Introduction to FrameNet

and
Verb Knowledge Base
Debasri Chakrabarti
Overview

FrameNet
Description
Examples
Verb Knowledge Base (VKB)
Description
Examples

Wednesday, January 22 2
, 2025
Introduction to FrameNet

The Berkeley FrameNet project is a

lexicon-building effort
study words
describe the frames or conceptual structures
examine sentences, using a very large corpus
of contemporary English that contains these
words
record the ways in which information from the
associated frames are expressed in these
sentences

Wednesday, January 22 3
, 2025
Users of FrameNet

NLP researchers
word sense disambiguation
machine translation
information extraction
question answering
Lexicographers
Language teachers and advanced
language learners

Wednesday, January 22 4
, 2025
Typographic Conventions

first mention of a technical term appears in bold

face
A semantic frame is a script-like structure.
names of Frames begin with a capital letter.
The Communication frame is used by numerous
other frames.
example sentences set off from the text, target
words are in bold face:
Bob told a story.
Constituents which represent frame elements are
in square brackets:
[Bob] told [a story].

Wednesday, January 22 5
, 2025
Frame
• An intuitive construct that links between
semantics and syntax
• Schematic representations of situations
involving various participants, each of
which is a frame element
• Semantic arguments: correspond to the
frame elements of the frame associated
with that word

Wednesday, January 22 6
, 2025
Frame contd…

Every sense of every word (i.e., every

lexical unit) has its own frame
Lexical units that have similar frame
structure are clustered into groups
This allows
generalizations
to reduce effort

Wednesday, January 22 7
, 2025
FrameNet
• Theory-informed and data-driven
• Elements of a frame are decided inductively
• Example, revenge
– the person who has taken revenge on somebody else
(the Agent or the Avenger)
– the act of taking revenge
– the person who was injured by the offender's act (the
Injured_Party),
– the offensive act (the Injury)

Wednesday, January 22 8
, 2025
FrameNet Annotation

Frame elements in the Revenge frame are-

Avenger, Punishment, Offender, Injury, and
Injured_party
Lexical units in this frame include
avenge.v, avenger.n, retaliate.v, retaliation.n,
retribution.n, retributive.a, retributory.a,
revenge.v, revenge.n, revengeful.a, revenger.n,
etc.
Example
[His brothers Avenger] avenged [him
Injured_party].

Wednesday, January 22 9
, 2025
Corpora

• FrameNet 1
– The British National Corpus
• FrameNet 2
– LDC North American Newswire corpora in
American English along with BNC

Wednesday, January 22 10
, 2025
Relation b/w FrameNet and WordNet

Similarities
Modeled after WordNet
Intention for FrameNet
– to be both a dictionary and a thesaurus
Differences
FrameNet database is founded on corpus
attestations
Differs from WordNet in recognizing
relationships among words in a single frame
that are of different parts of speech

Wednesday, January 22 11
, 2025
Verbs in FrameNet

abash:
abash cause to be embarrassed
FrameNet Entry
abash.v. (Experiencer_obj) Lexical entry
Annotation
Lexical Units
abash.v, aggravate.v, aggrieve.v,
alarm.v, amaze.v, anger.v,
annoy.v, antagonize.v, astonish.v,
astound.v, baffle.v, beguile.v,
bewilder.v, bewitch.v, bore.v, calm.v.

Wednesday, January 22 12
, 2025
 Definitions

• (Experiencer_obj)
Some phenomenon (the Stimulus) provokes a particular
emotion in an Experiencer.
Nightmare on Elm Street SCARED me silly.

Experiencer [Exp] The Experiencer reacts emotionally

or psychologically to the Stimulus.
Horror films TERRIFY Edna.

Stimulus [Stimulus] The Stimulus is the event or entity

which brings about the emotional or psychological state
of the Experiencer.
The news greatly ALARMS all the women of the village.

