Relation Namespace
Core definition#
Relation frames profile a connection holding among two or more relata, rather than an action, transition or single bearer's property considered as such.
RELATION(Relatum_1, Relatum_2, [Further_relata])
Relata can be entities, events, periods or other semantic objects. They may be implicit, collective or incorporated; two overt syntactic arguments are not required. Relations can be temporary without being dynamic changes.
Scope#
| Family | Illustrative meaning |
|---|---|
| Possession | A possessor's connection to a possession |
| Kinship/social | Parent–child, friendship or institutional relation considered as a connection |
| Part–whole | A part's relation to its whole |
| Spatial | Figure located relative to Ground |
| Temporal | An event/time ordered or situated relative to another |
| Abstract | Dependency, logical or mathematical connection |
A symmetric relation can reverse relata under the same predicate; an asymmetric relation may have a converse (possuir / pertencer a). A converse is supporting evidence, not a requirement and not a proof of stativity: buying/selling also reverse perspective but describe events.
Boundaries#
- Possession holding differs from buying/acquiring; kinship holding differs from becoming a parent. Changes and causing actions require eventive analysis.
- A plain property such as height is Attribute, not State. Exact measurement, duration and similarity/comparison can overlap property and relation analyses; defer unresolved frames rather than selecting by number of arguments.
- A maintained/resultant condition is State only when that dependency is part of the defined meaning. The fact that a relation has a social or causal history is insufficient.
- Psychological relations with constitutive cognition, emotion or perception are Experiential: knowing and loving are not Relation just because they involve two participants.
- A participant category can be Entity even if its lemma type is
role. FNBr's agentive-name policy requires Entity lexicalization plus an association to the relevant FE. - A relational conceptual schema is Structural when its documented function is grounding/scaffolding; an ordinary lexical relation is not Structural merely because it is abstract.
Spatial and temporal relations#
Spatial frames often distinguish Figure, Ground and a Profiled_region. Temporal frames can similarly relate a focal event/period to a reference event/period. These schematic correspondences do not make lexical location/time frames Structural.
Distinguish naming a period (semana as a referent), locating an event relative to it, measuring duration and changing the event's scheduled time. These are not interchangeable LU contributions.
Characteristic signature#
A general Relation anchor can represent Entity_1, Entity_2 and a collective Entities alternative. Specific frames specialize the roles, such as Possessor/Possession or Figure/Ground. Relation_type can identify the connection when separately represented.
Requires, Excludes and CoreSet must be justified per frame. A dyadic/collective alternation may motivate them, but there is no namespace-wide rule generating those constraints. See FrameNet patterns.
Role lexicalization#
A Relation frame defines participant roles; a noun may name one such participant. This does not require every role-denoting LU to evoke that Relation frame. Keep lexicalization home separate from the participant association.
Where suitable participant lexicalizations exist, review FE–Frame or LU–FE associations using the universal-versus-subset rule. Absence of a Portuguese role noun for Figure or Ground does not make a spatial frame invalid. Resolve nested constraints before declaring associations missing.
Review diagnostics#
Identify the relata and the connection entailed by the frame. Test constancy of that connection across representative readings, including implicit/collective expression. Converse paraphrases, omission judgments and progressive resistance are supporting evidence only.
A missing overt complement is not proof that there is only one semantic participant. Likewise, a transitive predicate is not necessarily Relation. Defer property/measurement, social-status and entity/role cases when the available definition and annotations do not settle the lexical contribution.