Graphs with Multiple Sources per Vertex

Abstract: Several attempts have been made at constructing Abstract Meaning Representations (AMRs) compositionally, and recently the idea of using s-graphs with the HR-algebra (Koller, 2015) has been simplified to reduce the number of options when parsing (Groschwitz et al., 2017). This apply-modify algebra (AM-algebra) is a linguistically plausible graph algebra with two classes of operations, both of rank two: the apply operation is used to combine a predicate with its argument; the modify operation is used to modify a predicate. While the AM-algebra correctly handles relative clauses and complex cases of coordination, it cannot parse reflexive sentences like: "The raven washes herself." To facilitate processing of such reflexive sentences, this paper proposes to change the definition of s-graphs underlying the AM-algebra to allow vertices with multiple sources, and additionally proposes an adaption to the type system of the algebra to correctly handle such vertices.