Wednesday, January 22 13
, 2025
Verbs in FrameNet

Frame Number Realizations(s)

Element Annotated

Experiencer 6 NP.Ext 3
NP.Obj 1
--.-- 2

Stimulus 6 NP.Ext 1
PP[at].Comp 1
PP[by].Comp 4

Wednesday, January 22 14
, 2025
Verbs in FrameNet
abash.v
Frame: Experiencer_obj

It was firmly slapped from his hand by his mother, and

ABASHED by her glare he turned away with the rest ,
to leave the accursed woman alone , abandoned ,
shunned like a leper.
ABASHED by this sarcasm, the crowd hung back while
the dazed Chignell fetched the bath chair which had
caused all the trouble, and lifted his master into it.
After the first shock he was in no way ABASHED by the
grandeur of Stephen 's estate.
The house ABASHED me.
She was ABASHED at herself, her triteness.
Wednesday, January 22 15
, 2025
Valence Patterns

Number Annotated Patterns

6 TOTAL Experiencer Stimulus
2 ----- PP[by]
Comp
1 NP PP[at]
Ext Comp
2 NP PP[by]
Ext Comp
1 NP NP
Obj Ext
Wednesday, January 22 16
, 2025
Nouns in FrameNet

dance.n.N (Social_event) Lexical entry

Annotation
Social_event
Definition:
A Host gives a social event to honor
someone (Honoree) or to celebrate an
Occasion, at which Attendees are present.
Sue threw a PARTY in honor of Bob's birthday.

Wednesday, January 22 17
, 2025
Definitions

Attendee [Att] is used for the people who

come to the Social_event.
The whole group attended the PARTY.

Honoree [Hon] The person for whom the

Social_event is held.
I threw a PARTY for Josef.

Host [Host] is the person or organization

that hosts the Social_event.
Ron threw a PARTY.
Wednesday, January 22 18
, 2025
Definitions

Occasion [Occ] The Occasion for which the

Social_event is held.
Sue threw a PARTY in honor of Bob's birthday.

Refreshment [Ref] Refreshment is used for the

meal, food or drinks that are served at the
Social_event.
I enjoy a tasteful dinner PARTY.

Social_event [Soc] This identifies the

Social_event itself.
The department PICNIC was lots of fun.

Wednesday, January 22 19
, 2025
Nouns in FrameNet

dance.n
Frame: Social_event
Definition
a social gathering at which people dance.
Dozens of teenage volunteers were
bussed in on Tuesday evening for a
DANCE with mentally and physically
handicapped patients.

All this exciting news is soon forgotten by

the announcement of a DANCE to be held
in the local town hall in honour of the
Commandos.
Wednesday, January 22 20
, 2025
Nouns in FrameNet
Frame Number Realizations(s)
Element Annotat
ed
Attendee 4 PP[with].Comp 1
NP.Ext 3
Honoree 2 PP[in].Comp 2
Host 9 N. 4
AJP.1
NP.Ext 4
Occasion 3 N. 3
Refreshment 2 N. 2
Social Event 29 --.-- 29
Wednesday, January 22 21
, 2025
Valence Patterns
• These frame elements occur in the following syntactic
patterns

Number Patterns
Annotated
4 TOTAL Attendee Social Event
3 NP ----
Ext
1 PP[with] ----
Comp
1 TOTAL Honoree Host Social Event
1 PP[in] NP -----
Comp Ext
Wednesday, January 22 22
, 2025
Conclusion

Provides frames for-

Nouns, Verbs, Adjectives and
Prepositions
Multi-word expressions are covered
Single sentences are annotated
rather than running text
does not offer information about
frequency of occurrence
Wednesday, January 22 23
, 2025
Verb Knowledge Base (VKB)

English VKB
Hierarchy
Entry structure
Hindi VKB
Entry structure

Wednesday, January 22 24
, 2025
English VKB

English VKB uses

Levin’s English verb classes and their
alternation
the hypernymy hierarchy of WordNet
specifications and the knowledge base
of the UNL system
British National Corpus (BNC)

Wednesday, January 22 25
, 2025
Levin’s English verb classes and
their alternation

Syntactic behavior of a verb is semantically

determined

• Investigation of this hypothesis is made for about

3200 English verbs
• 200 semantic classes of verbs
• Verbs within a class share a number of
alternations
Example classes:
– verbs of putting,
– verbs of communication,
– correspond verbs etc.
Wednesday, January 22 26
, 2025
 Hierarchical Structure
"do”
({icl>do(}agt>person,obj>thing,gol>place))
[VTRANS,VOA-ACT]

 "move”
({icl>do(}agt>person,obj>thing,gol>place)
[VOA-ACT-BODLY,VOA-ACT-DLBRT,VOA-ACT-MOTN,VLTN]

