search

carmls / snacs-guidelines

Semantic Network of Adposition and Case Supersenses: Annotation Guidelines
2 stars 0 forks source link

Agent vs Theme for Motion #125

Open esmanning opened 3 years ago

esmanning commented 3 years ago

The guidelines state that "In relation to an act of travel, the person is treated as a (possibly non-volitional) participant in a motion event" and annotated as Theme\~Gestalt, as in "MY destination/journey/travels"

We're having trouble drawing the line of when the above applies, and when it's safe to assume the motion is volitional enough for Agent\~Gestalt.

Examples:

This man was so much occupied that he did not even raise his head at the little prince 'S arrival. lpp_13 sent_id = lpp_1943.1146

The movements OF this army would be regulated like those OF the ballet in the opera. lpp_16 sent_id = lpp_1943.923

And when the hour of HIS departure drew near lpp_21 sent_id = lpp_1943.1146

nschneid commented 3 years ago

The tricky thing is that arrival and departure are prototypically agentive when it is a person who arrives/departs. But you could say "the book arrived" as well, which is clearly Theme.

To what extent should we use knowledge about the specific situation/kinds of participants when deciding whether the entity in motion is Agent or Theme?

esmanning commented 3 years ago

We certainly already use knowledge about whether a participant is animate/personified for some things (e.g. beneficiary), so it seems reasonable that we could do that here as well.

esmanning commented 3 years ago

(some relevant discussion in #35)