Some notes on the StarSEM 2012 shared task. I've used similar annotation conventions to our previous work, with <> for cues, {} for scope and now [] for events. For papers though we should probably follow Morante et al's (2011) conventions of bold for cues, underline for scope and italic for events.

• Entire sentence, except initial/final punctuation: P=64.20 R=17.59 F1=27.61
• From cue to left and right punctuation or sentence boundary: P=97.95, R=32.36, F1=48.65

The files are provided in CONLL format, with the first 7 columns corresponding to:

1. Book_Chapter
2. Sentence number within chapter
3. token number within sentence
4. word
5. lemma
6. part-of-speech
7. syntax

If the sentence does not have negations:

• 8. ***

Otherwise there are three columns per negation:

• (8,11,14, ...) word (or part of word) that is part of the cue
• (9,12,15, ...) word (or part of word) that is part of the scope
• (10,13,16, ...) word (or part of word) that is part of the event

3,644 sentences with 986 instances of negation.

98 instances have no scope; 93 instances have a discontinuous scope that is not bridged by the cue.

Of the remaining 795 instances, 439 are aligned with some constituent in the C&J parses. Applying out bioscope slackening heuristics:

• constituent final punctuation (+93)
• constituent initial punctuation (+37)
• initial adverbs when not the cue (+9)
• scope starts with cue when it is a noun (-1)
• scope does not start with an auxiliary (-6)

Applying only the beneficial heuristics leaves us with an alignment rate of 72.7%.

The following are listings of instances with: no scope, discontinuous scope, scope that is not aligned with a constituent and scope that is aligned with a constituent--- in which instances are delimited by double newlines; the first line is an instance identifier comprised of: chapter <TAB> sentence in chapter <TAB> negation in sentence. The second line is the tokens of the sentence, where cues are indicated with < >, scope with { }, and the most specific subsuming constituent of the scope with _ _.

Additional slackening heuristics for CD:

• if a non-NP node on path from cue to subsumer has a sibling CC, scope starts before CC
• move in from initial CC, UH, ADVP or INTJ

Current alignment rate is 81.6% of continuous scopes.

TRAINING				DEVELOPMENT
Freq.	Cue	PoS		Freq.	Cue	PoS
326	not	RB		39	not	RB
139	no	DT		27	no	DT
72	un*	JJ		20	n't	RB
65	n't	RB		16	nothing	NN
59	never	RB		12	un*	JJ
59	no	UH		11	never	RB
55	nothing	NN		7	without	IN
27	no	RB		5	im*	JJ
24	without	IN		4	nor	CC
22	*not	RB		4	in*	JJ
20	*less	JJ		4	no	UH
17	in*	JJ		3	un*	RB
16	im*	JJ		3	*less	JJ
12	none	NN		2	neither_*_nor	DT_*_CC
6	nor	CC		1	nobody	NN
4	in*	RB		1	in*	RB
4	un*	RB		1	dis*	VBN
4	*less*	RB		1	dis*	NN
4	ir*	JJ		1	save	IN
3	*less	NN		1	ir*	JJ
3	dis*	NN		1	*not	NN
2	im*	RB		1	no_*_nor	DT_*_CC
2	nowhere	RB		1	*n*	RB
2	neither_*_nor	DT_*_CC		1	more	JJR
2	*not	NN		1	im*	NN
2	*not	VBD		1	neither	DT
2	prevent	VB		1	no_more	DT_RBR
2	*not	VBP		1	by_no_means	IN_DT_NNS
2	on_the_contrary	IN_DT_NN		1	un*	VBN
2	by_no_means	IN_DT_NNS
1	rather_than	RB_IN
1	by_no_means	IN_DT_VBZ
1	nobody	NN
1	ir*	RB
1	fail	VBP
1	no*	NN
1	un	IN
1	absence	NN
1	nothing_at_all	NN_IN_DT
1	neglected	VBN
1	dis*	VBN
1	refused	VBD
1	no	NNP
1	in*	NNS
1	un*	IN
1	ir*	NN
1	not_the	RB_DT
1	not_for_the_world	RB_IN_DT_NN
1	save	VB
1	except	VB
1	*less*	JJ
1	unusual	JJ
1	*less*	NN
1	un*	NN
1	dis*	JJ
1	not_*_not	RB_*_RB
1	un*	VBN

3,640 sentences with 989 instances of negation.

99 instances have no scope; 92 instances have a discontinuous scope that is not bridged by the cue.

Of the remaining 798 instances, 80 are aligned with some constituent. Applying our bioscope slackening heuristics:

• constituent final punctuation (+437)
• constituent initial punctuation (+70)
• initial adverbs when not the cue (+8)
• scope starts with cue when it is a noun (+2)
• scope does not start with an auxiliary (-9)

Applying only the beneficial heuristics leaves us with an alignment rate of 73.4%.

...

371 instances have no event; 14 instances have discontinuous events. In 6 instances the event lies outside of the scope---these seem to be annotation errors:

• ... only {an} <un>[ambitious] {one who abandons a London career for the country} ...

• ... {an} <un>[justifiable] {intrusion}, ...

• {It} <never> [recovered] {from the blow}, ...

• "But {I} [can]<'t> {forget them}, Miss Stapleton," said I.

