Structured Argument Extraction of Korean Question and Command

For each question, its argument and question type label were annotated. Here, questions include not only the interrogatives but also the declaratives with predicates such as want to know or wonder. In the annotation process, rhetorical questions (Rohde, 2006) were excluded.

Question type label was tagged with three classes, namely yes/no, alternative, and wh-questions (Huddleston, 1994). Yes/no question, also known as polar question, has a possible answer set of yes/no (2a). Alternative question is the question which gives a multiple choice and requires a selection (2b). Wh-question is the type of questions regarding wh- particles, namely who, what, where, when, why, and how (2c-h).
(2a) 너 의료 봉사 신청 했어
(1a) ne uylyo pongsa sincheng hayss-e
(1a) you medical service apply did-INT
(1a) Did you apply for medical service?
(2b) 버스로 올거야 택시로 올거야
(1a) pesu-lo ol-keya thayksi-lo ol-keya
(1a) bus-by come-INT taxi-by come-INT
(1a) Will you come by bus or taxi?
(2c) 오늘은 누구 왔니
(1a) onul-un nwukwu wass-ni
(1a) today-TOP who came-INT
(1a) Who came today?
(2d) 스톡옵션이 뭔 줄 아니
(1a) suthokopsyen-i mwen cwul a-ni
(1a) stock-option-NOM what is.ACC know-INT
(1a) Do you know what stock option is?
(2e) 어디 있니 로비야
(1a) eti iss-ni Robi-ya
(1a) where be-INT Robi-VOC
(1a) Where are you, Robi?
(2f) 대구 몇 시에 도착이야
(1a) taykwu myech si-ey tochak-iya
(1a) Daegu what hour-TIM arrival-INT
(1a) When do you arrive in Daegu?
(2g) 이 동네 갑자기 왜 이렇게 막히지
(1a) i tongney kapcaki way ileh-key makhi-ci
(1a) this town suddenly why this-like jam-INT
(1a) Why is this town suddenly jammed like this?
(2h) 해외 송금 어떻게 하는 거야
(1a) hayoy songkum ettehkey hanun ke-ya
(1a) aboard remittance how doing thing-INT
(1a) How can I send money abroad?
Argument extraction from the questions was done depending on the question type. For yes/no questions, the content was appended with the term ‘-(인)지 or 여부’ ([-(in)ci] or [yepwu], both meaning whether or not), to make up a nominalized term for the query (3a). For alternative questions (3b), all the items were sequentially arranged in the form of ‘(A B 중) -한/할 것’ ([(A B cwung) -han/hal kes], what is/to do - between A and B). For various types of wh-questions we tried to avoid repeating the wh-particles in the extraction and instead used the wh-related terms such as ‘사람’ ([sa-lam], person), ‘의미’ ([uy-mi], meaning), ‘위치’ ([wi-chi], place), ‘시간’ ([si-kan], time), ‘이유’ ([i-yu], reason), ‘방법’ ([pang-pep], method) to guarantee the structuredness of the extraction and the utility for further usages such as web searching (3c-h). The result below correspond with the sentences (2a-h).
(3a) 의료 봉사 신청 여부
(1a) uylyo pongsa sincheng yepwu
(1a) medical service apply presence
(1a) Whether or not applied to medical service
(3b) 버스 택시 중 타고¹ 올 것
(1a) pesu thayksi cwung tha-ko ol kes
(1a) bus taxi between ride-PRG come thing
(1a) What to ride between bus and taxi
(3c) 오늘 온 사람
(1a) onul on salam
(1a) today came person
(1a) The person who came today
(3d) 스톡옵션 의미
(1a) suthokopsyen uymi
(1a) stock-option meaning
(1a) The meaning of stock option
(3e) 지금 있는 위치
(1a) cikum iss-nun wichi
(1a) now be-PRG place
(1a) The place currently belong to
(3f) 대구 도착 시간
(1a) taykwu tochak sikan
(1a) Daegu arrival time
(1a) Arrival time for Daegu
(3g) 막히는 이유
(1a) makhi-nun iyu
(1a) jam-PRG reason
(1a) The reason for jam
(3h) 해외 송금 방법
(1a) hayoy songkum pangpep
(1a) abroad remittance method
(1a) The way to send money abroad

For each command, its argument and the positivity label were annotated. Here, commands include not only the imperative forms with covert subject and the requests in the interrogative form (different from the categorization in Portner (2004)), but also the wishes and exhortatives that induce the addressee’s response. Imperatives used as exclamation or evocation are not included since they are considered rhetorical. The optatives that are used idiomatically, such as Have a nice day! (Han, 2000), are also not included since the feasibility of the to-do-lists is beyond the addressee’s capacity.

