Regardless of

[timjogorman]

We've noticed some discrepancies with how we do things like "regardless of", "irregardless of", "without regard to". This is cases like:

• Its as if the British Red Coats were in charge once again doing whatever is best for themselves irregardless of the consitution.
• Ray Hyde - My comments were directed at investors who lobby to place roads near where they own property and the incompetent system that funds these requests without regard to their link or lack thereof to a master transportation plan .
• Regardless of his reaction or personal feelings about pregnancy or abortion, he has a right to know.*
• regardless of race,religion, nationality and ethnicity etc ?

The different analyses vary: reducing everything to "the game will continue regardless of rain", I've noticed treatments like:

• (c / continue) :concession (r / rain)
• (c / continue) :prep-without (r / regard :mod (r2 / rain))
• (c / continue) :ARG1-of (h4 / have-condition-91 :polarity - :arg2 (r / rain))
• (c / continue) :op2 (d / disregard-01 :ARG1 (r / rain))
• (c / continue) :concession (r / regardless)
• (c / continue) :manner (r3 / regard-01 :polarity - :ARG1 (r / rain))

Option 1 : use :concession The most common treatment is :concession, but I think "regardless" has much different entailments -- (the complement of "regardless" doesn't necessarily happen, for example)

Option 2: Since this is similar to "even if", and we could follow the same structure we use there:

The game will continue even if it rains:
(c / continue-01 
      :ARG1 (g / game) 
      :concession (e / even-if 
            :op1 (r / rain-01))) 

The game will continue without regard to rain:
(c / continue-01 
      :ARG1 (g / game) 
      :concession (r / regardless 
            :op1 (r / rain-01))) 

Option 3: Have an actual frame for this , regardless-91

The game will continue without regard to rain:
(c / continue-01
      :ARG1 (g / game)
      :ARG1-of (r2 / regardless-91
            :ARG2 (r / rain-01)))

Any thoughts or preferences on this? There are only about 40 examples total currently, so it's not a huge issue.

[nschneid]

Perhaps this would be too obscure, but it seems to me that "X regardless of Y" or "X whether or not Y" means "X without having Y as a condition". So:

(c / continue-01
   :ARG1-of (h / have-condition-91 :polarity -
        :ARG2 (r / rain-01)))

If this is deemed too deep for annotators to apply consistently, then I vote for making a lexical frame like regardless-91.

[uhermjakob]

I agree that regardless goes beyond a simple :concession. I like both options 2 and 3, maybe option 2 slightly more: ... :concession (r / regardless :op1 (r / rain-01))

Either could be facilitated by a shortcut ... :regardless ...

-- Ulf

[uhermjakob]

Decision at AMR phone meeting on Dec. 7, 2015:

• Add new frame regardless-91
• Expand AMR Dict: http://www.isi.edu/~ulf/amr/lib/amr-dict.html#regardless-91 (with additional key words irrespective and no matter and a rare case where regardless is annotated as :concession)