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The Perceptual Origin of Thematic Relations

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The Perceptual Origin of Thematic Relations On the Acquisition of Lexical Entries: The Perceptual Origin of Thematic Relations James Pustejovsky Department of Computer Science Brandeis University Waltham, MA 02254 617-736-2709 jamesp~br andeis.csnet-relay Abstract that the conceptual abstraction of thematic information does not develop arbitrarily but along a given, predictable path; namely, a developmental path that starts with tan- This paper describes a computational model of concept gible perceptual predicates (e.g. spatial, causative) to acquisition for natural language. We develop a theory later form the more abstract mental and cognitive predi- of lexical semantics, the Eztended Aspect Calculus, which cates. In this view thematic relations are actually sets of together with a ~maxkedness theory" for thematic rela- thematic properties, related by a partial ordering. This tions, constrains what a possible word meaning can be. effectively establishes a maxkedness theory for thematic This is based on the supposition that predicates from the roles that a learning system must adhere to in the acqui- perceptual domain axe the primitives for more abstract sition of lexical entries for a larlguage. relations. We then describe an implementation of this We will discuss two computational methods for model, TULLY, which mirrors the stages of lexical acqui- concept development in natural language: sition for children. (1) F~ature Relaxation of particular features of the ar- guments to a verb. This is performed by a con- straint propagation method. I. Introduction (2) Thematic Decoupling of semantically incorporated In this paper we describe a computational model of con- information from the verb. cept acquisition for natural language making use of po- When these two learning techniques are combined with sitive-only data, modelled on a theory of lexical seman- the model of lexical semantics adopted here, the stages tics. This theory, the Eztende~t Aspect Calculus acts to- of development for verb acquisition are similar to those gether with a maxkedness theory for thematic roles to acknowledged for child language acquisition. constrain what a possible word type is, just as a gram- mar defines what a well-formed tree structure is in syntax. We argue that linguistic specific knowledge and learning principles are needed for concept acquisition from positive 2. Learnabillty Theory and Concept De- evidence alone: Furthermore, this model posits a close in- velopment teraction between the predicates of visual perception and the early semantic interpretation of thematic roles as used Work in machine learning has shown the useful- in linguistic expressions. In fact, we claim that these re- ness to an inductive concept-learning system of inducing lations act as constraints to the development of predicate "bias" in the learning process (cf. [Mitchell 1977, 1978], hierachies in language acquisition. Finally, we describe [Michalski 1983]). An even more promising development TULLY, an implementation of this model in ZETALXSP is the move to base the bias on domain-intensive models, and discuss its design in the context of machine learning as seen in [Mitchell et al. 1985], [Utgoff 1985], and [Win- research. ston et al. 1983 I. This is an important direction for those concerned with natural language acquisition, as it con- There has been little work on the acquisition of verges with a long-held belief of many psychologists and thematic relation and case roles, due to the absence of linguists that domain-specific information is necessary for any consensus on their formal properties. In this research learning (cf. [Slobin 1982], [Pinker 1984], {Bowerman we begin to address what a theory of thematic relations 1974], [Chomsky 1980]). Indeed, Berwick (1984) moves in might look like, using learnabUity theory as a metric for exactly this direction. Berwick describes a model for the evaluating the model. We claim that there is an impor- acquisition of syntactic knowledge based on a restricted tant relationship between visual or imagistic perception X-syntactic parser, a modification of the Marcus parser and the development of thematic relations in linguistic us- ([Marcus 1980]). The domain knowledge specified to the age for a child. This has been argued recently by Jackend- system in this case is a parametric parser and learning off (1983, 1985) and was an assumption in the pioneering system that adapts to a particular linguistic environment, work of Miller and Johnson-Laird (1976). Here we argue given only positive data. This is just the sort of biasing necessary to account for data on syntactic acquisition. 