[Relex] How to get started?

[Brovar]

Hello.

I've managed to build relex into a .jar file using eclipse. How do I
start using it? I've added it to my projects build path, and where do
I go now?:P I mostly need it to get me information about nouns gender
and maybe to identify a subject/object/and so on in sentences, but its
mostly the gender part. Or is there any simpler way than using relex?

Big thanks in advance
Brovar

[Linas Vepstas]

On 13 June 2010 09:05, Brovar <bartosz....@gmail.com> wrote:
> Hello.
>
> I've managed to build relex into a .jar file using eclipse. How do I
> start using it? I've added it to my projects build path, and where do
> I go now?:P

The README file describes a number of different shell scripts
that come with the tarball.

> I mostly need it to get me information about nouns gender
> and maybe to identify a subject/object/and so on in sentences, but its
> mostly the gender part. Or is there any simpler way than using relex?

In English, nouns do not have gender.

Relex does identify gender for a few pronouns and some given names.
So: "he" is male and "she" is female; but you hardly need relex for this.
Likewise, "John" is *probably* male, and "Mary" is probably female, but
you can also get this information very easily from lists of given names;
there are many websites that offer such lists.

--linas

[Dominic Lachowicz]

The US census has a great list of common men's & women's names, common
last names, etc. You can get that and more @ http://www.census.gov/

-Dom

[Bartosz Browarski]

2010/6/14 Linas Vepstas <linasv...@gmail.com>

Thank you for your answer. Thing is, that web pages aren't exactly unanimous when it comes to noun-gender in english. Wikipedia says that there's no noun-gender in english, but some other sites, like http://www.english-for-students.com/Noun-Gender.html say otherwise. But I won't be digging into it further, I'll just assume that there's no noun-gender and move on. 

I've found another use of relex. Since it is able to mark subject/object/indirect object etc. I'll use it in my attempt to implement Lappin/Leass anaphora resolution algorithm. 

Thank you for your time, I might have to abuse it a little more if I encounter any other problems. 

Brovar

[Linas Vepstas]

On 14 June 2010 11:44, Bartosz Browarski <bartosz....@gmail.com> wrote:
>
>
> 2010/6/14 Linas Vepstas <linasv...@gmail.com>
>>
>> On 13 June 2010 09:05, Brovar <bartosz....@gmail.com> wrote:
>> > Hello.
>> >
>> > I've managed to build relex into a .jar file using eclipse. How do I
>> > start using it? I've added it to my projects build path, and where do
>> > I go now?:P
>>
>> The README file describes a number of different shell scripts
>> that come with the tarball.
>>
>> > I mostly need it to get me information about nouns gender
>> > and maybe to identify a subject/object/and so on in sentences, but its
>> > mostly the gender part. Or is there any simpler way than using relex?
>>
>> In English, nouns do not have gender.
>>
>> Relex does identify gender for a few pronouns and some given names.
>> So: "he" is male and "she" is female; but you hardly need relex for this.
>> Likewise, "John" is *probably* male, and "Mary" is probably female, but
>> you can also get this information very easily from lists of given names;
>> there are many websites that offer such lists.
>>
>>
>
> Thank you for your answer. Thing is, that web pages aren't exactly unanimous
> when it comes to noun-gender in english. Wikipedia says that there's no
> noun-gender in english, but some other sites,
> like http://www.english-for-students.com/Noun-Gender.html say otherwise.

Ah. Well, they're both right, in a certain way. English has no noun genders,
such as those found in French, Spanish, etc. However, certain English words
refer to entities which have gender: e.g. brother, sister. The noun "brother"
is not itself masculine (because English has no gender), but it does refer
to someone who must be masculine (which is important for anaphora resolution).

> But
> I won't be digging into it further, I'll just assume that there's no
> noun-gender and move on.

There is some support for gender markup both in link-grammar, and in
relex. It is not particularly strong or exhaustive; but its there. I just spent
a few minutes now, reviewing and slightly expanding this support; I've
checked the changes into svn and bzr respectively.

Gender markup was added for anaphora resolution; Relex currently
implements the Hobbs algorithm as an optional module; it uses
gender agreement to weed out bad matches.

> I've found another use of relex. Since it is able to mark
> subject/object/indirect object etc. I'll use it in my attempt to implement
> Lappin/Leass anaphora resolution algorithm.

If you create java code that fits into the general scheme of things, I'd
love to include it with relex!

> Thank you for your time, I might have to abuse it a little more if I
> encounter any other problems.

Any time.

-- Linas