to the frame Cognition/Judgment.
I admire her [because she is an actress who can also sing] and I think she has a wonderful personality , " said Mr Hipkiss as he stood with 1,500 screaming fans outside the city 's Ritzy nightclub .
Adjective Phrases typically occur as prenominal modifiers, as non-Subject complements of copular be and a small number of related verbs (seem, become, etc.), and as predicate complements of verbs like find, consider, etc.:
They were eating [very large] sandwiches.The house is [empty].
You seem [sad] today.
The company considers these documents [extremely valuable].
We found the play [dull].We found the play [extremely dull].
We found the play [extremely dull and too long].
Some adjectival expressions to be tagged are not treated as complete (i.e. maximal) adjective phrases. This is typically the case with relational modification:
[marital] bliss*very marital bliss
These expressions are given the phrase type A.
Some adjectives take complements other than the nouns they modify and these should be included as part of the Adjective Phrase. For example, consider the comparative adjective illustrated below:
Leslie is [taller than Kim].
An adjective and its complement may form a discontinous constituent:
We need to find a [taller] player [than Kim].
In such cases, both the adjective and its complement are enclosed in brackets and assigned the label AJP.
Sometimes an adverb expresses a frame element of a target verb. For example:
The President answered the question [affirmatively].
In this sentence, the adverb affirmatively expresses the frame element Message, because it tells us that the President said Yes, or something equivalent in meaning, to the reporter's question. It is therefore tagged and assigned the phrase type AVP, the grammatical function Mod(ifier) and the frame element Message.
Some verbs of communication take quoted material as a complement and are assigned the PT QUO. For example:
["Get out of here!"] she cried.["But, I, er, uh..."] he stammered.
Quoted material can be of any syntactic form, or syntactically ill-formed, for that matter. Because the distribution or `external syntax' of quoted material does not depend on its internal syntactic structure, we use a separate phrase type to tag it. Only direct quotes are givent the phrase type QUO. Indirect quotes always take the form of some other kind of specific phrase type, e.g.
They asked us [what we were doing there].(Wh-clause)The President said [that he would support the inner city].(That-clause)
Quoted material is easy to identify because it almost always appears in quotation marks, which should be included inside the brackets marking the Quote constituent.
Sometimes quoted material forms a discontinuous constituent:
["Cities,"] he said, ["are a very high priority."]
In such cases, both portions of the quote should be enclosed in square brackets and assigned the PT QUO. The tagging and annotation software will automatically coindex the parts and treat them together as a single unit.
| | | Identifying Phrase Types |