Adverbs, Surprisingly
Dmitry Nikolaev Collin F. Baker Miriam R. L. Petruck Sebastian Padó
This paper begins with the premise that adverbs are neglected in
computational linguistics. This view derives from two analyses: a literature
review and a novel adverb dataset to probe a state-of-the-art language model,
thereby uncovering systematic gaps in accounts for adverb meaning. We suggest
that using Frame Semantics for characterizing word meaning, as in FrameNet,
provides a promising approach to adverb analysis, given its ability to describe
ambiguity, semantic roles, and null instantiation.