• ... and means to [spare] <no> {pains or expense} to restore the grandeur of his family.

• Coming down with an <un>[signed] {warrant}.

...

Collins' coverage of the training data is 99.4% (21 of 3,640 sentence). In those 21 there are 10 instances of negation, for example:

• "Know then that in the time of the Great Rebellion (the history of which by the learned Lord Clarendon I most earnestly commend to your attention) this Manor of Baskerville has held by Hugo of that name, nor <can> {[it] be gainsaid that he was a most wild, profane, and {[god]}<less> man}.

Training		Development
Freq.	Word	Freq.	Word
35	don't	17	't
11	can't	3	don't
7	n't
6	isn't
5	didn't
2	couldn't

Of the training data bigrams ending in n't there are:

• 4 do n't
• 1 did n't
• 1 had n't
• 1 wo n't

Of the development data bigrams ending in 't there are:

• 7 don 't
• 4 can 't
• 3 didn 't
• 1 couldn 't
• 1 shan 't
• 1 wasn 't

There is a full listing of tokens containing punctuation here: JimWhite/StarSemTokenTabulation.

HoundOfTheBaskervilles_ch1, s1. prefixed cue, weirdness

• Mr. Sherlock Holmes, who was usually very late in the mornings, save upon {those} not <in>{frequent occasions when he was up all night}, was seated at the breakfast table.

• Mr. Sherlock Holmes, who was usually very late in the mornings, save upon {those} <not> {infrequent occasions when he was up all night}, was seated at the breakfast table.

• Mr. Sherlock Holmes, {who was} usually {very late in the mornings,} <save> {upon those not infrequent occasions when he was up all night}, was seated at the breakfast table.

HoundOfTheBaskervilles_ch1, s12, prefixed cue

• Since {we have been so} <un>{[fortunate]] {as to miss him} and have no notion of his errand, this accidental souvenir becomes of importance.

HoundOfTheBaskervilles_ch1, s67: discontinuous scope

• If {he was} in the hospital and yet <not> {on the staff} he could only have been a house-surpeon or a house-physician: little more than a senior student.

HoundOfTheBaskervilles_ch1, s8: weirdness

• It is my experience that it is only an amiable man in this world who receives testimonials, only {an} <un>[ambitious] {one who abandons a London career for the country}, and only an absent-minded one who leaves his stick and not his visiting-card after waiting an hour in your room.

HoundOfTheBaskervilles_ch1, s89: discontinuous scope

• {The dog's jaw}, as shown in the space between these marks, {is} too broad in my opinion for a terrier and <not> {[broad] enough for a mastiff}.

HoundOfTheBaskervilles_ch3, s235: Multi-word cue, discontinuous scope

• Then, again, whom was he waiting for that night, and why was {he [waiting] for him} in the yew alley <rather than> {in his own house}?"

HoundOfTheBaskervilles_ch4, s154: contracted cue

• But as to my uncle's death: well, it all seems boiling up in my head, and {I [can]}<'t> {get it clear yet}.

HoundOfTheBaskervilles_ch4, s233: Abbreviation of "number" tagged as negation

• {No.} 2704 is our man .

Frq.	Cue	POS
346	not	RB
137	no	DT
71	un	JJ
64	no	UH
58	never	RB
55	nothing	NN
36	n't	RB
24	without	IN
22	less	JJ
18	no	RB
17	in	JJ
16	im	JJ
12	none	NN
8	n't	JJ
6	't	RB
6	n't	VB
5	n't	NN
5	no	NNP
5	ir	JJ
4	nor	CC
4	un	RB
4	less	RB
4	in	RB
3	dis	NN
3	not	VB
3	less	NN
2	'<NULL>'	'<NULL>'
2	not	JJ
2	un	NN
2	not	NN
2	un	IN
2	nowhere	RB
2	by_no_means	IN_DT_NN
2	prevent	VB
2	n't	NNP
2	't	NN
2	im	RB
2	on_the_contrary	IN_DT_NN
1	rather_than	RB_IN
1	nobody	NN
1	been	VBN
1	fail	VBP
1	neither_*_nor	CC_*_CC
1	absence	NN
1	other	JJ
1	nothing_at_all	NN_IN_DT
1	can	MD
1	neglected	VBN
1	ir	RB
1	un	VBG
1	refused	VBD
1	the	DT
1	yet	RB
1	never	NNP
1	save	VBP
1	not_for_the_world	RB_IN_DT_NN
1	un	VBN
1	signs	NNS
1	in	NNS
1	no	JJ
1	unusual	JJ
1	dis	VBN
1	neither_*_nor	DT_*_CC
1	by_no_means	IN_RB_VBZ
1	not_*_not	RB_*_RB
1	except	IN
1	dis	JJ

The full list is here. There are 367 token/pos types.

Frq.	Word	POS
51	could	MD
25	can	RB
19	have	VBP
14	had	VBD
12	know	VB
10	know	VBP
7	able	JJ
7	seen	VBN
6	happy	JJ
5	pleasant	JJ
5	like	IN
5	sign	NN
5	say	VB
5	man	NN
4	likely	JJ
4	heard	VBN
4	saw	VBD
4	can	MD
4	possible	JJ
4	known	JJ