Mutiword Expressions: An Extremist Approach

1. Mutiword Expressions:An Extremist Approach Charles J. Fillmore ICSI and UCB

2. Background:or, Why Do I Care? • FrameNet Project • How to evaluate progress • "Words" versus LUs: complain, take off, depend on • Search problems and word frequency • General questions of polysemy • Some corpus linguistics traditions • Certain technical problems of representation: parcelling out meanings • MWEs and the rest of the grammar • Estimation of vocabulary size • Questions of acquisition, typology, etc.

3. What is a MWE? • Any linguistic expression, involving more than one word, that requires an interpreter – human or machine – to have more than the abilities of an "Innocent Speaker-Hearer". • The concept is not limited to lexicalized (listable) expressions.

4. Innocent Speaker-Hearer • The ISH knows • individual simple lexical units, • the basic head-to-dependent grammatical relations, • the basic head-to-dependent semantic relations as determined by the frame of the governing lexical unit, • regular and specific rules for realizing these, • strategies for building a semantic structure out of all this. • That's all it knows.

5. Dependency Representation • Since ISH's knowledge is about • unitary words and • word-to-word relations, • that can be represented in dependency diagrams in • which each node is a word and • each word-to-word link, i.e., each branch, • stands for one of the basic grammatical relations and • is capable of bearing a frame-based semantic relation to the governor.

6. Here's a simple case: His parents gave me a copy of that fascinating book about frogs. gave parents me copy his a of book that fascinating about frogs

7. Basic syntactic relations • Complementation • Specification • Modification (there are others)

8. Complementation His parents gave me a copy of that fascinating book about frogs. gave parents me copy his a of book that fascinating about frogs

9. Complementation His parents gave me a copy of that fascinating book about frogs. gave Actually, copy of should be treated as a MWE. parents me copy his a of book that fascinating about frogs

10. Specification His parents gave me a copy of that fascinating book about frogs. gave parents me copy his a of book that fascinating about frogs

11. Specification His parents gave me a copy of that fascinating book about frogs. gave parents me copy his a of Actually his can also be thought of as satisfying a frame requirement of the relational noun parents. book that fascinating about frogs

12. Modification His parents gave me a copy of that fascinating book about frogs. gave parents me copy his a of book that fascinating about frogs

13. So ... • The study of MWEs proceeds by examining meaning units of the language that do not lend themselves to such a simple treatment. • (Consider a parser.)

14. Where the ISH idealization fails • Some apparent MWEs are best analyzed as single words, occupying one node. • Some MWEs are the product of "non-core" constructions and semi-independent mini-grammars. • Some MWEs are the products of "regular" processes but have institutionally stipulated meanings. • Some MWEs can be represented as dependency subgraphs (not "just" word strings, or collocate sets).

15. Where the ISH idealization fails • Some apparent MWEs are best analyzed as single words, occupying one node. • Some MWEs are the product of "non-core" constructions and semi-independent mini-grammars. • Some MWEs are the products of "regular" processes but have institutionally stipulated meanings. • Some MWEs can be represented as dependency subgraphs(not "just" word strings, or collocate sets).

16. 1. "Runs"

17. “Runs" • There are things that look like MWEs (that are written as sequences of words), but they have no internal variation and may just as well be thought of as long words with spaces in them. • Examples • used to, let alone, of course, all of a sudden, first off • Many are easily mislearned • used to > used of • by and large > by in large • to all intents and purposes > to all intensive purposes • an arm and a leg > a nominal egg

18. 2. Special Constructions

19. Special Constructions • Some common grammatical constructions require structures that go beyond the "core" provisions of a grammar. Consider the structure of: • the faster we drive the sooner we'll get there • what's this scratch doing on my violin? • she's older than any of us realized • she wouldn't give her mother a nickel let alone a dollar

20. Minigrammars Some MWEs are generated by simple generative structures, usually finite state automata, for which dependency – or constituency – representations are not always relevant. • Names • Numbers • Locations (addresses, coordinates) • Time Expressions • Kinterms

21. Personal Names • Reverend Dr T. Allen Hampton-Smith III • Components: titles, honorifics, given names, patronymics, family names, extensions, ...

22. English Kinterms • grandfather, great grandfather, great great grandfather, etc. • first cousin, second cousin, third cousin • first cousin once removed, second cousin three times removed, etc. • father-in-law, son-in-law, sister-in-law, etc.

