Grammar-based metonomy resolution

Josef Meyer-Fujara¹, Hannes Rieser²

¹Fachbereich Elektrotechnik und Informatik
FH Stralsund

² Fakultät für Linguistik und Literaturwissenschaft
Universität Bielefeld

Abstract
Our work originated in an analysis of SFB corpora concerning construction dialogues where depic-tion meto,nymy was a striking phenomenon, such as in Wir bauen jetzt ein Flugzeug (We are going to build an airplane), where it is not the intention to build a real-world airplane but an object de-picting an airplane. Examples of metonymy based on different relations are, e.g., Germany (Point-ing to label "Gerhard Schröder") votes against the US (pointing to label "George W. Bush") and This is now 8000 EUR (pointing to a Jaeger LeCoultre wrist watch).

We give a formal treatment of metonymy resolution, based on a GB-based grammar and an inten,sio,nal predicate calculus called lf. Interpretation is with respect to a specific model and can take into account both the literal and the metonymical meaning. The model deals with several aspects of context, a.o. indicated and available objects as well as modal bases. Transition from the literal to the metonymical interpretation is considered to be of pragmatic nature and taken as a Gricean implicature having default nature. It is triggered by observed violation of conver,sation maxims such as Quality or Relation and described by an inductively defined operator that takes parse trees annotated with lf-formulae to other such trees. Thereby the lf-formula corresponding to the literal meaning is taken to another lf-formula corresponding to a metonymical meaning. This happens in strict observation of compositionality. The approach shown is valid irrespective of the metonymical relation involved.

We give examples of violation of the quality maxim as well as of the relevance maxim. We also show how in the treatment of N-phrases different "scopes" of metonymical reading can be dealt with such as in The arrogant schnitzel complains ("narrow scope": metonymy restricted to the noun) versus The half-done schnitzel complains ("wide scope": metonymy covering the N-phrase). Even the case where part of the adjectives refer to the literal meaning and part of them refer to the metonymical meaning of a noun can be mastered. We finally explain the treatment of metonymical meaning of adjectives and the intertwining with anaphora resolution.

Our work may also be used for updating information states in DRT-accounts. Problems to be ad-dressed in future work comprise application of particular default theories and the interaction with anaphora resolution and bridging inferences. The ultimate locus for metonymy theories seems to be constraint-based syntax interfacing with dynamic semantics operating on underspecification theory.

sfb-logo Zur Startseite Erstellt von: Anke Weinberger (2005-11-07).
Wartung durch: Anke Weinberger (2005-11-07).