Private State Frames

There are several main ways that private states are expressed in language. Private states may be explicitly mentioned, as with the phrase “have doubts” in sentence 3.1.

(3.1) Democrats also have doubts about Miers’ suitability for the high court.

Private states may also be expressed in speech events. In this research, speech event is used to refer to any speaking or writing event. Examples of speech events in which private states are being expressed are “was criticized” in sentence 3.2 and “said” in sentence 3.3.

(3.2) Miers’ nomination was criticized from people all over the political spectrum. (3.3) “She [Miers] will be a breath of fresh air for the Supreme Court,” LaBoon said.

In 3.2, the word “criticized” is used to convey that a negative evaluation was expressed by many people, without giving their exact words; it implies a mixture of private state and speech. With “said” in 3.3, it is the quoted speech that conveys the private state of the speaker. Specifically, LaBoon uses the phrase “a breath of fresh air” to express his private state. This phrase is an example of an expressive subjective element (Banfield, 1982). Expressive subjective elements indirectly express private states, through the way something is described or through a particular wording. Sentence 3.4 contains another example of an expressive subjective element, the phrase “missed opportunity of historic proportions.”

(3.4) This [the nomination of Miers] is a missed opportunity of historic proportions.

Private states may also be expressed through private state actions (Wiebe, 1994). Booing, sighing, stomping away in anger, laughing, and frowning are all examples of private state actions, as is “applaud” in sentence 3.5.

(3.5) As the long line of would-be voters marched in, those near the front of the queue began to spontaneously applaud those who were far behind them.

Figure 3.1: Direct subjective frame

• text anchor: a pointer to the span of text that represents the explicit mention of a private state, speech event expressing a private state, or private state action.

• source: the person or entity that expresses or experiences the private state, possibly the writer.

• target: the target or topic of the private state, i.e., what the speech event or private state is about.

• properties:

– intensity: the intensity of the private state; values low, medium, high, or extreme. – expression intensity: the contribution of the speech event or private state expres-

sion itself to the overall intensity of the private state; values neutral, low, medium, high, or extreme.

– implicit: true, if the frame represents an an implicit speech event.

– insubstantial: true, if the private state or speech event is not substantial in the discourse. For example, a private state in the context of a conditional often has the value true.

– attitude type: the polarity of the private state; values positive, negative, other, or none.

In the conceptual representation, the different ways of expressing private states are rep- resented using two types of private state frames. Direct subjective frames are used to represent explicit mentions of private states, speech events expressing private states, and private state actions. Expressive subjective element frames are used to represent ex- pressive subjective elements. The two private state frames and their attributes are given in Figures 3.1 and 3.2. Figure 3.3 gives the private state frames for sentences 3.1–3.3. The two types of private state frames share many of the same attributes: text anchor, source, intensity, and attitude type. The additional attributes in the direct subjective frame reflect its greater complexity.

As its name indicates, the text anchor attribute points to the span of text where the private state frame annotation is anchored. For direct subjective annotations, the text anchor is the phrase for the explicit mention of the private state, the speech event, or the private state action. For expressive subjective elements, the text anchor is the subjective or expressive phrase. However, for speech events that are implicit there is no speech event

Figure 3.2: Expressive subjective element frame

• text anchor: a pointer to the span of text that denotes the subjective or expressive phrase.

• source: the person or entity that is expressing the private state, possibly the writer. • properties:

– intensity: the intensity of the private state; values low, medium, high, or extreme. – attitude type: the polarity of the private state; values positive, negative, other, or

none.

phrase on which to anchor the annotation frame. Implicit speech events are speech events for which there is not a discourse parenthetical, such as, “she said.” For example, every sentence in a document is an implicit speech event for the writer of the document. Similarly, direct quotations are not always accompanied by discourse parentheticals, such as in the second sentence in the following passage:

(3.6) “It could well be that she is in the tradition of Clarence Thomas or Antonin Scalia, as the president has promised,” said Jan LaRue, chief counsel of Concerned Women for America. “The problem is that those of us who were looking for some tangible evidence of that have none, and we can’t come out of the box supporting her.”

