These are the annotation guidelines for DeAMR (German AMR), which are build in alignment with the official AMR guidelines. The goal is to extend and specify the existing AMR framework to sufficiently map German linguistic phenomena into AMR form.
Table of Contents
AMR is a semantic formalism that captures information on "who is doing what to whom" in a sentence. DeAMR is its German adaptation. AMR (and hence DeAMR) can be visualized as a rooted, directed, acyclic graph. The edges are relations and each node in the graph has a variable labeled with concepts:
AMR and DeAMR use PENMAN-notation, which is a way of representing a graph in a simple, tree-like form:
(c1 / zeichnen-01
:mode imperative
:ARG0 (c0 / du)
:ARG1 (c3 / Schaf)
:mod (c4 / weiß)
:ARG2 (c2 / ich))Both of the above notations can be rendered into the German sentence:
Zeichne mir ein weißes Schaf!
DeAMR uses the German frame set from the Universal PropBank project and their searchable German PropBank catalogue.
The Universal German PropBank is still in development. If a German frame for a concept is missing, e.g. zufrieden, we have to:
-
Use the German concept with -00 as sense numbers and find a fitting original PropBank frame to align the argument structure, e.g. for zufrieden translates to
zufrieden-00and the frame structure of content-01. A list of the original PropBank frames can be found here. For functional roles see here. -
Sometimes, a missing German frame can be replaced with a similar existing German frame. If so, this variant should always be preferred to creating a new frame. For example:
(s / stammen-01
:ARG1 (d / du
:mod (m / Mann
:degree (k / kleine)))
:ARG2 (a / amr-unknown))Wo kommst du her, kleiner Mann?
"Herkommen" does not exist in the German PropBank. stammen-01, "to originate from" holds a compatible semantic meaning, so it is used as an alterantive.
One "slogan" of AMR is to prefer a verb frame whenever it is possible. When annotating adjectives/adverbs in DeAMR, always try to find a fitting verb frame, if there exists one.
(e / entgegnen-01
:ARG0 (p / Prinz
:mod (k / kleine))
:ARG1 (e2 / ermöglichen-01
:polarity -
:manner (a / anders)
:ARG0 p)
:manner (v / verwirren-01
:mod (g / ganz)))"Ich kann aber nicht anders", entgegnete der kleine Prinz ganz verwirrt.
Here, the adverb verwirrt evokes the verb frame verwirren-01 and therefore should be used when annotating.
German is very productive in creating compound words by combining different word classes. To ensure consistent annotation of compounds, follow this heuristic:
I. Look up the compound word in the German PropBank.
1. If it exists, use it.
2. If it does not, continue below.
II. Evaluate if the compound is lexicalized or productive.
If productive, lift the semantic head to the top node and find a fitting semantic role for the modifier component
1. If productive, lift the semantic head up to the top node of the compound subgraph and try to find a fitting semantic role for the modifier component (if there is no adequate semantic role use :mod)
2. If not productive, use the word as it is (without numbers).
The following examples should provide an intuition:
(ä / ähneln-01
:ARG1 (a / ausbrechen-02
:ARG1 (v / Vulkan))
:ARG2 (f / Feuer
:location (k / Kamin)))Vulkanausbrüche sind wie Kaminfeuer
Kaminfeuer is not lexicalized. Feuer occurs in a set of different compounds (e.g. Artilleriefeuer, Lagerfeuer, Grillfeuer) and therefore seems to be productive. According to the guidelines, we lift the semantic head Feuer up and match it with a fitting semantic role :location for the modifier Kamin.
| Example ENG/DE | AMR | DeAMR |
|---|---|---|
| and/und | and | und |
| or/oder | or | oder |
| but/aber | :contrast-01 |
:contrast-01 |
| because/weil; due to/wegen; on account of/aufgrund von | :cause-01 |
:cause-01 |
| (in order) to/damit; so (that)/sodass | :purpose |
:purpose |
| if/wenn | :condition |
:condition |
| unless/außer | :condition, :polarity |
:condition, :polarity |
| altough/obwohl; despite/trotz | :concession |
:concession |
Comparatives and superlatives are represented in DeAMR almost the same way as in AMR. Use the same frame have-degree-91 but match the German attributes and the degree itself.
Have-degree-91
Arg1: domain, entity characterized by attribute (e.g. Hund)
Arg2: attribute (e.g. klein)
Arg3: degree itself (e.g. mehr, weniger, gleich, am-meisten, am-wenigsten, genug, mal)
Arg4: compared-to (e.g. (wie die) Katze)
Arg5: superlative: reference to superset
Arg6: reference, threshold of sufficiency (e.g. (klein genug) um im Auto zu sitzen)
Example:
(c2 / have-degree-91
:ARG1 (c1 / richten-01
:ARG0 (c4 / sich)
:ARG1 c4)
:ARG2 (c3 / schwer)
:ARG3 (c6 / viel)
:ARG4 (c0 / urteilen-01
:ARG1 (c5 / andere)))Es ist viel schwerer, über sich selbst zu richten, als über andere zu urteilen.
