Systematic morphology issues

[nschneid]

I ran neaten.py on the PUD data and the most frequently flagged warnings were the following:

• 684 WARN: VBD should have Number, Person, Tense, and Mood
• 283 WARN: Passive verb with lemma ... should have Voice=Pass
• 256 WARN: VBP should correspond with Number=Sing|Plur
• 256 WARN: VBP should have Number, Person, Tense, and Mood
• 167 WARN: unexpected morphology for 'be' verb
• 144 WARN: Voice=Pass missing from VBN verb with no aux dependent

There are also a bunch for pronouns:

• indefinites
  • WARN: FORM 'everyone' should correspond with Number=Sing
  • WARN: FORM 'everything' should correspond with Number=Sing
• reflexives
  • WARN: FORM {'itself', 'herself', 'themselves'} should correspond with Case=Acc
• possessives
  • WARN: FORM {'her', 'his', 'its', 'my', 'our', 'their', 'your'} should correspond with Case=Gen
• relatives
  • WARN: FORM 'that' should correspond with PronType=Rel in n01142008 @ token 16
  • WARN: FORM 'that' should correspond with PronType=Rel in n05003019 @ token 14

And:

• WARN: ADJ should have Degree in n01112014 @ token 10
• WARN: ADJ should have Degree in w01020018 @ token 1
• WARN: ADJ should have Degree in w03007008 @ token 10
• WARN: ADJ+JJ should correspond with Degree=Pos in w01020018 @ token 1
• (many tokens) WARN: ADJ+JJR or ADV+RBR should correspond with Degree=Cmp
• (many tokens) WARN: ADJ+JJS or ADV+RBS should correspond with Degree=Sup
• (many tokens) WARN: PROPN+NNP should correspond with Number=Sing
• (many tokens) WARN: PROPN+NNPS should correspond with Number=Plur

It would be nice to implement these features so as to match EWT and GUM.

[AngledLuffa]

So, it's kind of wild that I need to ask this, but what is the Number for a pair of people doing an action?

6       quoting quote   VERB    VBG     VerbForm=Ger    2       advcl   2:advcl _
7       a       a       DET     DT      Definite=Ind|PronType=Art       8       det     8:det   _
8       pair    pair    NOUN    NN      Number=Sing     6       obj     6:obj   _
9       of      of      ADP     IN      _       10      case    10:case _
10      scholars        scholar NOUN    NNS     Number=Plur     8       nmod    8:nmod:of|12:nsubj      _
11      who     who     PRON    WP      PronType=Rel    12      nsubj   10:ref  _
12      call    call    VERB    VBP     Mood=Ind|Tense=Pres|VerbForm=Fin        10      acl:relcl       10:acl:relcl    _
13      it      it      PRON    PRP     Case=Acc|Gender=Neut|Number=Sing|Person=3|PronType=Prs  12      obj     12:obj|17:nsubj:xsubj   _

call - Number=Plur, right?

2       Pair    pair    NOUN    NN      Number=Sing     3       nsubj   3:nsubj _
3       prank   prank   VERB    VBP     Mood=Ind|Tense=Pres|VerbForm=Fin        13      ccomp   13:ccomp        _
4       their   their   PRON    PRP$    Number=Plur|Person=3|Poss=Yes|PronType=Prs      5       nmod:poss       5:nmod:poss     _
5       way     way     NOUN    NN      Number=Sing     3       obj     3:obj   _
6       into    into    ADP     IN      _       10      case    10:case _
7       North   North   PROPN   NNP     Number=Sing     8       compound        8:compound      _
8       Korean  Korean  ADJ     JJ      Degree=Pos      10      amod    10:amod Proper=True
9       golf    golf    NOUN    NN      Number=Sing     10      compound        10:compound     _
10      tournament      tournament      NOUN    NN      Number=Sing     3       obl     3:obl:into      SpaceAfter=No

Pair is Number=Sing, their is Number=Plur, and the ending of prank agrees with Plur, so... Number=Plur?

but then all the instances of pairs doing things in EWT or GUM are Number=Sing

A pair of military pilots embarked

If a pair isn't leaving

GUM:

The pair married

[ellepannitto]

I think this is related to the long discussion about how to treat morphology that involved @sylvainkahane , @amir-zeldes , @nschneid and others a while back... (UniversalDependencies/docs#985)

To me (I'm not a native speaker, as you know), pair is singular as you can have "one pair, two pairs". No matter the fact that it can agree both with singular and with plural... Annotating it as Plural would just obscure this property of a class of English nouns that are able to appear both in singular and plural contexts

[AngledLuffa]

To be clear I'm asking about the Number on the VERB, not the pair itself. A single entity pranks their way into a golf tournament, multiple people prank their way. So prank pretty much has to be Number=Plur IMO

[ellepannitto]

Sorry, I misunderstood the issue. I guess it's always the same discussion, though... if annotating contextually then yes, both prank and call should be Number=Plur|Pers=3 I guess...

[AngledLuffa]

Collective/undetermined "you are" - Number=Sing?

eg

You end up listening ...
if you know how to search
To draw a game you have dominated...

all examples of this are Number=Sing in EWT

---

South Africa are ...

single entity, but using the plural to be? Number=Plur?

[AngledLuffa]

What does "unexpected morphology on be verb" mean?

[nschneid]

a pair of scholars argue
a bunch of horses run
(etc.)

are cases where the collective noun is singular but does not control agreement with the verb (it is "transparent" to agreement). The dependent (plural) noun controls the agreement. So: Number=Plur on the verb because it matches Number=Plur for "scholars".

[nschneid]

"You" is a special case because it does not contrast for number, unlike other personal pronouns, and in many sentences it is hard to tell whether it refers to a single addressee or multiple. GUM annotations try to infer the Number anyway. EWT does not (currently).

[AngledLuffa]

"You" is a special case because it does not contrast for number, unlike other personal pronouns, and in many sentences it is hard to tell whether it refers to a single addressee or multiple

Can't we just... not annotate those? Number=Sing doesn't seem any more useful than no Number at all

[AngledLuffa]

What about "Really Really Love You"?

The lyrics go "Really really love you, yes I do"

so if we're just inferring unseen context, can we assign this Number=Sing|Person=1?

[amir-zeldes]

Can't we just... not annotate those? Number=Sing doesn't seem any more useful than no Number at all

In GUM we use the number of addressees to disambiguate this. Plural example (note the addressee comment):

# speaker = Marie
# addressee = Kevin,Lisa
# text = You can't understan- – he – you can but, then you can't, sometimes, some of the things he says.
1	You	you	PRON	PRP	Case=Nom|Number=Plur|Person=2|PronType=Prs	4	nsubj	4:nsubj	Discourse=organization-phatic:97->99:2:syn-intrp-547-_|Entity=(19-person-giv:inact-nnnnn-cf1-1-ana)|PDTB=Hypophora:Hypophora:_:_:531-542:543-567
2-3	can't	_	_	_	_	_	_	_	_
2	ca	can	AUX	MD	VerbForm=Fin	4	aux	4:aux	_
3	n't	not	PART	RB	Polarity=Neg	4	advmod	4:advmod	Negation=Yes
4	understan-	understand	VERB	VB	Typo=Yes|VerbForm=Inf	9	reparandum	9:reparandum	CorrectForm=understand|MSeg=under-stan-|XML=<sic ana:::"understand"></sic>

Really really love you, yes I do

If this is the song by Norman Hutchins, it's clearly addressed to God, so I would go with Sing (and Person=2)