by myself/on my own

[uhermjakob]

The patterns by myself and on my own are annotated inconsistently, some with :prep-X.

Representative sentences:

• I learned by myself.
• I learned on my own.

Dictionary: unaccompanied; alone; unaided

Current patterns of AMR annotations include:

• (l / learn-01 :ARG0 (i / i) :prep-on (o / own :poss i))
• (l / learn-01 :ARG0 (i / i) :prep-by i)
• (l / learn-01 :ARG0 (i / i) :manner (o / own :poss i))
• (l / learn-01 :ARG0 (i / i) :manner (o / own))
• (l / learn-01 :ARG0 (i / i) :manner (a / alone))
• (l / learn-01 :ARG0 (i / i) :mod (b / by-oneself))
• (l / learn-01 :ARG0 (i / i) :accompanier i)
• (l / learn-01 :ARG0 (i / i))

Proposed AMR annotation:

• (l / learn-01 :ARG0 (i / i) :mod (b / by-oneself))

Notes:

• I don't think that the learner plays multiple semantic roles.
• I chose to propose by-oneself over on-one-s-own/on-ones-own because (1) annotators don't have to remember what to do with the apostrophe in on one's own and because (2) by oneself occurs slightly more often than on one's own.
• I chose to propose :mod over :manner, because I don't see :manner as a perfect fit for by-oneself and because annotators more often annotated alone as :mod alone than as :manner alone.

[nschneid]

I think @ulfulf's proposal is probably the simplest solution, but would there be value in trying to distinguish the 'unaccompanied' sense from the 'unaided' sense?

• I learned calculus with/from Prof. Smith.
• I learned calculus with John (we were both in Prof. Smith's class).
• Only I learned calculus.
• I learned calculus alone.
• I learned calculus by myself.

The last one is possibly ambiguous, but strongly suggests the 'unaided' sense. Is it equivalent to "I taught myself calculus"? If so, maybe

(l / learn-01 :ARG0 (i / i) :ARG1 (c / calculus) :ARG2 i)

?

For verbs which don't have an appropriate role for the aiding party, we could distinguish the two readings like:

• I ate by myself.
  • reading 1—unaccompanied: (e / eat-01 :ARG0 (i / i) :ARG1-of (a / accompany-01 :polarity -))
  • reading 2—unaided: (e / eat-01 :ARG0 (i / i) :ARG1-of (a / help-01 :ARG2 i :polarity -))

This may be overly complicated, but I thought I'd throw it out there.

[uhermjakob]

Adopted at AMR phone meeting on Nov. 10, 2014 as proposed by Ulf.