Semantic (or Thematic)

Proto-Roles
Drew Reisinger, Rachel Rudinger, Frank
Ferraro, Craig Harman, Aaron White,
Kyle Rawlins, and Benjamin Van Durme
 Talk Outline
Overview of thematic/semantic roles

Dowty (1991)’s proto-roles

New: A crowdsourced proto-role corpus

Future work
 Talk Outline
Overview of thematic/semantic
roles

Dowty (1991)’s proto-roles

New: A crowdsourced proto-role corpus

Future work
 Thematic roles (linguistics)
Semantic roles (comp. ling.)
Verbal meanings consist of information
like:
Who did what to who(m)?
What happened to which individual?
…
Thematic roles fill in the who
(and some of the what)
Agent, Patient, Theme…
Fillmore 1968; Gruber 1965; Jackendoff 1972, 1976
Generalized Thematic Roles

Lexical entry

lemma: /hɪt/
category: V

role-list:
AGENT
THEME
INSTRUMENT

Dowty 1991; Schlesinger 1995; Van Valin 1990, 1999; Croft 1998
Generalized Thematic Roles

Lexical entry

lemma: /hɪt/
category: V

role-list:
AGENT
LINKING RULES
THEME
INSTRUMENT

Dowty 1991; Schlesinger 1995; Van Valin 1990, 1999; Croft 1998
Generalized Thematic Roles

Lexical entry

lemma: /hɪt/
category: V

role-list:
AGENT
THEME
LINKING RULES SUBJ hit DOBJ with OBLQ
INSTRUMENT

Dowty 1991; Schlesinger 1995; Van Valin 1990, 1999; Croft 1998
PropBank (comp. ling.)

The Proposition Bank: An annotated corpus of semantic roles. Palmer,

Gildea, and Kingsbury. Computational Linguistics 31.1 (2005): 71-106.
 Role Fragmentation
Who did what to who(m)?
What happened to which individual?
…

Agent, Patient

Dowty 1991
 Role Fragmentation
Who did what to who(m)?
What happened to which individual?
…

Agent, Patient, Theme, Beneficiary

Dowty 1991
 Role Fragmentation
Who did what to who(m)?
What happened to which individual?
…

Agent, Patient, Theme, Beneficiary,

Actor, Instrument, Co-Patient, Value

Dowty 1991
 Role Fragmentation
Who did what to who(m)?
What happened to which individual?
…

Agent, Patient, Theme, Beneficiary, Actor,

Instrument, Co-Patient, Value,
Item, Speaker, Difference, Message,
Goods, Addressee, Sender, Donor, Seller,
Cognizer, Co-Theme, Experiencer, Buyer,
…
Dowty 1991; Baker, Fillmore & Lowe 1998 (FrameNet)
 Talk Outline
Overview of thematic/semantic roles

Dowty (1991)’s proto-roles

New: A crowdsourced proto-role corpus

Future work
 … then along came Dowty
Thematic proto-roles and argument
selection. David Dowty. Language.
1991.

So many roles!
 Dowty (1991)
for [roles to have] explicit semantic
content, the meanings of all natural-
language predicates … must permit us
to assign the argument … to some
official thematic role or other… it
cannot …
‘fall in the cracks’ between roles
 Dowty (1991)
This is a very strong empirical claim …
and as soon as we try to be precise
about exactly what Agent, Patient,
etc., ‘mean’, it is all to subject to
difficulties and apparent
counterexamples
 Dowty (1991)
we may have have a hard time pinning
down the traditional role type because
role types are simply not discrete
categories at all
 Roles = property
configurations
Dowty argued for the notion of:
proto-Agent and proto-Patient

Verb arguments only tend to have certain basic

properties, and these correlate in Agent/Patient
like ways

Arguments with more Agent properties tend to

be SUBJECT, those with more Patient properties,
OBJECT
Dowty’s Properties
 Argument Selection
Principle
“In predicates with grammatical subject and
object, the argument for which the predicate
entails the greatest number of Proto-Agent
properties will be lexicalized as the subject of
the predicate; the argument having the
greatest number of Proto-Patient entailments
will be lexicalized as the direct object.”
Dowty (1991), p. 576
 Argument Selection
Principle
SYNTAX
SUBJ hit DOBJ with OBLQ

HITTER HITTEE HIT-WITH

SEMANTICS
 Argument Selection
Principle
SYNTAX
SUBJ hit DOBJ with OBLQ

causes: + causes: - causes: -

exists: + exists: + exists: -
volitional: - volitional: - volitional: -
stationary: - stationary: + stationary: -
… … …