The formal use of du and ìhr in German is annotated respectively with :polite +
Example:
(h / haben-01 :mode expressive
:ARG0 (d / du :polite +)
:ARG1 (h2 / Hut
:mod (m / merkwürdige)))Sie haben einen merkwürdigen Hut!
AMR represents syntactic modals with concepts like possible-01, likely-01, obligate-01, permit-01, recommend-01, prefer-01, etc. DeAMR tries to capture Modality in the same way using equivalent German frames:
| English modal verb | PropBank | German modal verb | German PropBank | Example |
|---|---|---|---|---|
may |
permit-01, possible-01 |
dürfen |
erlauben-01, befähigen-01 |
“They may go” / "Sie dürfen gehen" |
can |
possible-01 |
können |
ermöglichen-01, können-01 |
“He can swim” / "Er kann schwimmen" |
should |
recommend-01 |
sollen |
empfehlen-01 |
“They should come” / "Sie sollten kommen" |
must |
obligate-01 |
müssen |
verpflichten-01 |
“He must read” / "Er muss lesen" |
want |
prefer-01 |
wollen, möchten |
bevorzugen-01 |
“He wants to eat” / "Er will essen" |
(c1 / erlauben-01
:ARG1 (c0 / gehen-01
:ARG1 (c2 / Junge)))Der Junge darf gehen.
(c1 / ermöglichen-01
:ARG1 (c0 / schwimmen-01
:ARG1 (c2 / er)))Der Junge kann schwimmen.
(c1 / empfehlen-01
:ARG1 (c0 / kommen-01
:ARG1 (c2 / sie)))Sie sollten kommen.
(c1 / verpflichten-01
:ARG1 (c0 / lesen-01
:ARG1 (c2 / er)))Er muss lesen.
(c1 / bevorzugen-01
:ARG1 (c0 / essen-01
:ARG1 (c2 / er)))Er will essen.
Er möchte essen.
German has a large set of different particles. The subset of modal particles is annotated to capture the semantics of the - sometimes convoluted - interaction between the particle itself and the grammatical mood. Here is a table that presents various examples and their corresponding annotations:
| Modal particle | Context | Annotation |
|---|---|---|
doch, halt, ja, eben, wohl |
"Man weiß halt nie.", "Das ist doch falsch." | :mode conclusive, :mode resigning |
doch, aber, wohl, eben, halt, ja |
"Ich habe schon nachgesehen.", "Das ist schon richtig." | :mode confirming |
aber, doch, schon, ja, auch |
"Du bist aber schnell!" | :mode surprised |
aber, doch, schon, ja, auch |
"Das machst du aber gut!" | :mode sarcasm, :mode irony |
eigentlich, doch, denn, bloß, auch, etwa |
"Kannst du auch schimmen?" | :mode confirmation-seeking |
auch, bloß, doch, eben, einfach, halt, mal, nur, schon, ruhig |
"Mach bloß das Fenster zu!" | :mode imperative |
(c1 / zeichnen-01
:mode resigning
:ARG0 (c0 / du)
:ARG1 (c3 / Schaf)
:ARG2 (c2 / ich))Zeichne mir halt ein Schaf.
Zeichne mir doch ein Schaf.
(c1 / zumachen-01
:mode confirmation-seeking
:ARG0 (c0 / du)
:ARG1 (c3 / Fenster))Mach bloß das Fenster zu!
Mach doch das Fenster zu!
(c1 / regnen-01
:mode conclusive
:ARG0 (c0 / es))Es regnet wohl.
Es wird wohl regnen.
(c1 / anfangen-01
:mode confirming
:ARG0 (c0 / ich))Ich habe schon angefangen.
Ich fange schon an.
To ensure consistency, DeAMR uses a labeling convention for pronouns, adverbs, and adjectives. Specifically, DeAMR demands the nominative case for labeling these elements concerning the word they agree with in the sentence.
(u / überwinden-01
:mode imperative
:ARG1 (s / Schweinehund)
:poss (d / du)}
:mod (i / innere)) NOT: (i / inneren)Überwinde deinen inneren Schweinehund!
DeAMR aims to be consistent with the original AMR guidelines to ensure easy comparison and integration. Therefore, in agreement to other non-English AMR corpora, it maintains the role labels (e.g. :ARGX,
:location, :manner), AMR-specific framesets (e.g. be-located-at-91, have-degree-91) and canonical entity types
(e.g. government-organization, political-party, person, thing) in English.
For an overview of functional roles and entity types see here.
Abstract Meaning Representation (AMR) 1.2.6 Specification
Nathan Schneider, Tim O'Gorman and Jeffrey Flanigang. AMR Tutorial presented at NAACL 2015.