Frames

What is a frame?

Frames are models and groupings of ideas that are evoked by words, and those descriptions depend on decisions about the breadth of vocabulary that we are modeling with a frame.

In a frame, all of the words should share a background of the kinds of questions they answer, the kinds of situations that are presupposed for sentences with the target, and the way that a speaker is thinking about a situation when they use the target.

A frame is a conceptual structure that describes a type of event, relation, or state along with its participants (frame elements).

Frame development (The book, ch. 2)

All LUs in a Frame should have the same number and type of FEs, both explicitly and implicitly (NI).

The basic semantic type of an FE should be constant in all uses of the LUs.

When some of the target complement (LU) types are appropriate for the ontological category of the FE while others that are metonymically related are not, two distinct FEs are usually created, related to each other by the Excludes relation.

In Frames that are aspectually complex, the LUs should imply the same set of stages and transitions. If the LUs differ with respect to whether typical and intended stages are actually achieved, the Frame should be split.

The same FEs will be profiled by all LUs in a Frame, that is, the same participant viewpoint should be emphasized by all LUs.

The interrelationships between the FEs of a Frame should be the same for all LUs.

The assumptions, expectations, and concomitances of the LUs in a frame should be shared.

The basic denotation of the LUs in a Frame should be similar.

It is not possible to reliably base the distinction between Frames on the selection constraints of the LUs.

The specifications that the LUs impose on the various FEs should be similar.

The goal of all LUs in a Frame sharing the selection constraints in an FE is often relaxed in practice, as this would result in a very large number of frames.

Words that are antonyms are grouped in the same frame.

The ultimate test for these decisions is their usefulness.