'no' on entities

[nschneid]

(Prompted by an audience question at the practice tutorial at Edinburgh:)

How do we treat something like "no state borders Alaska"? :polarity -, :quant, or :mod?

There is conflicting evidence in a release search:

There is no information on the case.

(i / information :polarity -
      :topic (c / case))

There is no asbestos in our products now . '

(a / asbestos
  :polarity -
  :time (n / now)
  :location (t / thing
              :ARG1-of (p2 / produce-01
                         :ARG0 (w2 / we))))

now those people should be tied to a tree with no food and water and see how they do...

(r / recommend-01
      :ARG1 (t / tie-down-06
            :ARG1 (p / person
                  :mod (t2 / that))
            :ARG2 (t4 / tree)
            :manner (a2 / and
                  :op1 (f / food :polarity -)
                  :op2 (w / water :polarity -)))
      :purpose (s / see-01
            :ARG1 (t3 / thing
                  :manner-of (d / do-02
                        :ARG0 p)))
      :mod (n / now))

There are no people in the desert .

(b2 / be-located-at-91
      :ARG1 (p / person
            :polarity -)
      :ARG2 (d / desert))

Then there are no people on the Earth ?

(b / be-located-at-91 :mode interrogative
      :ARG1 (p / person
            :quant (n / no))
      :ARG2 (p2 / planet :wiki "Earth" :name (n2 / name :op1 "Earth")))

There was virtually no traffic .

(t / traffic
      :quant (v / virtual
            :op1 (n / none)))

No boy left.

(l / leave-01
      :ARG0 (b / boy
            :mod (n / no)))

[nschneid]

A possible principle: :polarity - goes under events, unless it is an existential clause. :quant is only used if there is a modifier ("virtually no").

[nschneid]

Decision: :polarity - goes as high as possible. :quant (n / no) and :mod (n / no) examples should be fixed. "There are no people in the desert .", etc. should be (p / person :polarity - :ARG1-of (b / be-located-at-91 ...)).

[uhermjakob]

Thanks for pointing out these inconsistencies, Nathan.

I updated a number examples to be in line with our precedent for

There is no information on the case. (This is our primary precedent.)

(i / information :polarity -
  :topic (c / case))

There are no people in the desert .

(p / person :polarity -
  :location (d / desert))

No boy left. = There is no boy who left.

(b / boy :polarity -
  :ARG0-of (l / leave-01))

There was virtually no traffic. (With reificaton of :polarity to accommodate virtually.)

(t / traffic
  :ARG1-of (h / have-polarity-91
             :ARG2 -
             :degree (v / virtual)))

No state borders Alaska. = There is no state that borders Alaska.

(s / state :polarity -
  :ARG1-of (b / border-01
             :ARG2 (s2 / state :name (n / name :op1 "Alaska"))))