II UNL Panel

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The main purpose of the UNL Panel is to collect the opinion of specialists, from inside and outside the UNL Community, about technical issues of the UNL, as to prepare the ground for an in-depth revision of the current specifications. The II UNL Panel, an associated event to [http://lrec2014.lrec-conf.org/en/ LREC 2014], is devoted to the nature and role of [[relation]]s and [[attribute]]s in the UNL.  
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The UNDL Foundation invites submissions to the second volume of the UNL Series, to be published on January 2015, and which will be dedicated to the nature and role of [[relation]]s and [[attribute]]s in the UNL framework. The participation is open and free, and the submissions must necessarily comply with the instructions below. Authors of selected papers will be invited to present their work in the II UNL Panel, to be held in Geneva, on March 2015. The UNDL Foundation will pay the travel and accommodation expenses for the selected candidates not living in Geneva.
  
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== Introduction ==
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== Important Dates ==
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The Universal Networking Language (UNL) is a knowledge representation language that has been used in several different fields of natural language processing, such as machine translation, multilingual document generation, summarization, information retrieval, sentiment analysis and semantic reasoning. It was proposed by the Institute of Advanced Studies of the United Nations University, in Tokyo, Japan, in 1996, and has been developed by the UNDL Foundation, in Geneva, Switzerland, under a mandate of the United Nations, since 2001.
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*Deadline for submission: 10 Jan 2015
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*Notification of acceptance: 10 Feb 2015
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In principle, the UNL is an effort to achieve a simple basis for representing the most central aspects of meaning in a "universal" (i.e., language-independent) format<ref>The adjective "universal" must be understood, in the UNL framework, in terms of "semantic accessibility", i.e., as the capability of being used and understood by all. This is the use of "universal" that one may observe in "universal adapter", "universal screwdriver" and "universal remote control", for instance. The term "universal" must not be understood, in UNL, in terms of "common", "underlying" or "primitive", as in "Universal Grammar", for instance.</ref>. In the UNL approach, information conveyed by natural language is represented as a semantic network where nodes represent concepts, and edges represent binary semantic relations between concepts. The nodes are called [[Universal Word]]s (or simply UWs) and may be modified by a predefined set of [[Universal Attribute]]s (such as @past, @plural, etc.). The set of [[Universal Relations]] is also predefined in the UNL Specifications and currently consists of 46 semantic cases (such as agent, object, instrument, place, time, etc.).
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*Final version: 28 Feb 2015
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*II UNL Panel: March 2015
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For instance, the sentence "The boy ate an apple in the kitchen yesterday" would be represented, in simplified UNL, as:<br />
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{|align=center cellpadding=10
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!Linear representation
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!Graphic representation
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|-
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|<pre>
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[S]
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{eng}
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The boy ate an apple in the kitchen yesterday
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{/eng}
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{unl}
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agt(eat.@past, boy.@def)
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obj(eat.@past, apple.@indef)
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plc(eat.@past, kitchen.@def)
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tim(eat.@past, yesterday)
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{/unl}
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[/S]
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</pre>
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|
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|}
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In the graph described above, "eat", "boy", "apple", "kitchen" and "yesterday" are nodes (Universal Words), specified by the Universal Attributes "@past", "@indef" and "@def" and interlinked by the Universal Relations "agt" (agent), "obj" (patient), "plc" (place) and "tim" (time).
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== Goal ==
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The main purpose of the UNL Panel is to collect the opinion of specialists, from inside and outside the UNL Community, about technical issues of the UNL, as to prepare the ground for an in-depth revision of the current specifications.
  
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== Rationale ==
 
Originally proposed more than 15 years ago, the UNL Specs have not escaped from the action of time and have not incorporated yet several recent advances in the domain of natural language processing. Additionally, there has been a claim for better standardization practices in the UNL framework, especially after the results of the large-scale development inside the [http://www.unlweb.net UNLweb]. In order to organize this discussion, the UNDL Foundation divided the subjects into three chapters, to be addressed in three different meetings:
 
Originally proposed more than 15 years ago, the UNL Specs have not escaped from the action of time and have not incorporated yet several recent advances in the domain of natural language processing. Additionally, there has been a claim for better standardization practices in the UNL framework, especially after the results of the large-scale development inside the [http://www.unlweb.net UNLweb]. In order to organize this discussion, the UNDL Foundation divided the subjects into three chapters, to be addressed in three different meetings:
 
*Universal Words (the set, notation and properties of UWs), which have been already addressed at the I UNL Panel (COLING 2012), and whose results are available at MARTINS, R. (ed). (2013). Lexical Issues of UNL: Universal Networking Language 2012 Panel. Cambridge: Cambridge Scholars Publishing.  
 