172 One area of language acquisition that has not been How does this principle relate to lexical seman- sufficientlyaddressed within computational models is the tics and the way thematic relations are mapped to syn- acquisition of conceptual structure. For language acquisi- tactic positions? We claim that the connection is very tion, the problem can be stated as follows: How does the direct. Concept learning begins with spatial, temporal, child identify a particular thematic role with a specific and causal predicates being the most salient. This follows grammatical function in the sentence? This is the prob- from our supposition that these are innate structures, or lem of mapping the semantic functions of a proposition are learned very early. Following Miller and Johnson- into specified syntactic positions in a sentence. Laird (1976), [Miller 1985], and most psychologists, we Pinker (1984) makes an interestingsuggestion (due assume the prelinguistic child is already able to discern originally to D. Lebeaux) in answer to this question. He spatial orientations, causation, and temporal dependen- proposes that one of the strategies available to the lan- cies. We take this as a point of departure for our theory guage learner involves a sort of ~template matching" of of markedness, which is developed in the next section. argument to syntactic position. There are canonicalcon- j~gurat{ortsthat are the default mappings and non-cano- 3.0 Theoretical Assumptions nicoJ mappings for the exceptions. For example, the tem- plate consists of two rows, one of thematic roles, and the 3.1 The Extended Aspect Calculus other of syntactic positions. A canonical mapping exists In this section we outline the semantic framework if no lines joining the two rows cross. Figure 1 shows a which defines our domain for lexical acquisition. In the canonical mapping representing the sentence in (1), while current linguistic literature on case roles or thematic re- Figure 2 illustratesa noncanonical mapping representing lations, there is littlediscussion on what logical connec- sentence (2). tion exists between one e-role and another. Besides being the workhorse for motivating several principles of syn- tax (cf. [Chomsky 1981], [Willi~ms 1980]) the most that 0-roles: ~~L is claimed is that Universal Grammar specifies a reper- toire of thematic relations (or case roles), Agent, Theme, Syntactic roles: SUBJ OBJ OBL Patient, Goal, Source, Instrument, and that every NP must carry one and only one role. It should be remem- Figure 1 bered, however, that thematic relations were originally conceived in terms of the argument positions of seman- tic predicates such as CAUSE and DO. * That is a verb e-roles: A Th G/S/L didn't simply have a list of labelled arguments 2 such as Agent and Patient,but had an interpretation in terms of Syntactic ro~O BL more primitive predicates where the notions Agent and Patient were defined. The causer of an event (following Jackendoff (1976)) is defined as an Agent, for example, Figure 2 c ,4u s E(=, ,) -. Ag,.~(=). Similarly, the first argument position of the pred- (1) Mary hit Bill. icate GO is interpreted as Theme, as in GO(=,y,z). The (2) Bill was hit by Mary. second argument here is the SOURCE and the third is called the GOAL. The model we have in mind acts to constrain the With this principle we can represent the productivity of space of possible word meanings. In this sense it is similar verb forms that are used but not heard by the child. We to Dowty's aspect calculus but goes beyond it in embed- will adopt a modified version of the canonical mapping ding his model within a markedness theory for thematic strategy for our system, and embed it within a theory of how perceptual primitives help derive linguisticconcepts. types. Our model is a first-orderlogic that employs sym- bols acting as special operators over the standard logical As mentioned, one of the motivations for adopt- vocabulary. These are taken from three distinct semantic ing the canonical mapping principle is the power it gives fields. They are: causal, spatial, and aspectual. a learning system in the face of positive-only data. In terms of learnability theory, Berwick (1985) (following The predicates associated with the causal field are [Angluin 1978]) notes that to ensure successful acquisi- Cau~e, (C,), C~se~ (C2), and l.stru,ne.t(I). The spatial field has only one predicate, which is predicated tion of the language after a finite number of positive ex- Locatiue, of an object we term the Th~me. Finally, the aspectual amples, something llke the Subset Principle is necessary. We can compare this principle to a Version Space model of inductive learning( [Mitchell 1977, 1978]), with no neg- i CfiJackendoff(1972, 1976) for a detailed elaboration of ative instances. Generalization proceeds in a conservative this theory. fashion, taking only the narrowest concept that covers the data. 2 This is now roughly the common assumption in GB, GPSG, and LFG. 173 field has three predicates, representing the three temporal culmination to the process of giving. This is captured by intervals t~, beginning, t2, middle, and t3, end. From the reference to the final subinterval, is. The linking between interaction of these predicates all thematic types can be = and the L associated with tt is interpreted as Source, derived.
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