HITTER HITTEE HIT-WITH

SEMANTICS
 Argument Selection
Principle
SYNTAX
SUBJ hit DOBJ with OBLQ

p-Agent: 3 p-Agent: 1 p-Agent: 1

p-Patient:0 p-Patient:1 p-Patient:0

HITTER HITTEE HIT-WITH

SEMANTICS
 Argument Selection
Principle
SYNTAX
SUBJ hit DOBJ with OBLQ

p-Agent: 3 p-Agent: 1 p-Agent: 1

p-Patient:0 p-Patient:1 p-Patient:0

HITTER HITTEE HIT-WITH

SEMANTICS
 Kako (2006)
Do normal people (student subjects) have
stable judgments akin to Dowty’s?

Experiment with simple sentences,

using nonce arguments

Thematic role properties of subjects and objects.

Kako. Cognition 101.1 (2006): 1-42.
 Kako (2006)
Do normal people (student subjects) have
stable judgments akin to Dowty’s?

The rom found the zarg.

How likely is it that the rom chose to be
involved in finding?
How likely is it that the rom moved?
…

Thematic role properties of subjects and objects.

Kako. Cognition 101.1 (2006): 1-42.
 Kako (2006)
Do normal people (student subjects) have
stable judgments akin to Dowty’s?

(subj. rating – obj. rating) ≈ measure of

association between property and proto-
Agent

Thematic role properties of subjects and objects.

Kako. Cognition 101.1 (2006): 1-42.
 Kako’s
Findings
 Talk Outline
Overview of thematic/semantic roles

Dowty (1991)’s proto-roles

New: A crowdsourced proto-role

corpus

Future work
For details, see

Semantic proto-roles.
Drew Reisinger, Rachel Rudinger, Francis Ferraro,
Craig Harman, Kyle Rawlins, Benjamin Van Durme.
Transactions of the Association for Computational
Linguistics 3 (2015): 475-488.
 The neeglurkilled the bogrub .
For the bogrub :
the bogrub
- How likely or unlikely is it that
was/were altered or somehow changed
during or by the endkilling
of the ?

very somewhat not enough somewhat very

unlikely unlikely information likely likely
 The neeglurkilled the bogrub .
For the bogrub :
the bogrub
- How likely or unlikely is it that
was/were altered or somehow changed
during or by the endkilling
of the ?

very somewhat not enough somewhat very

unlikely unlikely information likely likely

1 2 3 4 5
How likely or unlikely is it that …

Arg caused Pred to happen?

Arg chose to be involved in the Pred?
Arg was/were aware of being involved in the Pred?
Arg was sentient?
Arg changes location during Pred?
Arg existed as a physical object?
Arg existed before the Pred began?
Arg existed during the Pred?
Arg existed after the Pred stopped?
Arg changed possession during the Pred?
The Arg was/were altered or somehow changed during or
by the end of the Pred?
Arg was stationary during the Pred?
How likely or unlikely is it that …

Arg caused Pred to happen?

Instigated
Arg chose to be involved in the Pred?
Arg was/were aware of being involved in the Pred?
Arg was sentient?
Arg changes location during Pred?
Arg existed as a physical object?
Arg existed before the Pred began?
Arg existed during the Pred?
Arg existed after the Pred stopped?
Arg changed possession during the Pred?
The Arg was/were altered or somehow changed during or
by the end of the Pred?
Arg was stationary during the Pred?
How likely or unlikely is it that …

Arg caused Pred to happen?

Arg chose to be involved in the Pred? Volitional
Arg was/were aware of being involved in the Pred?
Arg was sentient?
Arg changes location during Pred?
Arg existed as a physical object?
Arg existed before the Pred began?
Arg existed during the Pred?
Arg existed after the Pred stopped?
Arg changed possession during the Pred?
The Arg was/were altered or somehow changed during or
by the end of the Pred?
Arg was stationary during the Pred?
How likely or unlikely is it that …

Arg caused Pred to happen?

Arg chose to be involved in the Pred?
Arg was/were aware of being involved in the Pred?
Arg was sentient?
Arg changes location during Pred?
Moved
Arg existed as a physical object?
Arg existed before the Pred began?
Arg existed during the Pred?
Arg existed after the Pred stopped?
Arg changed possession during the Pred?
The Arg was/were altered or somehow changed during or
by the end of the Pred?
Arg was stationary during the Pred?
 Kako (2006)
lab setting,
nonce sentences

instigated
volitional
awareness Proto−Agent
JHU (2015) sentient
moved
crowd sourced, physically_existed
created
destroyed
nonce sentences changed_possession
changed_state
Proto−Patient
stationary
−2 −1 0 1 2
Mean difference (subject − object)
 Let’s Build a Corpus!
Why?
 Let’s Build a Corpus…
Why?

