自然语言理解 摘录2

Speech Acts and Embedded Sentences

Sentences are used for many different purposes. Each sentential mood indicates a different relation between the speaker and the propositional content of the utterance. These issues will be examined in greater detail in later chapters. For now the logical form language is extended to capture the distinctions. Each of the major sentence types has a corresponding operator that takes the sentence interpretation as an argument and produces what is called a surface speech act. These indicate how the proposition described is intended to be used to update the discourse situation. They are indicated by new operators as follows:

ASSERT - the proposition is being asserted.

Y/N-QUERY - the proposition is being queried.

COMMAND - the proposition describes an action to perform.

WH-QUERY - the proposition describes an object to be identified.

For declarative sentences, such as "The man ate a peach", the complete LF is

(ASSERT (<PAST EAT> e1 [AGENT <THE m1 MAN1]

[THEME <A p1 PEACH1>]))

For yes/no questions, such as "Did the man eat a peach?", the LF is

[Allen 1995: Chapter 8 – Semantics and Logical Form / 251]

(Y/N-QUERY (<PAST EAT> e1 [AGENT <THE m1 MAN1>]

[THEME <A p1 PEACH1>]))

For commands, such as "Eat the peach", the LF is

(COMMAND (EAT e1 [THEME <THE p1 PEACH1>]))

For wh-questions, such as "What did the man eat?", several additions need to be made to the logical form language. First, you need a way to represent the meaning of noun phrases involving wh-terms. A new quantifier WH is defined that indicates that the term stands for an object or objects under question. Thus a noun phrase such as "what" would be represented <WH o1 ANYTHING>, "which man" as <WH m1 MAN1>, and "who" as <WH p1 PERSON>. Finally, for question forms such as "how many" and "how much", we introduce the quantifiers HOW-MANY and HOW-MUCH. Note that wh-terms are scope sensitive and thus treating them as quantifiers makes sense. The question "Who is the leader of every group?" is ambiguous between asking for a single person who leads every group, and asking for the leader of each of the groups.

Thus, the logical form of the sentence "What did the man eat?" is

(WH-QUERY (<PAST EAT> e1 (AGENT <THE m1 MAN1>]

[THEME <WH w1 PHYSOBJ>]))

Embedded sentences, such as relative clauses, end up as complex restrictions within the noun phrase construction and thus do not need any new notation. For example, the logical form of the sentence "The man who ate a peach left" would be

(ASSERT

(<PAST LEAVE> l1

[AGENT <THE m1 (& (MAN1 m1)

(<PAST EAT1> e2

[AGENT m1]

[THEME <A p1 PEACH>]))>]))

Figure 8.7 gives a formal definition of the syntax of the logical form language introduced throughout this chapter.

Figure 8.8 gives the additional rules defining the syntax for the quasi-logical form language.