Honorifics

[amrisi]

We have been annotating "Mr." etc. as a normal name component. In many NLP communities, these are not considered part of a name. We might introduce, under "name", a special role :honorific to make a distinction.

Current guidelines for "Mrs. Thomas": (p / person :name (n / name :op1 "Mrs." :op2 "Thomas"))

Possible new annotation style: (p / person :name (n / name :honorific "Mrs." :op1 "Thomas"))

This would apply to "Mr./Mrs./Ms./Miss" as well as to "Rev./Hon." etc. But we would keep using concepts for semantically more substantive pre-name descriptors such as "Dr./Prof./Gen./Sen./Pres." etc.

Such new style could be supported by additional AMR Editor functionality, so that a text command such as: x :ARG0 person Mrs. Thomas would automatically be mapped to the proper new AMR style. There are surprisingly few (8) instances of "::preferred" legacy AMRs (cjconsensus, colorado, etc.) that would have to be updated.

[kevincrawfordknight]

Another possibility is to be consistent with what we already do with "Dr./Prof./Gen./Sen./Pres.":

"Mr. Thomas" (m / man :name (n / name :op1 "Thomas"))

"Ms. Thomas" (w / woman :name (n / name :op1 "Thomas"))

"Mrs. Thomas" (w / woman :name (n / name :op1 "Thomas")) :arg1-of (m / marry-01))

"Miss Thomas" (w / woman :name (n / name :op1 "Thomas") :arg1-of (m / marry-01 :polarity -))

"Rev. Thomas" (r / reverend :name (n / name :op1 "Thomas"))

"Hon. Judge Thomas" (j / judge :name (n / name :op1 "Thomas"))

[uhermjakob]

Yes, I agree that it's better to conceptualize honorifics, but I think there still should be a separate place.

"Mr. Thomas"

(p / person
  :name (n / name 
          :honorific (m / mister)
          :op1 "Thomas"))

Using concepts (rather than strings) for honorifics will

• better accommodate complex honorifics such as "Right Honorable" and "Most Reverend"
• better normalize surface differences such as "Rev." vs. "Reverend" or "Mr." vs. "Mr"

But folding the honorific into the NE type appears to be problematic in a number of ways:

• "Rev. Thomas" is not a reverend, but rather a pastor, priest or so.
• We can no longer express things like "Ms. Gil is married." or "Miss Jennings will marry."
• Some unmarried women use "Mrs.", e.g. if they are older, or have (out-of-wedlock) children, or are divorced.
• My friend "Miss Emily" has been married for decades, with numerous children and grandchildren.
• "Miss" might be applied to under-age girls (who are not women yet).
• (m / man :name (n / name :op1 "Thomas")) loses the the info (or at least a strong indication) that "Thomas" is the person's last name.

"Her Majesty Queen Elizabeth II of the United Kingdom"

(p / person
  :name (n / name 
          :honorific (m / majesty
                       :poss p)
          :op1 "Elizabeth"
          :op2 "II")
  :ARG0-of (h / have-org-role-91
             :ARG1 (c / country :name (n2 / name :op1 "United" :op2 "Kingdom"))
             :ARG2 (q / queen)))