Extending Dowty requires broad data

e.g. oblique arguments, alt. linking
rules
 … of Naturalistic Data
Dowty concerned with verbal
entailments
e.g. If x is a KILLER, then x is
volitionally involved in the event

Our data: entailments of particular

arguments in context
Mechanical Turk
 Why?
Possible to factor out argument
entailments
 Why?
Possible to factor out argument
entailments

Expose counterexamples to default

inferences
e.g. Mary accidentally killed her pet
fish.
 Why?
Possible to factor out argument entailments

Expose counterexamples to default inferences

e.g. Mary accidentally killed her pet fish.

Some morphosyntactic realizations depend on

argument properties, e.g. DOM (Aissen 2003;
Bossong 1991, 1998)
 (re-)Annotate PropBank
~350 hours of annotator time

~10,000 unique arguments labeled

@ http://decomp.net
 Kako (2006)
Small scale,
nonce sentences

JHU (2015)
Large scale,
real sentences
 There now exists corpus-based
evidence in support of Dowty’s Proto-
Role hypothesis
 “Roles”

Each configuration of 11 responses = one “role”

~10,000 arguments labeled leads to ~800 unique “roles”

At least 100 of these configurations appear at least 10 times

Entailment Corner Cases
Entailment Corner Cases

Typical killer: volitional, aware, sentient

Entailment Corner Cases

Accidental killer: not volitional or aware

Entailment Corner Cases

Atypical killer: not volitional, aware, sentient

Entailment Corner Cases

Atypical killer: not volitional, aware, sentient

Even independent existence might fail!
 Verbal Entailments
The kill example shows how argument
entailments constrain verbal
entailments
 Verbal Entailments
The kill example shows how argument
entailments constrain verbal
entailments

We factor out individual argument

effects to estimate general property
ratings for verbs
 Argument Selection
Quantify how well a verb conforms to
Dowty (1991)’s Argument Selection
principle with the following score:

AgtSUBJ – AgtOBJ + PatOBJ – PatSUBJ

A verb is consistent with Dowty (1991)

if the score is positive
Argument Selection
Argument Selection

Which verbs are

down here?
Verbs with Negative Scores
accelerate concern feed impress outpace scandalize take
adorn confirm fill include outstrip scare target
anger cover flatten inhibit phone sense thrust
appease crop follow involve pit set top
assemble define force justify poll settle touch
beef detect free keep preserve shake trouble
bill disappoint freeze lag protect shield turn
blow distort fuel last pursue shock underscore
bolster disturb galvanize leave puzzle shroud unmask
brave double halt limit rattle shrug unnerve
call dust hamstring list recover sign vent
call elevate haul lock regain soil waste
calm embarrass haunt merit remember stun wed
captain employ hire mimic renew suggest worry
catch employ house misstate repel surprise wreck
chain exceed hurt move represent survey yield
clear exclude ignore name review swamp
comprise feature illustrate outnumber rivet swell
 Talk Outline
Overview of thematic/semantic roles

Dowty (1991)’s proto-roles

New: A crowdsourced proto-role corpus

Future work
 Future Work
Morphosyntax: verifying and extending
Grimm (2011)

JHU Decompositional Semantics

Initiative
 Applications to
Morphosyntax
Grimm (2011): Each
case corresponds to a
connected region of the
lattice of proto-role
property configurations

Can we predict case

alternations? Cross-
linguistic case usage?
Semantics of case. Grimm. Morphology 21 (2011): 515-544.
 The Johns Hopkins
Decompositional Semantics Initiative
- Semantic Proto-Role Labeling (systems)

- Nominal semantics (factored word sense, …)

- Verbal semantics (general entailments)

- Constraints on lexical representation learning

- Connections to: Common Sense

 Acknowledgements
DARPA LORELEI BAA-15-04 (Low resource event
understanding)

NSF BCS-1344269 (Gradient Symbolic Computation)

JHU Science of Learning Institute

 Questions?

Drew Reisinger Rachel Rudinger Frank Ferraro Craig Harman

http://decomp.net

Kyle Rawlins Benjamin Van Aaron White

Durme