[Attempto] Tutorial on Creating User-Specified Lexicons

[Chris Spencer]

On Fri, Aug 6, 2010 at 10:58 AM, Norbert E. Fuchs <fuchs at ifi.uzh.ch> wrote:
>
> On 6 Aug 2010, at 16:44, Chris Spencer wrote:
>
>> I'm new to APE. I played around with it, and although it seems to
>> include a impressive built-in lexicon, I quickly ran into simple
>> sentences that couldn't be parsed. For example, running:
>>
>> ./ape.exe -text "Every car has wheels." -cparaphrase
>>
>> gives me the error:
>>
>>    <message
>>       importance="error"
>>       type="word"
>>       sentence="1"
>>       token=""
>>       value="wheels"
>>       repair="Use the prefix n:, v:, a: or p:."/>
>>
>> Am I correct in interpreting this error to mean that the word "wheels"
>> is not contained in the built-in lexicon? If I wanted APE to
>> understand this sentence, what would I include in a custom lexicon?
>>
>> Instead, I tried defining "wheels" by running:
>>
>> ./ape.exe -text "Every car has wheels." -cparaphrase -ulextext
>> "noun_pl(wheels, wheel, neutr)."
>>
>> but that only gives me the more general error:
>>
>>  <message
>>      importance="error"
>>      type="sentence"
>>      sentence="1"
>>      token="4"
>>      value="Every car has &lt;&gt; wheels."
>>      repair="This is the first sentence that was not ACE. The sign
>> &lt;&gt; indicates the position where parsing failed."/>
>
> Chris
>
> The word "wheel", respectively "wheels" is contained in the built-in lexicon.
>
> However, ACE requires each noun to have a determiner, which you forgot. If you try, for instance
>
>  Every car has some wheels.
>
> or
>
>  Every car has four wheels.
>
> then APE will happily accept your sentence.
>
> Since you state
>
>> I'm new to APE. I played around with it,
>
> I suggest that you have a look at the documentation.
>
>
>> Is there a guide or tutorial on defining a custom lexicon? I found
>> http://attempto.ifi.uzh.ch/site/docs/ace_lexicon.html, but I'm still
>> confused on what exactly I need to do to define my own words.
>
> May I suggest that you read this document again. If you still have problems let us know.
>
>> Also, which verb tenses are currently supported by APE? In my tests,
>> it seems like APE cannot understand any past-tense verbs. Are there
>> any plans to support different tenses?
>
> ACE currently knows only the simple present tense. See section 2.3 Verb Phrases of http://attempto.ifi.uzh.ch/site/docs/ace_constructionrules.html
>
> There are currently no plans to add other tenses.
>
> Regards.
>
>   --- nef

Thanks for the clarification. Yes, I had read that nouns require a
determiner, and forgot this in my example. However, your corrected
sentences still return the same error.

localhost$ ./ape.exe -text "Every car has some wheels." -cparaphrase
<?xml version="1.0" encoding="UTF-8"?>

<apeResult>
  <duration tokenizer="0.010" parser="0.000" refres="0.000"/>
  <paraphrase></paraphrase>
  <messages>
    <message
	importance="error"
	type="word"
	sentence="1"
	token=""
	value="wheels"
	repair="Use the prefix n:, v:, a: or p:."/>
    <message
	importance="error"
	type="sentence"
	sentence="1"
	token="5"
	value="Every car has some &lt;&gt; wheels."
	repair="This is the first sentence that was not ACE. The sign
&lt;&gt; indicates the position where parsing failed."/>
  </messages>
</apeResult>

localhost$ ./ape.exe -text "Every car has four wheels." -cparaphrase
<?xml version="1.0" encoding="UTF-8"?>

<apeResult>
  <duration tokenizer="0.010" parser="0.010" refres="0.000"/>
  <paraphrase></paraphrase>
  <messages>
    <message
	importance="error"
	type="word"
	sentence="1"
	token=""
	value="wheels"
	repair="Use the prefix n:, v:, a: or p:."/>
    <message
	importance="error"
	type="sentence"
	sentence="1"
	token="5"
	value="Every car has four &lt;&gt; wheels."
	repair="This is the first sentence that was not ACE. The sign
&lt;&gt; indicates the position where parsing failed."/>
  </messages>
</apeResult>

Is there some other detail we're missing?

Regards,
Chris