Determining Prepositional Attachment, Prepositional Meaning, Verb Meaning, and Thematic Roles

An algorithm for semantic interpretation that integrates the determination of the meaning of verbs, the attachment and meaning of prepositions, and the determination of thematic roles is presented. The parser does not resolve structural ambiguity, which is solely the task of the semantic interpreter. Lexical semantic information about nouns and verbs is applied to the resolution of verb polysemy and modifier attachment. Semantic interpretation is centered on the representation of the meaning of the verb, called verbal concept. Verbal concepts are organized into a classification hierarchy. As long as the meaning of the verb remains unknown, parsing proceeds on a syntactic basis. Once the meaning of the verb is recognized, the semantic component makes sense of the syntactic relations built so far by the parser and of those still to be parsed. The algorithm has been implemented and tested on real–world texts.

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