"put”
(icl>move(agt>person,obj>thing,gol>place)
(NP-VP-NP-adv_plc{here/there})
[]
”arrange”
(icl>put{>move}(agt>person,obj>thing,gol>place

(adv_plc{here/there}))) ”heap”
(icl>arrange{>put} (agt>person,obj>thing,gol>place
(adv_plc{here/there})))
pile
Wednesday, January 22 27
, 2025
Example of a Ditransitive Verb
Verb
Restriction
Semantic attributes
Example
Gloss
Sentence Frame

give
– ({icl>do(}agt>person,gol>person,obj>thing))
– [VOA, VTRANS]
– She gave me a book on my birthday.
– to make a gift of
– NP VP NP NP

Wednesday, January 22 28
, 2025
 Example of a Ditransitive Verb

• give
– ({icl>do(}agt>person,obj>thing,gol>person
(prep{to})))
– [VOA, VTRANS]
– She gave a book to me on my birthday.
– to make a gift of
– NP VP NP PP {to}

Wednesday, January 22 29
, 2025
 Example of Ditransitive Verb

• put
– (icl>move(agt>person,obj>thing,gol>
place(loc_prep{in/on/under/over})))
– [VOA, VTRANS]
– Put your clothes in the cupboard.
– to put something into a certain place
– NP VP NP PP {in/on/under/over}

Wednesday, January 22 30
, 2025
Example of an Intransitive Verb

• fight
– (icl>act(agt>person))
– [VOA, VINT]
– He fought against racism.
– to use a lot of effort to defeat or achieve
something
– NP VP

Wednesday, January 22 31
, 2025
 Example of an Ergative Verb

• melt
– (icl>dissolve{>liquefy}(obj>concrete
thing))
– [VOO, VINT, ERG]
– The ice melted.
– to turn from something solid into
something soft or liquid
– NP VP

Wednesday, January 22 32
, 2025
 Transitive Counterpart of Ergative
Structure

• melt
– (icl>make(agt>person,obj>concrete
thing))
– [VOA, VTRANS]
– She melted the ice.
– to cause to turn from something solid
into something soft or liquid
– NP VP NP

Wednesday, January 22 33
, 2025
Different Senses in Hindi VKB

लिखना
बच्चे लिख रहे हैं। (लिपिबद्ध
करना)
उसने एक किताब लिखी।
(प्रकाशित करना)
उसे जल्दी आने के लिए लिखो।
(चिट्ठी लिखना)

Wednesday, January 22 34
, 2025
Intransitive Verbs in Hindi VKB

• बोलना
– ((icl>speak(agt>person))
– [VINT,VOA,VOA-ACT]
– बच्चा बोल रहा था।
– मुँह से शब्द उच्चारण करना।
– NP VP

Wednesday, January 22 35
, 2025
Transitive Verbs in Hindi VKB

• देखना
– (icl>perceive(agt>person,obj>thing))
– [VTRANS,VOA,VOA-ACT]
– वह चिड़िया देख रहा था।
– आँखों से किसी चीज का ज्ञान
प्राप्त करना।
– NP VP NP

Wednesday, January 22 36
, 2025
Causative Verbs

• दिखाना
– (icl>show{>do}(agt>person,gol>person,
– obj>thing))
– [VTRANS,VOA,VOA-ACT, CAUSV]
– उसने मुझे एक नया फूल दिखाया।
– अवलोकन कराना।
– NP VP NP NP.

Wednesday, January 22 37
, 2025
Corpus help in Hindi VKB

पालना
हर माता पिता अपने बच्चे को अच्छे से
पालते हैं। (परवरिश करना)
उसने एक मैना पाली। (पशु, पक्षी आदि को
अपने पास रखना)
मन में गुस्सा मत पालो। (गुस्सा, द्वेष
आदि मन में रखना)

Wednesday, January 22 38
, 2025
Conclusion

VKB specifies
Subcategorization frame
Selectional Preferences
Thematic Roles
Hindi VKB
extensive use of corpora
hierarchical structure not present

Wednesday, January 22 39
, 2025
Reference
• http://www.icsi.berkeley.edu/~framenet/

Wednesday, January 22 40
, 2025