*Universal Words (the set, notation and properties of UWs), which have been already addressed at the I UNL Panel (COLING 2012), and whose results are available at MARTINS, R. (ed). (2013). Lexical Issues of UNL: Universal Networking Language 2012 Panel. Cambridge: Cambridge Scholars Publishing.  
 
*Relations and Attributes (the set, notation and properties of relations and attributes), which is the object of this II UNL Panel; and
 
*Relations and Attributes (the set, notation and properties of relations and attributes), which is the object of this II UNL Panel; and
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*Document structure
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*Document structure (format, encoding, schema and validation)
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== Questions ==
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'''Considering the commitments, assumptions and properties defined at the [[Introduction to UNL]]''', how would you represent, as a language-independent semantic graph, the following English sentences?
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The basic assumption of the UNL approach is that the information conveyed by natural languages can be formally represented through a semantic network made of three different types of discrete semantic units: [[Universal Words]] (UW's), [[Universal Relations]] and [[Universal Attributes]]. The UW's are the nodes in the graph, to be interlinked by relations and specified by attributes.
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The I UNL Panel, an associated event to COLING 2012, is devoted to the nature and role of Universal Words (UW's), the nodes in the UNL semantic graph.
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As the name indicates, Universal Words are expected to be "universal". This does not mean that they represent a sort of common lexical denominator to all languages or a semantic primitive. The concept of universality, in UNL, must be understood in terms of "semantic accessibility", i.e, in the sense of "capable of being used and understood by all" (as in "universal adapter", "universal screwdriver" or "universal remote control"), and UW's depict concepts that may range from absolutely global to absolutely local, and even temporary. They are universal in the sense that they are uniform identifiers to the entities defined in the UNL Knowledge Base, which is expected to map everything that we know about the world, and that is used to assign translatability to any concept.  
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In order to take the best directions concerning the UW's, the UNDL Foundation will listen to 6 specialists about 5 topics of lexical semantics:
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*What is to be considered a "Universal Word"?
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*Which named entities should be introduced in the dictionary of UW's, if any?
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*UW's must correspond to roots, to stems or to word forms?
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*Antonyms should be represented as a single UW or as different UW's?
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*When a multiword expression must be represented as a UW?
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These topics will be discussed considering the five questions below. They illustrate practical issues concerning UW's and have been receiving several different possible answers. The main goal of I UNL Panel is to discuss which answers would be more appropriate and feasible, considering the nature and role of the UNL, and the state of the art of the theory and technology on natural language processing.
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Participants are expected to use these particular cases as starting points for their presentations, but we would expect them to suggest some general procedures to be adopted in similar cases, which could either confirm or deny our current practices, defined in the section [[UW]]'s, and which have been object of revision. Participants should understand, however, that only the structure of UNL is under discussion. The commitments, assumptions and properties of the UNL, which are the keystones of the language and are presented in the [[Introduction to UNL]], should be taken for granted, and are expected to be used as the general framework for all the answers.
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The specialists are requested to explain their positions both in a paper in a question-answer format and in a 30-minute oral presentation (to be delivered during the meeting). The oral presentations will be followed by a discussion session, according to the tentative program below.
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== Presentations ==
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The presentations are available in .pdf format.
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*Introduction
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**[http://www.unlweb.net/panel/martins.pdf Ronaldo Martins]
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*Panelists
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**[http://www.unlweb.net/panel/alansary.pdf Sameh Alansary] (University of Alexandria, Library of Alexandria)
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**[http://www.unlweb.net/panel/bhattacharyya.pdf Pushpak Bhattacharyya] (IIT-Bombay)
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**[http://www.unlweb.net/panel/boguslavsky.pdf Igor Boguslavsky] (Universidad Politécnica de Madrid/Institute for Information Transmission Problems, Russian Academy of Sciences)
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**[http://www.unlweb.net/panel/calzolari.pdf Nicoletta Calzolari] (Istituto di Linguistica Computazionale Antonio Zampolli, Pisa)
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**Mike Dillinger (eBay)
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**Eric Wehrli (Université de Genève)
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== Venue ==
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#The disappointment killed Mary.
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VMCC Board Room<br />
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#The book is right under the table.
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Victor Menezes Convention Center - IIT Bombay<br />
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#Peter is between John and Mary.
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Mumbai - India
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#John took a very long nap.
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#John made Peter go away.
  
