Negative indefinite pronouns

[mgeorgescu]

Stick to the negative pronoun or map it to the positive one with negative polarity?
We tended to opt for the 2nd alternative.

nobody/ no one --> positive indefinite pronoun "anyone" OR "somebody" :polarity - ?
nothing --> positive indefinite pronoun "anything" :polarity - ?
none --> "one" OR "any" :polarity -

Could we try to clarify this in the guidelines as there has been some disagreement on this topic?

[nschneid]

I've wondered about this too. Another thing to consider is using :quant to separate out the quantifier, e.g. 'nobody/no one' as (o / one :quant (a / any) :polarity -).

[uhermjakob]

Under consensus, we have a few cases of nothing, none and nowhere as a concept.
On the other hand we agreed to split never into ever :polarity -.

So I sympathize with annotators who transform

• nobody -> anybody :polarity -
• no one -> anyone :polarity -
• nothing -> anything :polarity -
• none -> any :polarity -
• nowhere -> anywhere :polarity -

This is less superficial, but appears to be in the minority in current annotations.

Nathan's idea takes this a step further. Cool.
But if we do this (possible in a future version of AMR), we have to be careful with types

• no one -> anyone :polarity - -> any person :polarity -
• nowhere -> anywhere :polarity - -> any location :polarity -

And we will have to pay close attention to the tricky interaction between quant/any/polarity.
I don't think that any is a :quant by itself (unless it's negated). So,
(o / one :quant (a / any) :polarity -) is not as compositional as intended.

[kevincrawfordknight]

Presently, we are leaving quantifiers right on the noun phrases, and we are sticking with the surface pronouns. Hold your nose! (And your noise)

no one (nobody) is sleeping

(s / sleep-01
:arg0 (n / no-one))

i don't like anybody

(l / like-01
:arg0 (i / i)
:arg1 (a / anybody)
:polarity -)

there is nobody that i like

(n / nobody
:arg1-of (l / like-01
:arg0 (i / i)))

everyone is sleeping

(s / sleep-01
:arg0 (e / everyone))

all people are sleeping

(s / sleep-01
:arg0 (p / person
:quant all))

i don't like most people

(l / like-01
:arg0 (i / i)
:polarity -
:arg1 (p / person
:quant (m / most)))

IDEALLY:
"nobody is sleeping" = "there does not exist p such that sleep(p)"
"everyone is sleeping" = "for all p, sleep(p)"
"not everyone is sleeping" = ?
"he never sleeps" = "there is no time t such that (s / sleep :arg0 he :time t)"
"i don't like anybody" = "there does not exist p such that like(i, p)"
"most people ..."
"a few people ..."

"x / y" means "there exists an x, which is an instance of y"
our support for first-order logic is weak.
quantifiers have scope, which logic captures with parenthesis.
nobody should be equal to no one & sometimes equal to anybody...