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Institute for Natural Language Processing
Institute
Team
Padó

Prof. Dr.

Sebastian Padó

Chair of Theoretical Computational Linguistics, Managing Director of the IMS
Institute for Natural Language Processing (IMS)
Theoretical Computational Linguistics

Contact

+49 711 685-81400
Email
Website

Pfaffenwaldring 5 b
70569 Stuttgart
Deutschland
Room: 02.020

Office Hours

By appointment (per email).

Subject

I head a research group (mostly) on computational semantics. That is, we are interested in developing software that enables computers to reason about the meaning of words and sentences.

You can find more details on the page of my research group.

Publications

Publications by Sebastian Padó:

2021
1. Iordachioaia, G., Lapesa, G., Meyer, S., & Padó, S. (2021). Difference of first attestation dates as evidence for directionality in zero derivation. Proceedings of the DGfS Workshop on the Semantics of Derivational Morphology.
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  @inproceedings{iordachioaia21:_differ, address = {Freiburg im Breisgau, Germany}, author = {Iord\u{a}chioaia, Gianina and Lapesa, Gabriella and Meyer, Sabrina and Padó, Sebastian}, booktitle = {Proceedings of the {DGfS} workshop on the semantics of derivational morphology}, note = {Accepted for publication}, title = {Difference of first attestation dates as evidence for directionality in zero derivation}, year = 2021 }
2019
1. Sikos, J., & Padó, S. (2019). Frame Identification as Categorization: Exemplars vs Protoypes in Embeddingland. Proceedings of IWCS, 295--306. https://aclweb.org/anthology/papers/W/W19/W19-0425/
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  @inproceedings{sikos19:_frame_ident_categ, abstract = {Categorization is a central capability of human cognition, and a number of theories have been developed to account for properties of categorization. Even though many tasks in semantics also involve categorization of some kind, theories of categorization do not play a major role in contemporary research in computational linguistics. This paper follows the idea that embedding-based models of semantics lend themselves well to being formulated in terms of classical categorization theories. The benefit is a space of model families that enables (a) the formulation of hypotheses about the impact of major design decisions, and (b) a transparent assessment of these decisions. We instantiate this idea on the task of frame-semantic frame identification. We define four models that cross two design variables: (a) the choice of prototype vs. exemplar categorization, corresponding to different degrees of generalization applied to the input, and (b) the presence vs. absence of a fine-tuning step, corresponding to generic vs. task-adaptive categorization. We find that for frame identification, generalization and task-adaptive categorization both yield substantial benefits. Our prototype-based, fine-tuned model, which combines the best choices over these variables, establishes a new state-of-the-art in frame identification.}, address = {Gothenburg, Sweden}, author = {Sikos, Jennifer and Padó, Sebastian}, booktitle = {Proceedings of IWCS}, pages = {295--306}, title = {Frame Identification as Categorization: Exemplars vs Protoypes in Embeddingland}, url = {https://aclweb.org/anthology/papers/W/W19/W19-0425/}, year = 2019 }
  Link
  https://aclweb.org/anthology/papers/W/W19/W19-0425/
2. Padó, S. (2019). Entities as a window into distributional semantics. RANLP 2019. https://nlpado.de/~sebastian/pub/papers/RANLP19-slides.pdf
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  @inproceedings{pado2019entities, address = {Varna, Bulgaria}, author = {Padó, Sebastian}, booktitle = {RANLP 2019}, note = {Slides for invited talk.}, title = {Entities as a window into distributional semantics}, url = {https://nlpado.de/~sebastian/pub/papers/RANLP19-slides.pdf}, year = 2019 }
  Link
  https://nlpado.de/~sebastian/pub/papers/RANLP19-slides.pdf
3. Frassinelli, D., Vigliocco, G., & Padó, S. (2019). Distributional Semantics reveals cross-cultural differences in food concepts. Proceedings of AmLaP.
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  @inproceedings{frassinelli19:_distr_seman, address = {Moscow, Russia}, author = {Frassinelli, Diego and Vigliocco, Gabriella and Padó, Sebastian}, booktitle = {Proceedings of {AmLaP}}, title = {Distributional Semantics reveals cross-cultural differences in food concepts}, year = 2019 }