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== Background ==
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== Current answers ==
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*[[Introduction to UNL]] (to be used as the background for the discussion)
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The sentences above illustrate some theoretical and practical issues concerning relations and attributes that have been receiving several different possible answers within the current UNL framework. The main goal of II UNL Panel is to discuss which answers would be more appropriate and feasible, considering the state of the art of the theory and technology on natural language processing. We would ask participants to use them as starting points for their presentations, but we would expect them to suggest some general procedures to be adopted in similar cases. The current answers are the following:
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*[[UW]] (to be criticized, if necessary)
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== Questions ==
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;1. The disappointment killed Mary.
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Considering the commitments, assumptions and properties of the UNL, defined in [[Introduction to UNL]], and<br />
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:a) agt(killed,disappointment), i.e., as an agent relation between "killed" and "disappointment", because "disappointment" caused Mary to die;
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Considering the state of the art of the theory and technology on natural language processing,<br />
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:b) agt(killled,disappointment.@metaphor), i.e., as an agent relation between "killed" and "disappointment" and an attribute .@metaphor to be assigned to "disappointment" (or to "killed"? or to "agt"?), in order to indicate that a "disappointment" cannot actually "cause" the death of anyone;
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:c) man(killed,disappointment), i.e., as a manner relation between "killed" and "disappointment", because a disappointment is rather a manner or a state in which Mary died;
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:d) ???(killed,disappointment), i.e., as a different relation between "killed" and "disappointment" (in this case, which relation?);
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:e) killed(disappointment, Mary), i.e., not as a semantic case, but as a content relation (in this case, how to handle languages where the verb "to kill" is lexicalized as "to cause to die"?).
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:f) other (please specify).
  
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Which would be the most appropriate and feasible answers to the questions below?
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;2. The book is right under the table.<ref>Consider, please, that the resulting semantic graph must be suitable for languages that do not lexicalize place relations, i.e., where "the book is right under the table" is translated as "the book is tableunder", where "under" is a locative case marker and not an adposition. Consider, also, that the original sentence was "The book is RIGHT under the table", and that none of the answers proposed cover this intensification.</ref>
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:a) place(book,table), i.e., as a general relation "place"  between "book" and "table", without any reference to the idea that the book is "under" (and not "in", "above", "near" etc.);
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:b) under(book,table), i.e., as a specific relation "under" between "book" and "table", without any reference to the idea that "under" is actually a possible value of "place";
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:c) relation1(book,under)relation2(under,table), i.e., as two different relations, as if there is no direct relation between "book" and "table" (in this case, which would be labels of relation1 and relation2?);
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:d) place(book,table.@under), i.e., as a general "place" relation between "book" and "table" and by an attribute "@under" assigned to "table", in order to specify its role;
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:e) place.@under(book,table), i.e., as a general "place" relation between "book" and "table"  and by an attribute "@under" assigned to the relation itself;
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:f) other (please specify).
  