23. A B C D E F G H siblings X

24. A B C D E F G H cousins X

25. A B C D E F G H second cousins X

26. A B C D E F G H first cousins once removed X

27. A B C D E F G H first cousins twice removed X

28. Digression • Ordinary techniques of computational linguistics/corpus linguistics won't be able to recognize the constructional nature of some expressions. • Test case another $600

30. But how do we analyze "another $600"?

31. But how do we analyze "another $600"?

32. Relations to the rest of the grammar • It would be most convenient if the products of minigrammars could be "sealed" and not interfere with the rest of the sentence. But: • Croatian names • Finnish numbers • Internal grammar

33. 3. Stipulated Designations

34. Translucent Idioms:regular productions with stipulated designations From one point of view these are just "long words" with special meanings, but they are semantically penetrable; e.g., • names of organizationsThe American Society for the Prevention of Cruelty to Animals. (ASPCA) • names of titlesDeputy Undersecretary of Defense for Intelligence • names of officially designated crimesassaulting a federal officer with a deadly or lethal weapon

35. 4. Dependency Subgraphs

36. Dependency Subgraphs • Here we refer to lexical units that are continuous parts of dependency structures. x x x y y z y z

37. Dependency Subgraphs • A given lexical unit of this kind can have its own subcategorization requirements. x x x A A y y z y A z

38. (Motivating digression) • word strings - "wrist watch" - how to find - statistical significance ("of the") • discontinuous - "collocates" - within spans - within sentences • some kind of grammatical relation between them?

39. Subcategorization Details

40. Particle Verbs - Intransitive • Verb > particleis the lexical unit. • Exx: wake up, go away, sit down, shut up, • Interruptible: Shut the hell up! V X part shut X up shut up shut the_hell

41. Particle Verbs - Transitive V • Verb > particleis the lexical unit. • Exx: take off ('remove'), take out ('date'), • Interruptible: Take your shoes off.I took her out once. X Y part take X Y off take take your shoes off

42. In the Old Days ... About half a century ago it was generally believed that in Deep Structure, phrases like pick up, take off, etc., started out as single constituents, and a Particle Movement Transformation allowed the extraction of the particle so that it could follow the direct object. [take off] [your shoes] >> [take] [your shoes] [off] A dependency subgraph can recognize the unity of the two-word block without worrying about phrasal constituency.

43. Prepositional Verbs - Intransitive V • Verb > prepositionis the lexical unit. • Exx: look for ('seek'), object to ('oppose'), look into ('investigate') • Interruptible: I looked long and hard for the perfect wife.We objected strenuously to her proposal. • Comment: Some PPs are omissible, some aren't. look (for), look into X prep Y look X for Y

44. Omissible (under conditions of zero anaphora) Look at it!- I'm looking. Look for it.- I'm looking. Non-omissible Could you look into this problem for me?- *I've already started looking. PP Omissibility

45. Prepositional Verbs - Transitive V • Verb > prepositionis the lexical unit. • Exx: talk into ('persuade'), rid of • Comment: PP is sometimes omissible: The judge cleared me (of all charges).They tried to talk me *(into quitting my job).Who will rid me *(of this meddlesome priest)? X Y prep Z clear X of Y Z

46. Particle-&-Preposition Verbs V • Verb > {part,prep} is the lexical unit. • Exx: put up with ('tolerate'), look up to ('respect'), break in on ('interrupt') • Not generally interruptible, I think (haven't checked corpus data). X part prep Y put X up with Y

47. V+N+P Verbs V • Verb > /N,prep/is the lexical unit. • Exx: take advantage of ('exploit'), take part in ('participate in'), take charge of • Comments: N can be modified; N can be passive subject:Considerable advantage was taken of this opportunity.Pseudo-passive:They were cruelly taken advantage of. • N does not take a determiner. X N prep Y take X part in Y

48. Other Parts of Speech • Adjectives can have prepositional and clausal complements: • fond of cats; interested in math; similar to mud • Nouns can have prepositional and causal complements: • top of the tower; friend to the poor; journey into the jungle; copy of the book

49. VP Idioms

50. Obvious ones • pull someone's leg, blow one's nose • kick the bucket • Less obvious ones • answer the door (Would you answer the door?) • mention someone's name (Did anybody mention my name at the party?)