WISeN: Widely Interpretable Semantic Network for Richer Meaning Representation

Many semantic annotations currently utilize Abstract Meaning Representation and PropBank frameset files to represent meaning. This scheme relies on arbitrary predicate-argument structures comprising unintuitive numbered arguments, fine-grained sense-disambiguation, and high start-up costs. To address these issues, we present a new annotation scheme, WISeN, that prioritizes semantic roles over numbered arguments and does away with sense-disambiguation. This scheme aims to be more intuitive for annotators and more interpretable by parsers. We evaluate this annotation scheme with a two-part experiment. First, we measure speed and accuracy of manual annotations. Second, we train a parser on both AMR and WISeN annotations and measure model accuracy. The results show that WISeN supports improved parser performance and increased inter-annotator agreement without sacrificing annotation speed compared to AMR. As such, we advocate for the adoption of WISeN as an annotation scheme for semantic representations.