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;1) How many UW's should be recognized in the sentence below?
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;3. Peter is between John and Mary.
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"Charles Dickens is generally regarded as the most important English novelist of the Victorian period"
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:a) place(Peter,:01)between:01(John,Mary), i.e., as a general relation "place" between "Peter" and the relation "between(John, Mary)";
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:The basic assumption of the UNL approach is that the information conveyed by natural languages can be formally and usefully represented through semantic networks composed of three different types of discrete semantic entities: UW's, relations and attributes. UW's are nodes in the UNL graph; relations are arcs between nodes; and attributes are specifiers that restrict the extension of nodes. This three-layered representation poses several problems to the UNLization as the distinction between these three entities is not always clear. Consider, for instance, the sentence above. How many UW's (either permanent or temporary) should be recognized in this sentence?
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:b) place(Peter,:01.@between)and:01(John,Mary), i.e., as a general relation "place" between the relation "and(John,Mary)" with the attribute .@between;
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:*"Victorian period" should be represented as single UW ("Victorian period") or as two different UW's ("Victorian" and "period")?
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:c) between(Peter,John,Mary), i.e., as one single ternary relation "between" between "Peter", "John" and "Mary" (in this case, consider the implications, to the model, of relations with three arguments);
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:*The verb "to be" should be represented as a UW or as a relation between "Charles Dickens" and "the most important English novelist of the Victorian period"? (Consider also the options "was" and "has been" in the same context)
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:d) relation1(Peter,John)relation2(Peter,Mary), i.e., as two (different?) relations between "Peter" and "John", and "Peter" and "Mary", because both "John" and "Mary" are spatial referents for "Peter" (in this case, please specify the relations);
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:*The preposition "of" should be represented as a UW or as a relation between "the most important novelist" and "the Victorian period"? (Consider also the options "since", "from ... on", "in" or "during" instead of "of")
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:e) place(Peter,John.@attribute1)place(Peter,Mary.@attribute2), i.e., as a general relation "place" between "Peter and "John", and "Peter" and "Mary", modified by the corresponding attributes (in this case, please specify which attributes);
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:*"generally regarded as" should be represented by UW's ("generally", "regarded", "as", for instance) or as an attribute (a downtoner, which lowers the truth effect of the declaration) to be assigned to the whole proposition "Charles Dickens is the most important English novelist of the Victorian period"?
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:f) other (please specify).
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:*The adverb "most" should be represented as a UW or as a superlative marker (to be represented as an attribute to be assigned to the adjective "important"?) (Consider also "greatest English novelist" instead of "most important English novelist")
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;2) "Charles Dickens" should be represented as a permanent UW or as a temporary UW?
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;4. John took a very long nap.
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:The [[UNL Dictionary]] contains only permanent UW's. Untranslatable expressions, even though transliteratable, are not included in the dictionary, but may be used in the UNL graphs as temporary UW's. This is the obvious case for URL's, e-mail addresses, phone numbers, formulae etc. However, there are cases in which these criteria are still under dispute: proper names (of people, of places, of brands etc.), for instance. When they should be considered permanent UW's (and included in the UNL Dictionary) and when they should not? Consider, for instance, the case of "Charles Dickens". Should it be defined as a permanent UW and included in the UNL Dictionary? Or should it be treated as a temporary UW? Consider also the cases of "Charles J Dickens" (an American citizen born on 06/17/1949 and died on 10/21/2004); the "Charles Dickens Museum", located in London; the bar and restaurant "Charles Dickens", located in Southwark; the "Charles Dickens School", located in Kent; and other entities named "Charles Dickens". Consider the size (and the maintenance) of the UNL Dictionary, in case you suggest to treat them all as permanent UW's; or, otherwise, consider how to handle concepts that have not been included in the UNL Dictionary.
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:a) exp(took a nap,John), i.e., as a general relation "experiencer" between "took a nap" and "John", without any reference to the fact that it was a "long" nap;
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:b) exp(took a nap.@intensifier,John), i.e., as a general relation "experiencer" between "took a nap" and "John" and an intensification attribute (in this case, indicate which intensifier should be used in order to convey the information that the nap was "very long" and not, for instance, "long" and "deep";
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:c) exp(take,John)cnt(take,nap)mod(nap,long.@plus), i.e., as three relations: an experiencer relation between "take" and "John", a content relation between "take" and "nap", and a modifier relation between "nap" and "long.@plus" (in this case, consider the case of languages were "to take a nap" would be consider one single lexical unit);
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:d) other (please specify);
  
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;3) "hunger" (= "a physiological need for food"), "hungry" (= "feeling hunger"), "hungrily" (= "in the manner of someone who is very hungry") and "hunger" (= "to cause to experience hunger") should be represented as simple, compound or complex UW's?
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;5. John made Peter go away.
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:In the current framework, UW's can be simple, compound or complex. A simple UW is represented as a node in the UNL graph. A compound UW is represented as a node with attribute(s). A complex UW is represented as a sub-graph, i.e., as a set of interlinked nodes. This offers different possibilities of representing the concepts above. For instance:
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:a) agt(made,John)res(made,:01)???:01(go away,Peter), i.e., as a relation "agent" between "made" and "John", a relation "result" between "John" and "Peter go away", because "Peter go away" is the result of the action of "John" (in this case, consider which would be the semantic case between "Peter" and "go away");
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:b) agt(made,John)obj(made,Peter)???(made,go away), i.e., as a relation "agent" between "made" and "John", a relation "patient" between "John" and "Peter" (because "Peter" suffered the action), and another relation between "made" and "go away" (in this case, consider which would be the semantic case between "made" and "go away", and how the information that it was "Peter" that went away would be represented);
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:c) agt(made,John)obj(made,Peter)???(go away,Peter), i.e., as a relation "agent" between "made" and "John", a relation "patient" between "John" and "Peter" (because "Peter" suffered the action), and another relation between "Peter" and "go away" (in this case, consider which would be the semantic case between "Peter" and "go away", and how the information that it was "John" that caused Peter to go away would be represented);
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:d) other (please specify).
  
