G22.2590 – Natural Language Processing – Spring 2001
The final exam
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Worth 20 points towards final grade
Given Wednesday, May 2nd, 2001, 5:00 – 6:50 (usual class day, time, place)
Open book and notes (you will need your book!)
Five or six questions
The questions will be taken from the following list of question types. All have been given for
homework except #11. I may also ask one short (1-page) essay question about one of the issues
we have discussed in class, such as full parsing vs. partial parsing.
1.
English sentence structure: Label the constituents (NP, VP, PP, etc.) of an English sentence
(homework #2).
2. Parsing: Given a very small context-free grammar, to step through the operation, or count the number
of operations performed by a top-down backtracking parser, a bottom-up parser, or a chart parser
(homework #3).
3. RTN: Convert a grammar to a recursive transition network (homework #3; Allen Chap. 3 #5).
4. Feature grammar: Draw a tree for Allen’s Chap. 4 feature grammar (homework #4; Allen Chap. 4
#3).
5. Gaps: Draw a tree for a sentence using Allen’s Chap. 5 grammar with GAP feature (homework #5).
6. QLF: Write the QLF for a sentence (homework #6; Allen Chap. 8 #5); convert the QLF to the one or
more corresponding LFs (i.e., with explicit quantifier scope).
7. Semantic interpretation: Draw a tree for a sentence using Allen’s Chap. 9 grammar with SEM
features (homework #7).
8. Selection: Build sense hierarchy and selectional constraints to handle specified sentences (homework
#8; Allen Chap. 10 #7).
9. Semantic grammar: Extend the semantic grammar for flight information to handle new examples
(homework #9; Allen Chap. 11).
10. Anaphora: be able to explain formally (using parses or logical forms) the resolution of an example of
pronoun anaphora, surface anaphora, or ellipsis (homework #10; Allen Chap. 14 #2, 7, and 8).
11. *Plans: show formally how two sentences can be connected by an expectation (Allen Chap. 15 #4).
12. Jet: be able to extend, or trace the operation, of one of the Jet pattern sets we have distributed and
discussed (for noun and verb groups, and for appointment events).
For the questions involving Allen’s grammars (questions 4, 5, and 7) you may be asked to add lexical items
or make a small extension to the grammar, for example to add a new verb complement.
Note: Allen uses several different logical form representations, including
Logical form with explicitly scoped quantifiers and positional arguments (p. 236)
(MOST d1 (DOG1 d1) (BARKS1 d1))
Quasi-logical form with quantifiers as terms, using positional arguments (p. 240)
(BARKS1 <MOST d1 (DOG1 d1)>) or
(BARKS1 <MOST d1 DOG1>)
Quasi-logical form with case roles and explicit event quantifier (p. 242)
(exists e (& (BARKS1 e) (AGENT e <MOST d1 DOG1>)))
and the abbreviated form of this (p. 243)
(BARKS1 e [AGENT <MOST d1 DOG1>])
Unless instructed otherwise, you may use any of these representations, but you must be consistent! (For
example, you can’t mix positional arguments and case roles.)