Arguments and Modifiers from the Learner's Perspective

Leon Bergen, Edward Gibson, Timothy J. O'Donnell

Abstract: We present a model for inducing sentential argument structure, which distinguishes arguments from optional modifiers. We use this model to study whether representing an argument/modifier distinction helps in learning argument structure, and whether a linguistically-natural argument/modifier distinction can be induced from distributional data alone. Our results provide evidence for both hypotheses.