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{|align="center" border="1" cellpadding="5"
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== Instructions to authors ==
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|+Simplified<ref>The representations are here simplified in order to be more didactic. Simple UW's cannot be as ambiguous or English-biased as "hunger". The same for attributes such as "@full_of", "@make" or "@manner". The complex UW is actually the definition of the word. It indicates that, instead of a UW, the concept must be represented by a whole graph depicting the definition of the concept. For instance: "felling hunger" would be represented, in simplified UNL, as obj(to feel,hunger).</ref> UW candidates for "hunger", "hungry", "hungrily" and "to hunger"
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Specialists are requested to explain their positions in a paper in a question-answer format, which must necessarily address the five questions above. The papers must comply with the following format:  
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!Lexical Item<br />(English)
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*Language: English
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!Simple UW
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*Format: .docx, .doc, .rtf or .odt
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!Compound UW
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*Length: from 5 to 30 pages
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!Complex UW
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*Page: A4 with margins of 2.5 cm.  
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|-
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*Title: Times 16, centralized. Each paper must have its own title (do not use "Lexical Aspects of UNL", "I UNL Panel" or other very general titles)
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|hunger
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*Authors: Times 14, centralized, two lines after the title, separated by comma (in case of more than one author)
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|hunger
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*Authors' afiliation: Footnote
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|hungry.@ness
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*Abstract (from 150 to 250 words): Times 12, two lines after the authors
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|a physiological need for food
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*Headings: Times 14, justified, numbered (1, 1.1, 1.1.1), with an extra line before each heading
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|-
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*Body: Times 12, justified, single spacing, indentation of 1.25 cm in the first line of each paragraph
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|hungry
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*Footnotes: Times 10, justified, single spacing. Use footnotes instead of end notes. Footnotes should not contain figures, tables and/or the bibliographic details of a reference.
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|hungry
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*Tables and figures should have a number and a caption. Do not use color.
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|hunger.@full_of
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*Citations: use the [http://libweb.anglia.ac.uk/referencing/harvard.htm Harvard System]. For instance: Redman (2006, p.22) or (Redman, 2006, p.22)
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|feeling hunger
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*References: use the [http://libweb.anglia.ac.uk/referencing/harvard.htm Harvard System]. For instance: Redman, P., 2006. ''Good essay writing: a social sciences guide''. 3rd ed. London: Open University.
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|-
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|hungrily
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|hungrily
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|hunger.@full_of.@manner<br/>hungry.@manner
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|in the manner of someone who is very hungry
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|-
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|hunger
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|hunger
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|hunger.@full_of.@make<br />hungry.@make
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|to cause to experience hunger
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|}
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:Which is the best way to represent these concepts? Consider the fact that some of these concepts are not lexicalized in all languages (for instance, the adjective "hungry" is not very frequent in German and French: "I am hungry" is normally translated as "Ich habe Hunger" or "J'ai faim", respectively). Consider also the actual importance of part-of-speech for lexical semantics. Consider, at last, the actual "compositionality" of these concepts.<ref>It is important to stress that these differences do not pose any practical restrictions to the UNL representation. For instance, the English noun phrase "hungry boy" could be represented in UNL as:
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:*mod(boy, hungry) ("feeling hunger" as a Simple UW)
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:*mod(boy, hunger.@full_of) ("feeling hunger" as a Compound UW)
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:*mod(boy, :01)obj:01(to feel,hunger) ("feeling hunger" as a Complex UW)
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:In the same way, these differences do not pose any restrictions to the resources (dictionaries and grammars). For instance, the French dictionary could bring:
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:*[affamé]{} "hungry" (LEX=J,POS=ADJ,GEN=MCL,NUM=SNG)<fra,0,0>; ("delighting the senses" as a Simple UW)
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:*[affamé]{} "hunger.@full_of" (LEX=J,POS=ADJ,GEN=MCL,NUM=SNG)<fra,0,0>; ("delighting the senses" as a Compound UW)
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:*[affamé]{} "obj(to feel, hunger)" (LEX=J,POS=ADJ,GEN=MCL,NUM=SNG)<fra,0,0>; ("delighting the senses"as a Complex UW)
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:But these differences do pose semantic consequences: a simple UW represents a concept seen as a single unit, whereas compound and complex UWs are strictly compositional, i.e., the meaning of the UW is entirely derived from its components. Furthermore, translating "I am hungry" by "Je suis affamé", although possible, is not really convenient in French.</ref>
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;4) Antonyms such as "mortal" and "immortal", "hot" and "cold", and "son" and "father" should be represented as a single UW (and the corresponding attributes) or as different UW's?
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== Submission ==
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:The UNL is expected to be non-redundant: synonyms (such as "hunger" and "hungriness") and paraphrases (such as "Mary killed Peter" and "Peter was killed by Mary") are expected to be represented in the same way. What should we do with antonyms? Should we have a non-marked UW (such as "mortal", "hot" and "son") and generate their antonyms as compound UW's (such as "mortal.@not", "hot.@not" and "son.@converse") in order to avoid vocabulary multiplication and to cover languages with lexical gaps (unpaired words)? Or should we represent all them as simple UW's ("mortal", "immmortal", "hot", "cold", "son", "father") because they could not be fully reduced to the combination of a simple UW and an attribute? Consider the case of absolute opposites (such as "mortal" x "immortal", which could be opposed by an attribute such as @not), of gradable opposites (such as "hot" and "cold", which would also require intensifiers, such as hot.@extra, hot.@plus, hot, hot.@minus, hot.@not, hot.@not.@minus, hot.@not.@plus and hot.@not.@extra), and of relational opposites (such as the converse "son" and "father", that would require a special attribute - @converse, for instance - to inform that if x is son of y, y is father of x).
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The chapters must be submitted through the form available at www.unlweb.net/research.
  