2018
1. Lapesa, G., Kawaletz, L., Plag, I., Andreou, M., Kisselew, M., & Padó, S. (2018). Disambiguation of newly derived nominalizations in context: A Distributional Semantics approach. Word Structure, 11(3), 315--350. https://www.euppublishing.com/doi/abs/10.3366/word.2018.0131
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  @article{lapesa17:_disam, author = {Lapesa, Gabriella and Kawaletz, Lea and Plag, Ingo and Andreou, Marios and Kisselew, Max and Padó, Sebastian}, journal = {Word Structure}, number = 3, pages = {315--350}, title = {Disambiguation of newly derived nominalizations in context: {A Distributional Semantics approach}}, url = {https://www.euppublishing.com/doi/abs/10.3366/word.2018.0131}, volume = 11, year = 2018 }
  Link
  https://www.euppublishing.com/doi/abs/10.3366/word.2018.0131
2017
1. Medić, Z., Šnajder, J., & Padó, S. (2017). Does Free Word Order Hurt? Assessing the Practical Lexical Function Model for Croatian. Proceedings of STARSEM. http://aclweb.org/anthology/S/S17/S17-1014.pdf
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  @inproceedings{medic17:_does_free_word_order_hurt, abstract = {The Practical Lexical Function (PLF) model is a model of computational distri- butional semantics that attempts to strike a balance between expressivity and learn- ability in predicting phrase meaning and shows competitive results. We investigate how well the PLF carries over to free word order languages, given that it builds on ob- servations of predicate-argument combina- tions that are harder to recover in free word order languages. We evaluate variants of the PLF for Croatian, using a new lexical substitution dataset. We find that the PLF works about as well for Croatian as for En- glish, but demonstrate that its strength lies in modeling verbs, and that the free word order affects the less robust PLF variant.}, address = {Vancouver, BC}, author = {Medić, Zoran and Šnajder, Jan and Padó, Sebastian}, booktitle = {Proceedings of STARSEM}, title = {Does Free Word Order Hurt? {A}ssessing the Practical Lexical Function Model for {C}roatian}, url = {http://aclweb.org/anthology/S/S17/S17-1014.pdf}, year = 2017 }
  Link
  http://aclweb.org/anthology/S/S17/S17-1014.pdf
2. Boleda, G., Gupta, A., & Padó, S. (n.d.). Instances and concepts in distributional space. Proceedings of EACL, 79--85. http://www.aclweb.org/anthology/E17-2013.pdf
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  @inproceedings{boleda17:_instan_concep_distr_space, abstract = {Instances (``Mozart'') are ontologically distinct from concepts or classes (``composer''). Natural language encompasses both, but instances have received comparatively little attention in distributional semantics. Our results show that instances and concepts differ in their distributional properties. We also establish that instantiation detection (``Mozart -- composer'') is generally easier than hypernymy detection (``chemist -- scientist''), and that results on the influence of input representation do not transfer from hyponymy to instantiation.}, address = {Valencia, Spain}, author = {Boleda, Gemma and Gupta, Abhijeet and Pad\'{o}, Sebastian}, booktitle = {Proceedings of EACL}, month = {April}, pages = {79--85}, title = {Instances and concepts in distributional space}, url = {http://www.aclweb.org/anthology/E17-2013.pdf}, year = 2017 }
  Link
  http://www.aclweb.org/anthology/E17-2013.pdf
3. Pross, T., Rossdeutscher, A., Lapesa, G., & Padó, S. (2017). Integrating lexical-conceptual and distributional semantics: a case report. Proceedings of the Amsterdam Colloquium, 75--84. http://semanticsarchive.net/Archive/jZiM2FhZ/AC2017-Proceedings.pdf
