Revisiting Border Conflicts between FrameNet and Construction
Grammar: annotation policies for the Brazilian Portuguese Constructicon
Tiago Torrent, Ludmila Lage, Thais Sampaio, Tatiane Tavares and Ely Matos,
Universidade Federal de Juiz de Fora
Introduction • FrameNet Brasil is creating a lexical resource
based on Frame Semantics and supported by corpus evidence in cooperation with FrameNet
• Following the steps of FN, FrameNet Brasil has also been building a repertoire of Brazilian P o r t u g u e s e c o n s t r u c t i o n s : t h e B P Constructicon
• So far, the Para Infinitive family of constructions has been fully described in the BP Constructicon
Research Questions • Provided that the BP Constructicon is
conceived as a complementary resource to FN-Br… • Which kinds of linguistic structure should count
as constructions and which could be analyzed as valence patterns of a LU?
• How should Construction Elements be defined?
• How should frames and constructions interact in the FN-Br database?
Objectives • Define annotation policies for the BP
Constructicon that take into consideration the continuity between grammar and the lexicon
• Discuss the interconnection between the Constructicon database and the Frame database
• Contribute to the development of other FrameNet inspired Constructicons
Annotation Policy #1 • Motivation:
• FrameNet lexicographic annotation is constructionally inspired
• Construction Grammar claims the continuity between grammar and the lexicon
• Uncontrolled redundancy must be avoided in databases
Annotation Policy #1 • Question: Given a piece of language, should
it be annotated in the Constructicon or should it be annotated only in the lexicographic database?
• Pilot study: the Para Infinitive Family of Constructions
Annotation Policy #1 • The case of the Manipulative Cxn
• The Manipulative Cxn [NP VASKING para NP VINF] was described in Torrent (2009, 2011, 2012) as an argument structure verb-class specific construction
Ele pediu para o senhor contar um caso
he.NOM ask.PAST.3SG for the sir tell.INF a case
“He asked you to tell another story.”
Annotation Policy #1 • The case of the Manipulative Cxn
• Regardless of the valence pattern in which the verbs filling the finite V slot of the Manipulative Cxn occur, the annotated sentences exemplify the Asking frame
• Hence, it is possible to analyze those sentences as different valence patterns of verbs evoking the Asking frame
Annotation Policy #1 • The case of the Dative with Infinitive Cxn
• The Dative with Infinitive Cxn [NP V NP para NP VINF] was described in Torrent (2009, 2011, 2012) as a schematic construction evoking the Ability/Enablement frame
Ela deu mil reais para mim fazer o serviço
she.NOM give.PAST.3SG thousand reais for me.DAT do.INF the job
“She gave me a thousand reais for me to do the job.”
Annotation Policy #1 • The case of the Dative with Infinitive Cxn • Several different verb classes evoking several
different frames occur in the DWI Cxn
• Even if we propose Purpose_of_theme / goods / knowledge / etc Extra-Thematic FEs for each frame evoked by the verbs in this construction, such an analysis would not surpass the constructional analysis in generality
• Also, some constructions in the Para Infinitive family are very idiomatic, and do not evoke the same frames evoked by the verbs in them
Annotation Policy #1 Being X a lexically specified material, is there any X in the construction candidate?
• NO = Construction candidate
• YES = Move to next criterion
Being F a frame and X a lexically specified material, does X evoke F?
• NO = Construction candidate
• YES = Move to next criterion
Being F a frame and X a lexically specified material, does X evoke F in a different syntactic configuration?
• NO = Construction candidate
• YES = Annotate as lexical entry only
Annotation Policy #2 • Question: How should CEs be defined?
• CEs in Berkeley FN’s Beyond the Core project are sometimes similar to FEs and sometimes defined as formal entities
• Ex.: Theme in Way Cxn and Head in the Infinitival Relative Cxn
Annotation Policy #2 • The case of the Dative with Infinitive Cxn • The Head CE in this construction is a Resource
that enables the achievment of a Purpose
• The VP_para_inf CE is the Purpose
• Instead of defining CEs as form-meaning pairings, FN-Br has decided to define them as formal elements only and, in case the construction evokes a frame, map each CE to the FE it encodes
Annotation Policy #3 • Question: Given that constructions may
evoke frames and that the verbs in them may also evoke frames, how should we account for the interaction between Cxn-evoked frames and verb-evoked frames?
• The Non-Redundancy Principle: the same information must not be annotated twice in regards to a same set of data
Annotation Policy #3 • The case of the Dative with Infinitive Cxn • The Ability / Enablement frame is evoked by
the DWI Cxn
• The Commerce_buy frame is evoked by the verb comprar
• Instead of creating Extra-Thematic FEs such as Purpose_of_goods, sentences in which the verb comprar fills the finite V slot of a Dative with Infinitive Cxn shoud be annotated also in the Constructicon, which will lead to a gain in analytical generality and economy
Contributions • Define criteria for deciding whether a given
piece of language should be annotated as a construction
• Define criteria for the definition of CEs
• Define guidelines for the integration of the C o n s t r u c t i c o n d a t a b a s e w i t h t h e Lexicographic database
• Elucidate some of the methodological foundations and theoretical insights of FrameNet to non-experts