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;5) "Farbfernsehgerät" ("color television set", in German) should be represented as a simple or complex UW?
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== Support ==
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:According to the current standards, every concept lexicalized in at least one language must be defined as a permanent UW and included in the UNL Dictionary. The concept of "lexicalization" is, however, highly controversial, and seems to vary considerably between different languages, and even between different lexicographical approaches for the same language. This has been true specially for multiword expressions, i.e., lexemes containing more than one stem, which are recognized as single entries in some dictionaries, and simply ignored by others. For the time being, we have been avoiding this discussion by assuming that, if a word was included (either as an entry or as a sub-entry) in any knowledgeable dictionary, it should be considered "lexicalized" and, therefore, defined as a permanent UW. But this procedure seems to be exaggeratedly language-dependent. "Farbfernsehgerät", for instance, is considered to be lexicalized in German, because it can be found in German dictionaries as one single entry; the English equivalent "color television set", however, seems not to be lexicalized yet in English, because it could not be found in the major English dictionaries. Should we represent this concept as a simple (non-compositional) UW (as in German), or as a complex (compositional) UW (as in English)? Consider the fact that "Farbfernsehgerät" is formed by "Farbe", "Fernsehen" and "Gerät", i.e., that the compound is not simply the concatenation of  three words, but underwent spelling changes (in addition to semantic changes, if any). Consider also the case of compounds such as "baby-talk" (tatpuruṣa or endocentric, i.e., "baby" is a special kind of "talk"), "bittersweet" (dvandva or copulative, i.e., "bitter" and "sweet") and "skinhead" (bahuvrihi or exocentric, i.e., non-compositional). Consider, at last, the case of idioms, such as "all ears", "closed book" and "cold feet".
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Authors<ref>Only one author per chapter</ref> of selected papers will be invited to present their work in the II UNL Panel, to be held in Geneva, on March 2015.  
 +
The UNDL Foundation will pay the following travel and accommodation expenses for the selected candidates not living in Geneva:
 +
*a round-trip plane, bus or train ticket from/to Geneva in economic class;
 +
*4 (four) nights at a mid-range hotel in Geneva; and
 +
*CHF1000.00 (one thousand Swiss francs), to cover any other expenses, including meals and transportation.
  
 
== Notes ==
 
== Notes ==
 
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Latest revision as of 12:23, 5 December 2014

The UNDL Foundation invites submissions to the second volume of the UNL Series, to be published on January 2015, and which will be dedicated to the nature and role of relations and attributes in the UNL framework. The participation is open and free, and the submissions must necessarily comply with the instructions below. Authors of selected papers will be invited to present their work in the II UNL Panel, to be held in Geneva, on March 2015. The UNDL Foundation will pay the travel and accommodation expenses for the selected candidates not living in Geneva.

