Jessica Littman - Academia.edu (original) (raw)

Papers by Jessica Littman

The document is organised as follows. The next section explains what the TimeML tags (XML element... more The document is organised as follows. The next section explains what the TimeML tags (XML elements) are and how to annotate them. It also specifies for each tag what its attributes are and provides a BNF definition for the tag and its attributes. While this exposition contains many examples illustrating what and how to tag, the examples focus, for clarity&amp;amp;amp;#39;s

Lecture Notes in Computer Science, 2007

Systems biology, the study of the intricate, ramified, com-plex and interacting mechanisms underl... more Systems biology, the study of the intricate, ramified, com-plex and interacting mechanisms underlying life, often proves too complex for unaided human understanding, even by groups of people working together. This difficulty is ex-acerbated by the high volume of publications in molecular biology. The Big C (‘C’ for Cyc) is a system designed to (semi-)automatically acquire, integrate, and use complex mechanism models, specifically related to cancer biology, via automated reading and a hyper-detailed refinement pro-cess resting on Cyc’s logical representations and powerful inference mechanisms. We aim to assist cancer research and treatment by achieving elements of biologist-level reason-ing, but with the scale and attention to detail that only com-puter implementations can provide.

Proceedings of the Eighth International Conference on Computational Semantics - IWCS-8 '09, 2009

In this paper we introduce a methodology for annotating compositional operations in natural langu... more In this paper we introduce a methodology for annotating compositional operations in natural language text, and describe a markup language, GLML, based on Generative Lexicon, for identifying such relations. While most annotation systems capture surface relationships, GLML captures the "compositional history" of the argument selection relative to the predicate. We provide a brief overview of GL before moving on to our proposed methodology for annotating with GLML. There are three main tasks described in the paper: (i) Compositional mechanisms of argument selection; (ii) Qualia in modification constructions; (iii) Type selection in modification of dot objects. We explain what each task includes and provide a description of the annotation interface. We also include the XML format for GLML including examples of annotated sentences.

In this paper, we describe the methodology being used to develop certain aspects of ISO-Space, an... more In this paper, we describe the methodology being used to develop certain aspects of ISO-Space, an annotation language for encoding spatial and spatiotemporal information as expressed in natural language text. After reviewing the requirements of a specification for capturing such knowledge from linguistic descriptions, we describe how ISO-Space has developed to meet the needs of the specification. ISO-Space is an emerging resource that is being developed in the context of an iterative effort to test the specification model with annotation, a methodology called MAMA (Model-Annotate-Model-Annotate) (Pustejovsky and Stubbs, 2012). We describe the genres of text that are being used in a pilot annotation study, in order to both refine and enrich the specification language by way of crowd sourcing simple annotation tasks with Amazon's Mechanical Turk Service.

In this paper, we describe ISO-Space, an annotation language currently under community developmen... more In this paper, we describe ISO-Space, an annotation language currently under community development for encoding spatial and spatiotemporal information as expressed in natural language text. After reviewing the requirements of a specification for capturing such knowledge from linguistic descriptions, we demonstrate how ISO-Space aims to address these problems. ISO-Space is an emerging resource that is still in its early stages of development; hence community involvement from multiple disciplines and potential users and consumers is necessary, if it is to achieve a level of descriptive adequacy and subsequent adoption. We describe the genres of text that are being used in a pilot annotation study, in order to both refine and enrich the specification language.

Lecture Notes in Computer Science, 2010

... 2.3 Towards a Spatiotemporal Markup Language ... RCC8 consists of eight relations that are jo... more ... 2.3 Towards a Spatiotemporal Markup Language ... RCC8 consists of eight relations that are jointly exhaustive and pairwise complete: disconnected, exter-nally connected ... Galton [36], [37] discusses a commonsense theory of motion, but this work does not focus on merging ...

Text, Speech and Language Technology, 2014

In this paper, we introduce a methodology for annotating compositional operations in natural lang... more In this paper, we introduce a methodology for annotating compositional operations in natural language text and describe the Generative Lexicon Mark-up Language (GLML), a mark-up language inspired by the Generative Lexicon model, for identifying such relations. While most annotation systems capture surface relationships, GLML captures the “compositional history” of the argument selection relative to the predicate. We provide a brief overview of GL before moving on to our proposed methodology for annotating with GLML. There are three main tasks described in the paper. The first one is based on atomic semantic types and the other two exploit more fine-grained meaning parameters encoded in the Qualia Structure roles: (i) Argument Selection and Coercion Annotation for the SemEval-2010 competition; (ii) Qualia Selection in modification constructions; (iii) Type selection in modification constructions and verb-noun combinations involving dot objects. We explain what each task comprises and include the XML format for annotated sample sentences. We show that by identifying and subsequently annotating the typing and subtyping shifts in these constructions, we gain an insight into the workings of the general mechanisms of composition.

