What's in a Message?

TL;DR

This paper introduces a method for inducing predicate/argument structures similar to Frame Semantics, focusing on extracting a representative vocabulary as the first step in a multi-stage process for understanding evolving event narratives.

Contribution

It presents the initial stage of a novel approach to induce message structures, emphasizing vocabulary extraction for subsequent clustering of predicates and arguments.

Findings

Successful extraction of a representative vocabulary

Evaluation of vocabulary extraction methods

Foundation for future clustering experiments

Abstract

In this paper we present the first step in a larger series of experiments for the induction of predicate/argument structures. The structures that we are inducing are very similar to the conceptual structures that are used in Frame Semantics (such as FrameNet). Those structures are called messages and they were previously used in the context of a multi-document summarization system of evolving events. The series of experiments that we are proposing are essentially composed from two stages. In the first stage we are trying to extract a representative vocabulary of words. This vocabulary is later used in the second stage, during which we apply to it various clustering approaches in order to identify the clusters of predicates and arguments--or frames and semantic roles, to use the jargon of Frame Semantics. This paper presents in detail and evaluates the first stage.