5 ms·

The sentence subject is one thing, the sentence topic might be quite another. Consider sentences like: "He joined the not-yet-famous Liverpool band in e

by teeja 13y ago

The sentence subject is one thing, the sentence topic might be quite another. Consider sentences like: "He joined the not-yet-famous Liverpool band in early 1958." To many human beings the topic is quickly obvious. Parsing won't do the trick.

run4yourlives 13y ago
The only reason that sentence is "obvious" to many people is because we have a reference to a famous band from Liverpool that got its start in the late 50's/early 60's that is already embedded in our brain's library of facts. Removed from that context human beings see that sentence as equally meaningless as a parser, because it is. I'd imagine many young people (who don't have the "correct" reference points) wouldn't have a clue that the sentence is about George Harrison. In order to properly handle this sentence one would need the same external reference that your brain has. Without the reference the sentence can be discarded as incomplete, since that's what a human would do too.
- yolesaber 13y ago
  This is why systems such as MIT's ConceptNet exist. NLTK and other NLP systems can provide the grammatical breakdown and ConceptNet can fill in the semantic / contextual gaps.
- unhammer 13y ago
  You don't necessarily need knowledge to distinguish a topic from a subject though. It's a grammatical distinction. See http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Topic%E2%80%93comment#Definitions http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Topic%E2%80%93comment#Definitio... e.g. in the sentence (3) As for the little girl, the dog bit her "the dog" is the subject NP, "the little girl" is the topic. That toy example is perfectly parsable without semantics or even probabilities (though take any real-world sentence and I'm betting you'll need more than just grammar).
- teeja 13y ago
  Thank you for elaborating my point. But a machine don't need an enormous library of facts to find the topic, just a small one. The words 'he', 'band', 'Liverpool' and '1958' are enough to get very precise ... but not because of their grammatical position.
grecy 13y ago
Ask anyone under ~30, they won't know what you're talking about.
- unlucky 13y ago
  My existence proves this sentence wrong.
- teeja 13y ago
  OK just for you: "His 4th album was the second best-selling of the 2000s." The subject of the sentence is "his". Point remains. Without a context you're lost.
cs02rm0 13y ago
Googling will though.

by teeja 13y ago

run4yourlives 13y ago

The only reason that sentence is "obvious" to many people is because we have a reference to a famous band from Liverpool that got its start in the late 50's/early 60's that is already embedded in our brain's library of facts. Removed from that context human beings see that sentence as equally meaningless as a parser, because it is. I'd imagine many young people (who don't have the "correct" reference points) wouldn't have a clue that the sentence is about George Harrison. In order to properly handle this sentence one would need the same external reference that your brain has. Without the reference the sentence can be discarded as incomplete, since that's what a human would do too.

yolesaber 13y ago
This is why systems such as MIT's ConceptNet exist. NLTK and other NLP systems can provide the grammatical breakdown and ConceptNet can fill in the semantic / contextual gaps.
unhammer 13y ago
You don't necessarily need knowledge to distinguish a topic from a subject though. It's a grammatical distinction. See http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Topic%E2%80%93comment#Definitions http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Topic%E2%80%93comment#Definitio... e.g. in the sentence (3) As for the little girl, the dog bit her "the dog" is the subject NP, "the little girl" is the topic. That toy example is perfectly parsable without semantics or even probabilities (though take any real-world sentence and I'm betting you'll need more than just grammar).
teeja 13y ago
Thank you for elaborating my point. But a machine don't need an enormous library of facts to find the topic, just a small one. The words 'he', 'band', 'Liverpool' and '1958' are enough to get very precise ... but not because of their grammatical position.

grecy 13y ago

Ask anyone under ~30, they won't know what you're talking about.

unlucky 13y ago
My existence proves this sentence wrong.
teeja 13y ago
OK just for you: "His 4th album was the second best-selling of the 2000s." The subject of the sentence is "his". Point remains. Without a context you're lost.

cs02rm0 13y ago

Googling will though.

The sentence subject is one thing, the sentence <i>topic</i> might be quite another. Consider sentences like: "He joined the not-yet-famous Liverpool band in e

The sentence subject is one thing, the sentence <i>topic</i> might be quite another. Consider sentences like: "He joined the not-yet-famous Liverpool band in e