Earlier Approaches to Computational Metonymy Resolution
Recognize syntactic and semantic irregularities that are associated with metonyms
Syntactic: feature agreement (“The french fries is getting impatient.”)
Syntactic: phrase structure (“He read the Shakespeare.”)
Semantic: selection restriction violations (“Denise drank the bottle.”)
Earlier Approaches (contd.)
Recognize two types of metonymy
Referential: The metonymic noun phrase has an intended referent related to what the metonym literally refers to.
(Ex. “The ham sandwich is waiting to pay.”
“He (*it) is impatient.” “ham sandwich” <=>
“customer”)
Predicative: The intended referent of the metonymic noun phrase is the same as what the metonym literally refers to.
(Ex. “Nixon bombed Hanoi.” “He (*they) wanted to force the Communists to negotiate.” “Nixon” <=> “Nixon”)
Earlier Approaches (contd.)
Recognize patterns in the relationships between metonyms and the intended referents.
Producer-for-product (“He bought a Ford.”)
Part-for-whole (“I liked the laser….”)
Place-for-institution (“The White House said….”)
Container-for-contents (“….drank the bottle”)
Artist-for-artworks (“He bought a Picasso.”)
Earlier Approaches: Metonymy Resolution Algorithm
Prefer literal interpretation first
If a selection restriction violation is detected, consider possible metonymy and attempt resolution as follows:
Determine what types the selection restriction permits
Identify concepts related to the supposed metonym that are of the permitted types
Constrain set of candidate concepts (and the related words and phrases) when possible using known relationship patterns and syntactic and referential/predicative metonymy information
Coerce the metonym to a type permitted by the selection restriction by making it refer to the chosen related concept.