When the speech event for a direct subject annotation is implicit, such as for the writer’s subjective speech event above in sentence 3.4, the text anchor points to the sentence or quoted string with the text of the speech event, and the implicit attribute is used to mark the annotation.

The source attribute is used to mark the experiencer of the private state or the speaker or writer of the speech event. Obviously, the writer of an article is a source, because he or she wrote the sentences that constitute the article. However, the writer may also write about other people’s private states and speech events, leading to multiple sources in a single sen- tence. For example, in sentence 3.1 above, there are two sources, the writer, and Democrats (the experiencer of the private state “have doubts”). There are also two sources in sentences 3.2 and 3.3, respectively. A key aspect of sources is that they are nested to capture the levels of attribution. In 3.1, the Democrats do not directly state that they have doubts. Rather it

Figure 3.3: Private state annotations for example sentences 3.1–3.3

Sentence 3.1 Democrats also have doubts about Miers’ suitability for the high court.

Direct Subjective text anchor: have doubts source: <writer, Democrats> target: Miers

intensity: medium

expression intensity: medium attitude type: negative

Sentence 3.2 Miers' nomination was criticized from people all over the political spectrum.

Direct Subjective

text anchor: was criticized source: <writer, people> target: Miers

intensity: medium

expression intensity: medium attitude type: negative

Sentence 3.3 “She [Miers] will be a breath of fresh air for the Supreme Court,” LaBoon said.

Direct Subjective text anchor: said

source: <writer, LaBoon> target: Miers

intensity: medium

expression intensity: neutral attitude type: positive

Expressive Subjective Element text anchor: a breath of fresh air source: <writer, LaBoon> intensity: medium attitude type: positive

is according to the writer that the Democrats have doubts about Miers’ suitability for the Supreme Court. The full source of the private state expressed by “have doubts” is thus the nested source: hwriter, Democratsi. The nested source is composed of IDs associated with each source. These IDs are described below in the section on agent frames (Section3.1.3). The intensity attribute is used to mark the overall intensity of the private state that is represented by the direct subjective or expressive subjective element frame. Its values are low, medium, high, and extreme. For direct subjective frames, there is an additional intensity rating. The expression intensity attribute is used to mark the contribution to the overall intensity made just by the private state or speech event phrase. The values of this attribute are neutral, low, medium, high, and extreme. For example, say is often neutral, even if what is uttered is not neutral. The word excoriate, on the other hand, by itself implies a very strong private state.

To help clarify the differences among the various intensity attributes, consider the anno- tations for sentences 3.2 and 3.3, which are given in Figure 3.3. In sentence 3.2, there is a direct subjective frame for “was criticized.” The intensity of “was criticized” is marked as medium, as is the expression intensity. Sentence 3.3 contains both an expressive subjective element frame and a direct subjective frame. The intensity of “a breath of fresh air” is marked as medium. The intensity for “said” is also marked as medium. This is because for direct subjective frames, the speech event or private state phrase and everything inside the scope of the speech event or private state attributed to the same nested source is considered when judging the overall intensity. The expression intensity for “said” is neutral because the word “said” itself does not contribute to the intensity of the private state.

The attitude type attribute is for representing the polarity of the private state.

The target attribute is for marking the target or topic of the private state, for example, what the speech event or private state is about.

The insubstantial attribute is used to mark direct subjective annotations that are not substantial in the discourse. A private state or speech event may be insubstantial either because it is not real or it is not significant in the discourse. Private states and speech events may not be real in the discourse for several reasons: an example of one is when the private state or speech event is hypothetical. Private states or speech events that are not

Figure 3.4: Objective speech event frame

• text anchor: a pointer to the span of text that denotes the speech event. • source: the speaker or writer.

• target: the target or topic of the speech event, i.e., the content of what is said. • properties:

– implicit: true, if the frame represents an an implicit speech event.

– insubstantial: true, if the speech event is not substantial in the discourse.

significant are those that do not contain a significant portion of the contents (target) of the private state or speech event.