Lecture Notes in Computer Science

TimeML is a specification language for the annotation of events and temporal expressions in natur... more TimeML is a specification language for the annotation of events and temporal expressions in natural language text. In addition, the language introduces three relational tags linking temporal objects and events to one another. These links impose both aspectual and temporal ordering over time objects, as well as mark up subordination contexts introduced by modality, evidentiality, and factivity. Given the richness

Spatial Cognition & Computation, 2011

Full terms and conditions of use: http://www.informaworld.com/terms-and-conditions-of-access.pdf ... more Full terms and conditions of use: http://www.informaworld.com/terms-and-conditions-of-access.pdf This article may be used for research, teaching and private study purposes. Any substantial or systematic reproduction, redistribution , reselling , loan or sub-licensing, systematic supply or distribution in any form to anyone is expressly forbidden. The publisher does not give any warranty express or implied or make any representation that the contents will be complete or accurate or up to date. The accuracy of any instructions, formulae and drug doses should be independently verified with primary sources. The publisher shall not be liable for any loss, actions, claims, proceedings, demand or costs or damages whatsoever or howsoever caused arising directly or indirectly in connection with or arising out of the use of this material.

This paper presents a methodology for cre- ating a gold standard for sense definition using Amazo... more This paper presents a methodology for cre- ating a gold standard for sense definition using Amazon's Mechanical Turk service. We demonstrate how this method can be used to create in a single step, quickly and cheaply, a lexicon of sense inventories and the corresponding sense-annotated lexical sample. We show the results obtained by this method for a sample verb and dis- cuss how it can be improved to produce an exhaustive lexical resource. We then de- scribe how such a resource can be used to further other semantic annotation efforts, using as an example the Generative Lexi- con Mark-up Language (GLML) effort.

Language Resources and Evaluation, 2009

TempEval is a framework for evaluating systems that automatically annotate texts with temporal re... more TempEval is a framework for evaluating systems that automatically annotate texts with temporal relations. It was created in the context of the SemEval 2007 workshop and uses the TimeML annotation language. The evaluation consists of three subtasks of temporal annotation: anchoring an event to a time expression in the same sentence, anchoring an event to the document creation time, and ordering main events in consecutive sentences. In this paper we describe the TempEval task and the systems that participated in the evaluation. In addition, we describe how further task decomposition can bring even more structure to the evaluation of temporal relations.

Language Resources and Evaluation, 2005

Abstract. In this paper, we discuss the role that temporal information plays in natural language ... more Abstract. In this paper, we discuss the role that temporal information plays in natural language text, specifically in the context of question answering systems. We define a descriptive framework with which we can examine the temporally sensitive aspects of natural language queries. ...

Annotation guidelines, …, 2008

This document describes GLML, a mark-up language based on Generative Lexicon Theory. While most a... more This document describes GLML, a mark-up language based on Generative Lexicon Theory. While most annotation systems capture surface relationships, GLML captures derivational relationships. We provide a brief overview of GL before moving on to our ...

An understanding of spatial information in natural language is necessary for many computational l... more An understanding of spatial information in natural language is necessary for many computational linguistics and artificial intelligence applications. In this paper, we discuss what problems researchers face with respect to this topic, focusing on the need for a well-developed annotation scheme. The desiderata for such a specification language are defined along with what representational mechanisms are required for the specification to be successful. We then review several spatial information annotation schemes, focusing on the latest version of the ISO-Space specification. Finally, we discuss where ISO-Space still falls short and propose some ways that the specification could be enriched. RÉSUMÉ. Algorithmes dans les deux la linguistique computationnelle et en intelligence artificielle nécessitent la capacité de comprendre et de raisonner sur l'information spatiale en langage naturel. Dans cet article, nous discutons de ce que les chercheurs face à des problémes en ce qui concerne ce sujet, mettant l'accent sur la nécessité d'un schéma d'annotation bien développé. Les desiderata d'un tel langage de spécification sont définies avec les mécanismes de représentation sont nécessaires pour la spécification de réussir. Nous examinons ensuite plusieurs schémas d'annotation d'information spatiale, en se concentrant sur la derniére version de la spécification ISO-Space. Enfin, nous nous demandons oú ISO-Space est encore loin et de proposer quelques façons que les spécifications peuvent être enrichis.

In this paper we provide a description of TimeML, a rich specification language for event and tem... more In this paper we provide a description of TimeML, a rich specification language for event and temporal expressions in natural language text, developed in the context of the AQUAINT program on Question Answering Systems. Unlike most previous work on event annotation, TimeML captures three distinct phenomena in temporal markup: (1) it systematically anchors event predicates to a broad range of temporally denotating expressions; (2) it orders event expressions in text relative to one another, both intrasententially and in discourse; and (3) it allows for a delayed (underspecified) interpretation of partially determined temporal expressions. We demonstrate the expressiveness of TimeML for a broad range of syntactic and semantic contexts, including aspectual predication, modal subordination, and an initial treatment of lexical and constructional causation in text.

Proceedings of COLING, 2008

We propose a spatio-temporal markup for the annotation of motion predicates in text, informed by ... more We propose a spatio-temporal markup for the annotation of motion predicates in text, informed by a lexical semantic classification of these verbs. We incorporate this classification within a spatial event structure, based on Generative Lexicon Theory. We discuss how the spatial event structure suggests changes to annotation systems designed solely for temporal or spatial phenomena, resulting in spatio-temporal annotation.