Contents

Important Dates

  • Deadline for submission: 10 Jan 2015
  • Notification of acceptance: 10 Feb 2015
  • Final version: 28 Feb 2015
  • II UNL Panel: March 2015

Goal

The main purpose of the UNL Panel is to collect the opinion of specialists, from inside and outside the UNL Community, about technical issues of the UNL, as to prepare the ground for an in-depth revision of the current specifications.

Rationale

Originally proposed more than 15 years ago, the UNL Specs have not escaped from the action of time and have not incorporated yet several recent advances in the domain of natural language processing. Additionally, there has been a claim for better standardization practices in the UNL framework, especially after the results of the large-scale development inside the UNLweb. In order to organize this discussion, the UNDL Foundation divided the subjects into three chapters, to be addressed in three different meetings:

  • Universal Words (the set, notation and properties of UWs), which have been already addressed at the I UNL Panel (COLING 2012), and whose results are available at MARTINS, R. (ed). (2013). Lexical Issues of UNL: Universal Networking Language 2012 Panel. Cambridge: Cambridge Scholars Publishing.
  • Relations and Attributes (the set, notation and properties of relations and attributes), which is the object of this II UNL Panel; and
  • Document structure (format, encoding, schema and validation)

Questions

Considering the commitments, assumptions and properties defined at the Introduction to UNL, how would you represent, as a language-independent semantic graph, the following English sentences?

  1. The disappointment killed Mary.
  2. The book is right under the table.
  3. Peter is between John and Mary.
  4. John took a very long nap.
  5. John made Peter go away.

Current answers

The sentences above illustrate some theoretical and practical issues concerning relations and attributes that have been receiving several different possible answers within the current UNL framework. The main goal of II UNL Panel is to discuss which answers would be more appropriate and feasible, considering the state of the art of the theory and technology on natural language processing. We would ask participants to use them as starting points for their presentations, but we would expect them to suggest some general procedures to be adopted in similar cases. The current answers are the following:

1. The disappointment killed Mary.
a) agt(killed,disappointment), i.e., as an agent relation between "killed" and "disappointment", because "disappointment" caused Mary to die;
b) agt(killled,disappointment.@metaphor), i.e., as an agent relation between "killed" and "disappointment" and an attribute .@metaphor to be assigned to "disappointment" (or to "killed"? or to "agt"?), in order to indicate that a "disappointment" cannot actually "cause" the death of anyone;
c) man(killed,disappointment), i.e., as a manner relation between "killed" and "disappointment", because a disappointment is rather a manner or a state in which Mary died;
d) ???(killed,disappointment), i.e., as a different relation between "killed" and "disappointment" (in this case, which relation?);
e) killed(disappointment, Mary), i.e., not as a semantic case, but as a content relation (in this case, how to handle languages where the verb "to kill" is lexicalized as "to cause to die"?).
f) other (please specify).
2. The book is right under the table.[1]
a) place(book,table), i.e., as a general relation "place" between "book" and "table", without any reference to the idea that the book is "under" (and not "in", "above", "near" etc.);
b) under(book,table), i.e., as a specific relation "under" between "book" and "table", without any reference to the idea that "under" is actually a possible value of "place";
c) relation1(book,under)relation2(under,table), i.e., as two different relations, as if there is no direct relation between "book" and "table" (in this case, which would be labels of relation1 and relation2?);
d) place(book,table.@under), i.e., as a general "place" relation between "book" and "table" and by an attribute "@under" assigned to "table", in order to specify its role;
e) place.@under(book,table), i.e., as a general "place" relation between "book" and "table" and by an attribute "@under" assigned to the relation itself;
f) other (please specify).
3. Peter is between John and Mary.
a) place(Peter,:01)between:01(John,Mary), i.e., as a general relation "place" between "Peter" and the relation "between(John, Mary)";
b) place(Peter,:01.@between)and:01(John,Mary), i.e., as a general relation "place" between the relation "and(John,Mary)" with the attribute .@between;
c) between(Peter,John,Mary), i.e., as one single ternary relation "between" between "Peter", "John" and "Mary" (in this case, consider the implications, to the model, of relations with three arguments);
d) relation1(Peter,John)relation2(Peter,Mary), i.e., as two (different?) relations between "Peter" and "John", and "Peter" and "Mary", because both "John" and "Mary" are spatial referents for "Peter" (in this case, please specify the relations);
e) place(Peter,John.@attribute1)place(Peter,Mary.@attribute2), i.e., as a general relation "place" between "Peter and "John", and "Peter" and "Mary", modified by the corresponding attributes (in this case, please specify which attributes);
f) other (please specify).
4. John took a very long nap.
a) exp(took a nap,John), i.e., as a general relation "experiencer" between "took a nap" and "John", without any reference to the fact that it was a "long" nap;
b) exp(took a nap.@intensifier,John), i.e., as a general relation "experiencer" between "took a nap" and "John" and an intensification attribute (in this case, indicate which intensifier should be used in order to convey the information that the nap was "very long" and not, for instance, "long" and "deep";
c) exp(take,John)cnt(take,nap)mod(nap,long.@plus), i.e., as three relations: an experiencer relation between "take" and "John", a content relation between "take" and "nap", and a modifier relation between "nap" and "long.@plus" (in this case, consider the case of languages were "to take a nap" would be consider one single lexical unit);
d) other (please specify);
5. John made Peter go away.
a) agt(made,John)res(made,:01)???:01(go away,Peter), i.e., as a relation "agent" between "made" and "John", a relation "result" between "John" and "Peter go away", because "Peter go away" is the result of the action of "John" (in this case, consider which would be the semantic case between "Peter" and "go away");
b) agt(made,John)obj(made,Peter)???(made,go away), i.e., as a relation "agent" between "made" and "John", a relation "patient" between "John" and "Peter" (because "Peter" suffered the action), and another relation between "made" and "go away" (in this case, consider which would be the semantic case between "made" and "go away", and how the information that it was "Peter" that went away would be represented);
c) agt(made,John)obj(made,Peter)???(go away,Peter), i.e., as a relation "agent" between "made" and "John", a relation "patient" between "John" and "Peter" (because "Peter" suffered the action), and another relation between "Peter" and "go away" (in this case, consider which would be the semantic case between "Peter" and "go away", and how the information that it was "John" that caused Peter to go away would be represented);
d) other (please specify).

