Lecture 18: Semantic Role Labeling &

Semantic Parsing

Kai-Wei ChangCS @ University of Virginia

kw@kwchang.net

Couse webpage: http://kwchang.net/teaching/NLP16

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Computational Semantics

vMany high-level applicationsvQuestion answeringv Information extractionv Internet botsvSiri/Cortana/Alexa/Google NowvTranslation

vShallow vs. deep semanticsvCheap, fast, low-level techniques v.s.

computational expensive, high-level techniques

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Semantic Roles

vPredicates: some words represent eventsvArguments: specific roles that involves in

the eventvPropBank

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Severalotheralternativerolelexicons

Semantic Roles

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Hisfatherwouldcomeupstairsandstandself-consciouslyAtthefootofthebedandlookathisson.

http://cogcomp.cs.illinois.edu/page/demo_view/srl

Semantic Role Labelling

vGive a sentence, identify predicate frames and annotate semantic roles

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Role Identification

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Wecanmodelitasmulti-classclassification

Role labeling

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Conductconstrainedinference

Semantic parsing

vMotivation: programming language vWhat is the meaning of 3+5*6

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ExamplesfromChrisManning’sNLPcourse

Semantic parsing

vMore complex meaningv3+5*x: we don’t know x at the compile time

v “Meaning” at a nodeis a piece of code

vForm is “rule-to-rule”translation

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Weprovideawaytoformthesemanticsfrombottom-up

Semantic Parsing

vParse a natural language narrative to a machine readable formatvLogic form:

John smokes.” “Everyone who smokes snores.”⇒∀x.smoke(x)→snore(x)

smoke(John) ⇒ snore(John)vEquations:

Maria is now four times as old as Kate. Four years ago, Maria was six times as old as Kate. Find their ages now.

m = 4 × n m − 4 = 6 × (n − 4)

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Logic

vBoolean: semantic values of sentencesvEntities: e.g., objects, times, etc.vFunction of various types

A function returning a boolean called “predicate”e.g., green (x)Function can return other functions or take functions as arguments

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Logic: 𝜆 terms

v𝜆 terms:square = 𝜆x x*x, square(3) = 3*3even = 𝜆x (x mod 2 == 0) a predicate

v Can take multiple arguments:𝜆x.[𝜆y.times(x,y)]

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Parse tree with associated semantics

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Paper presentations

vWe will learn recent NLP researchvTechniques and applications

vPeer reviewvGo to Collab →Select peer grading

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