FrameNet

1
FrameNet

• The Quest to Describe Semantics and Usage in the
  Lexicon
• OR
• Things are Always More Complicated than You Think

2
Outline

• Whats FrameNet?
• Background
• What are Frames?
• Some exercises
• Color
• Perception
• Breaking Things

3
What is FrameNet

• Lexical semantics project, focused on words and
  their contexts
• Our output is a database connecting Frames, Frame
  Elements, words, and semantic annotation
• Useful for second-language learners and
  ultimately crucial for a variety of natural
  language applications

4
Theoretical underpinnings and tenets

• Frames are the best way to provide semantic
  structure to the lexicon
• Construction Grammar links syntax to the semantic
  structure
• Corpus linguistics or bust!

5
Whatsa frame?

• Essentially like a schema, scenario, or (at least
  some kinds of) gestalt
• Defined by the interrelations of frame Elements
  (FEs)
• Evoked by Lexical Units (words in a particular
  sense)

6
Picnicking a simple example

• The "Oh my God!" factor greeted students Greg
  Snyder, Kyle Hanigosky and Chris Pohlar as they
  picnicked at various points in one of downtown
  Cincinnati's most congested areas, Court Street.
• FEs Picnickers, Food, Pleasant locale, etc.
• Evoked by picnic (noun and verb), i.e. picnic.v
  and picnic.n.

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(Just in case youre curious)

• "We could hear one lady literally saying, 'Oh, my
  God!' as she did a double take driving by when
  she was looking for a space to park, and we were
  picnicking in the parking space," explained
  Pohlar.

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Exercise 1 Color

• Question What are the frame elements?
• Frame Net is data driven, so we look at the data
  (i.e. real sentences) to find out

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Resulting Definition

• A Color serves as a landmark in color-space,
  either a point-like landmark (burnt sienna) or a
  broader region (e.g. blue). Especially when the
  Color designates a broad region in color-space,
  it may be defined with a specific Type, further
  specified by comparison to the color of a
  Comparand, modified by a Color_qualifier, or
  evaluated with a Descriptor. All color words are
  generally used to specify the color of some
  (physical) Entity .

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Differentiating frames

• We ignore distinctions based on delivery context
  register, dialect, attitudinals, deixis
• E.g. carry vs. lug or come vs. go.
• We pay attention to the number and kinds of
  entailed entities, both realized and implicit
• We pay attention to the presuppositions of words
  and other kinds of relationships to other
  concepts.

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Exercise 2 Perception

• How many frames do we have?
• What are the frame elements?

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Perception sample word list

• eavesdrop.v, eye.v, detect.v, feel.v, gaze.n,
  gaze.v, glance.n, glance.v, hear.v, listen.v,
  look.v, observation.n, observe.v, overhear.v,
  palpate.v, peek.n, peek.v, peep.v, peer.v,
  perceive.v, perception.n, see.v, sense.v,
  smell.v, sniff.n, sniff.v, spy.v, stare.n,
  stare.v, taste.n, taste.v, view.v, watch.v

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Breaking Things

• How many frames are there?
• What are the frame elements?

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The End

• Michael Ellsworth,
• FrameNet lackey
• infinity_at_icsi.berkeley.edu