Tense Manages to Predict Implicative Behavior in Verbs
Ellie Pavlick, Chris Callison-Burch · 2016
Implicative verbs (e.g.manage) entail their complement clauses, while non-implicative verbs (e.g.want) do not.For example, while managing to solve the problem entails solving the problem, no such inference follows from wanting to solve the problem.Differentiating between implicative and non-implicative verbs is therefore an essential component of natural language understanding, relevant to applications such as textual entailment and summarization.We present a simple method for predicting implicativeness which exploits known constraints on the tense of implicative verbs and their complements.We show that this yields an effective, data-driven way of capturing this nuanced property in verbs.(0.14) UFJ wants to merge with Mitsubishi, a combination that'd surpass Citigroup as the world's biggest bank.⇒ The merger of Japanese Banks creates the world's biggest bank.(0.55)After graduating, Gallager chose to accept a full scholarship to play football for Temple University.⇒ Gallager attended Temple University.(0.68) Wilkins was allowed to leave in 1987 to join French outfit Paris Saint-Germain.⇒ Wilkins departed Milan in 1987.