Making Semantic Interpretation Parser-Independent

We present an approach to semantic interpretation of syntactically parsed Japanese sentences that works largely parser-independent. The approach relies on a standardized parse tree format that restricts the number of syntactic configurations that the semantic interpretation rules have to anticipate. All parse trees are converted to this format prior to semantic interpretation. This setup allows us not only to apply the same set of semantic interpretation rules to output from different parsers, but also to independently develop parsers and semantic interpretation rules.