Notes below... <div class="gmail_quote">On Mon, Mar 30, 2009 at 10:57 AM, Kaarel Kaljurand <<a href="mailto:kaljurand@gmail.com">kaljurand@gmail.com</a>> wrote: <blockquote class="gmail_quote" style="border-left: 1px solid rgb(204, 204, 204); margin: 0pt 0pt 0pt 0.8ex; padding-left: 1ex;"> Hi, <div class="im"> On Mon, Mar 30, 2009 at 4:40 PM, David Whitten <<a href="mailto:david.whitten.cyc@gmail.com">david.whitten.cyc@gmail.com</a>> wrote: > Has there been any discussion about handling "just" in Attempto: > i.e.: > > Every American has just one President. > > It seems to be a way to differentiate between > > Every American has one mother. > and > Every American has one President. > > I guess other examples would be > > The team has just one leader > Each organization has just one headquarters. </div>"just" is currently supported (in APE's built-in lexicon) as an adverb, i.e. a content word with now particular semantics. I.e. one can say: John owns a car just. John just owns a car. </blockquote><div> The first sentence doesn't really make since to me, and I do agree the second use is an adverb (modifying a verb) to limit the range of the verb to owning a car and nothing more, perhaps in a context where someone else owns a car, a mansion and a yacht. I do want to mention that as I was taught "adverbs", the use of the word "just" to modify an adjective "one" is totally appropriate. Does your note mean that the parser can't handle adverbs that modify adjectives ? (I'm not sure what a "now particular semantics" means) </div><blockquote class="gmail_quote" style="border-left: 1px solid rgb(204, 204, 204); margin: 0pt 0pt 0pt 0.8ex; padding-left: 1ex;"> These sentences are syntactically OK, but probably misleading, so maybe we should remove "just" from the lexicon and declare these sentences syntax errors. (Of course, users can reintroduce "just" in their user lexicon.) ACE does offer "exactly" and "nothing but" as function words. These words seem to cover some (semantic) aspects of "just". Every American has exactly one President. Every koala eats nothing but eucalypt-leaves. I guess we have considered "just" to be too ambiguous to force it into a single meaning... -- kaarel </blockquote></div> I don't consider it ambiguous, however it is a usage that may not be part of your original design.