Instructions to authors

Specialists are requested to explain their positions in a paper in a question-answer format, which must necessarily address the five questions above. The papers must comply with the following format:

  • Language: English
  • Format: .docx, .doc, .rtf or .odt
  • Length: from 5 to 30 pages
  • Page: A4 with margins of 2.5 cm.
  • Title: Times 16, centralized. Each paper must have its own title (do not use "Lexical Aspects of UNL", "I UNL Panel" or other very general titles)
  • Authors: Times 14, centralized, two lines after the title, separated by comma (in case of more than one author)
  • Authors' afiliation: Footnote
  • Abstract (from 150 to 250 words): Times 12, two lines after the authors
  • Headings: Times 14, justified, numbered (1, 1.1, 1.1.1), with an extra line before each heading
  • Body: Times 12, justified, single spacing, indentation of 1.25 cm in the first line of each paragraph
  • Footnotes: Times 10, justified, single spacing. Use footnotes instead of end notes. Footnotes should not contain figures, tables and/or the bibliographic details of a reference.
  • Tables and figures should have a number and a caption. Do not use color.
  • Citations: use the Harvard System. For instance: Redman (2006, p.22) or (Redman, 2006, p.22)
  • References: use the Harvard System. For instance: Redman, P., 2006. Good essay writing: a social sciences guide. 3rd ed. London: Open University.

Submission

The chapters must be submitted through the form available at www.unlweb.net/research.

Support

Authors[2] of selected papers will be invited to present their work in the II UNL Panel, to be held in Geneva, on March 2015. The UNDL Foundation will pay the following travel and accommodation expenses for the selected candidates not living in Geneva:

  • a round-trip plane, bus or train ticket from/to Geneva in economic class;
  • 4 (four) nights at a mid-range hotel in Geneva; and
  • CHF1000.00 (one thousand Swiss francs), to cover any other expenses, including meals and transportation.

Notes

  1. ↑ Consider, please, that the resulting semantic graph must be suitable for languages that do not lexicalize place relations, i.e., where "the book is right under the table" is translated as "the book is tableunder", where "under" is a locative case marker and not an adposition. Consider, also, that the original sentence was "The book is RIGHT under the table", and that none of the answers proposed cover this intensification.
  2. ↑ Only one author per chapter
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