Possessives: Possessor also covers past and future/potential/aspirational possession?

[nschneid]

https://github.com/nert-nlp/streusle/issues/62 raises cases like:

• Item to be sold: The shopkeeper's/store's merchandise is fantastic.
• Item that has been identified or ordered for purchase: Waiter, is my food ready?
• Item that was transferred: Use my money (the money that I gave you) wisely!

where there is no explicit transfer event, but the transfer or possibility of transfer is understood from context. For the scene role, does Possessor apply, or is this in the realm of Originator and Recipient?

[nschneid]

What about saying if the governor of the possessive is not explicitly evoking an event, Possessor should be preferred over Originator and Recipient? Argument is that we are interested in how the relation is presented linguistically, not factuality. So there may be an extended interpretation of possession here.

Other examples:

• my comment: clearly Originator
• my book (that I wrote): clearly Originator - creator sense

[nschneid]

• Guatemala's (country) coffee is the best: Source
• Starbucks's coffee is the best: Originator (creator)
• Amazon's MacBooks are cheaper than Apple's MacBooks

[nschneid]

Not proposing this, but we could have a supersense called "Provider". This term is a bit broader to include a person/company trying to sell something.

[nschneid]

Providing a service: FedEx's photocopying is cheap.

Agent? (FedEx photocopied it for me.)

Self-service reading: Instrument? Locus? (I use FedEx for photocopying. I photocopied it at FedEx.) Instrument~>Locus?

[nschneid]

Option A: If creator is unambiguously intended, then Originator. If transfer event is explicit, then Originator/Recipient. Otherwise, plain Possessor.

Option B: Broaden Originator/Recipient to include situations where it is understood that something has been, will be, or may be transferred (such as an item that is for sale).

[nschneid]

Option A: Vivek, Jena, Jakob, Nathan :)