modality: probability and negation
Scope
Expressions regarding the probability of propositions being true, including expressions of negation and speculation, are annotated as modality.
Syntactic constraints
Modal verbs (can
, may
, must
), words similarly
expressing ability, necessity, likelihood, etc., (able
,
need
, likely
), words expressing negation (not
,
without
) or absence (lack
), and multiword expressions
with these meanings (had better
).
Examples
-
can
rules can be represented T1 PLAN 0 5 rules T2 MODALITY 6 9 can T3 PROCESS 13 24 represented -
not
data not found T1 DATA-ITEM 0 4 data T2 MODALITY 5 8 not T3 PROCESS 9 14 found -
cannot
cross-validation cannot be performed T1 PLAN 0 16 cross-validation T2 MODALITY 17 23 cannot T3 PROCESS 27 36 performed -
may
performance may be achieved T1 QUALITY 0 11 performance T2 MODALITY 12 15 may T3 PROCESS 18 27 achieved -
might
services might interest users T1 PLAN 0 8 services T2 MODALITY 9 14 might T3 PROCESS 15 23 interest T4 PERSON 24 29 users -
should
bidders should calculate their bids T1 PERSON 0 7 bidders T2 MODALITY 8 14 should T3 PROCESS 15 24 calculate T4 REFERENCE 25 30 their T5 DATA-ITEM 31 35 bids -
without
text data without syntactic annotation T1 DATA-ITEM 0 9 text data T2 MODALITY 10 17 without T3 DATA-ITEM 18 38 syntactic annotation -
possible
possible to automatically construct T1 MODALITY 0 8 possible T2 QUALITY 11 25 automatically T3 PROCESS 26 35 construct
Further details
Multiple consecutive modality-expressing words whose joint meaning is
straightforwardly compositional (e.g. may not
) are marked with
separate modality annotations instead of
one, but single words such as cannot
are marked with at most a
single modality annotation. The word
will
is annotated as modality when
used to express likelihood but not when used to mark future tense.