Positivity label was tagged with three classes, namely prohibitions, requirements, and strong requirements. Prohibition (PH) is the type of command that stops or prohibits an action. It possibly contains negations (4a1) or the predicates/modifiers that induce the prohibition (4a2). Requirement (REQ) is the type of command that are positive, with no terms that induce the restriction (4b1,2), and corresponds with various sentence forms aforementioned. Strong requirement (SR) is the type of command where the prohibition and requirement are concatenated sequentially, appearing in spoken Korean as an emphasis (4c), due to its head-final property².
(4a1) 태풍 오니까 밖에 나가지 마
(1a) thayphwung o-nikka pakk-ey naka-ci ma
(1a) typhoon come-because outside-to go-ci NEG
(1a) Don’t go outside, typhoon comes.
(4a2) 안전띠 안매면 큰일나
(1a) ancentti an-may-myen khunil-na
(1a) seatbelt no-take-if danger-occur.DEC
(1a) It’s dangerous if you don’t take a seatbelt.
(4b1) 인적사항 확인 바랍니다
(1a) inceksahang hwakin palap-nita
(1a) personal-info check want-HON.DEC
(1a) I want you to check the personal info.
(4b2) 이번 주 일정을 모두 말해
(1a) ipen cwu ilceng-ul motwu mal-hay
(1a) this week schedule-ACC all tell-IMP
(1a) Tell me all the schedules this week.
(4c) 욕심부리지 말고 지금 팔아
(1a) yoksim-pwuli-ci malko cikum phal-a
(1a) greedy-be-ci not-and now sell-IMP
(1a) Don’t be greedy, just sell it now!

Argument extraction from the commands was done depending on the positivity. For PH, the action that is prohibited is annotated (5a1). For REQ, the requirement is annotated (5b1). For SR we only annotated the action that is required (5c), for a disambiguation and an effective representation of a to-do-list. Most of the arguments ended with a nominalized predicate ‘-(하)기’ ([-(ha)ki], doing/to do something), for consistency and a flexible application. (5a1-c) correspond with (4a1-c).
(5a1) 밖에 나가기 (금지)
(1a) pakk-ey naka-ki (kumci)
(1a) outside-to go-NMN³ (prohibition)
(1a) Prohibition: Going outside
(5a2) 안전띠 매기 (요구)
(1a) ancentti may-ki (yokwu)
(1a) seatbelt take-NMN (requirement)
(1a) Requirement: Taking a seatbelt
(5b1) 인적사항 확인하기 (요구)
(1a) inceksahang hwakin-haki (yokwu)
(1a) personal info check-NMN (requirement)
(1a) Requirement: Checking the personal info
(5b2) 이번 주 모든 일정 (요구)
(1a) ipen cwu motun ilceng (yokwu)
(1a) this week all schedule (requirement)
(1a) Requirement: All the schedules this week
(5c) 지금 팔기 (요구)
(1a) cikum phal-ki (yokwu)
(1a) now sell-NMN (requirement)
(1a) Requirement: Selling it now

There are points to be clarified regarding (4a2) and (5a2). Although (4a2) displayed a property of PH induced by ‘큰일나’, the target action contained a negation ‘안’ that a double negation occurred. Therefore, (5a2) was labeled as SR.

Since the commands did not accompany abstract concept as wh-questions did, the argument was obtained mostly in an extractive way. Also, since the command inevitably includes a detailed to-do-list, the removal of functional particles was done only if they were considered redundant, unlike it was highly recommended for the questions. However, there are some exceptions with the information-seeking commands (4b2) including the terms show, inform, tell, find, check, etc.; despite the clear to-do-lists they show, the intent is close to acquiring information. Thus, the argument extraction for those commands followed the scheme regarding the questions (5b2) as described in Section 3.1, avoiding the nominalizer ’-(하)기’.