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  @inproceedings{pross17:_integ, abstract = {By means of a case study on German verbs prefixed with the preposition über (‘over’) we compare alternation-based lexical-conceptual and usage-based distributional approaches to verb meaning. Our investigation supports the view that when distributional vectors are rendered human-interpretable by approximation of their representation with its nearest neighbour words in the semantic vector space, they reflect conceptual commonalities be- tween verbs similar to those targeted in lexical-conceptual semantics. Moreover, our case study shows that distributional representations reveal conceptual features of verb meaning that are di cult if not impossible to detect and represent in theoretical frameworks of lexical semantics and thus that a general theory of word meaning requires a combination and complementation of lexical and distributional methods.}, address = {Amsterdam, The Netherlands}, author = {Pross, Tillmann and Rossdeutscher, Antje and Lapesa, Gabriella and Padó, Sebastian}, booktitle = {Proceedings of the Amsterdam Colloquium}, pages = {75--84}, title = {Integrating lexical-conceptual and distributional semantics: a case report}, url = {http://semanticsarchive.net/Archive/jZiM2FhZ/AC2017-Proceedings.pdf}, year = 2017 }
  Link
  http://semanticsarchive.net/Archive/jZiM2FhZ/AC2017-Proceedings.pdf
4. Gupta, A., Boleda, G., & Padó, S. (2017). Distributed Prediction of Relations for Entities: The Easy, The Difficult, and The Impossible. Proceedings of STARSEM. http://aclweb.org/anthology/S/S17/S17-1012.pdf
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  @inproceedings{pado2017distributed, abstract = {Word embeddings are supposed to provide easy access to semantic relations such as “male of” (man–woman). While this claim has been investigated for concepts, little is known about the distributional behavior of relations of (Named) Entities. We de- scribe two word embedding-based models that predict values for relational attributes of entities, and analyse them. The task is challenging, with major performance dif- ferences between relations. Contrary to many NLP tasks, high difficulty for a re- lation does not result from low frequency, but from (a) one-to-many mappings; and (b) lack of context patterns expressing the relation that are easy to pick up by word embeddings.}, address = {Vancouver, BC}, author = {Gupta, Abhijeet and Boleda, Gemma and Padó, Sebastian}, booktitle = {Proceedings of STARSEM}, title = {Distributed Prediction of Relations for Entities: The Easy, The Difficult, and The Impossible}, url = {http://aclweb.org/anthology/S/S17/S17-1012.pdf}, year = 2017 }
  Link
  http://aclweb.org/anthology/S/S17/S17-1012.pdf
2016
1. Varvara, R., Lapesa, G., & Padó, S. (2016). Quantifying regularity in morphological processes: An ongoing study on nominalization in German. ESSLLI DISSALT Workshop: Distributional Semantics and Semantic Theory.
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  @inproceedings{varvara16:_quant, address = {Bolzano, Italy}, author = {Varvara, Rossella and Lapesa, Gabriella and Padó, Sebastian}, booktitle = {ESSLLI DISSALT Workshop: Distributional Semantics and Semantic Theory}, title = {Quantifying regularity in morphological processes: An ongoing study on nominalization in {G}erman}, year = 2016 }
2. Köper, M., Schulte im Walde, S., Kisselew, M., & Padó, S. (2016). Improving Zero-Shot-Learning for German Particle Verbs by using Training-Space Restrictions and Local Scaling. Proceedings of STARSEM. http://www.aclweb.org/anthology/S16-2010.pdf
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  @inproceedings{koeper16:_improv_zero_shot_learn_german, abstract = {Recent models in distributional semantics consider derivational patterns (e.g., use → use+ful) as the result of a compositional process, where base term and affix are combined. We exploit such models for German particle verbs (PVs), and focus on the task of learning a mapping function between base verbs and particle verbs. Our models apply particle-verb motivated training-space restrictions relying on nearest neighbors, as well as recent advances from zero- shot-learning. The models improve the mapping between base terms and derived terms for a new PV derivation dataset, and also across existing derivation datasets for German and English.}, address = {Berlin, Germany}, author = {Köper, Maximilian and {Schulte im Walde}, Sabine and Kisselew, Max and Padó, Sebastian}, booktitle = {Proceedings of STARSEM}, title = {Improving Zero-Shot-Learning for German Particle Verbs by using Training-Space Restrictions and Local Scaling}, url = {http://www.aclweb.org/anthology/S16-2010.pdf}, year = 2016 }
  Link
  http://www.aclweb.org/anthology/S16-2010.pdf
3. Pross, T., Rossdeutscher, A., Padó, S., Lapesa, G., & Kisselew, M. (2016). “Over reference”: A comparative study on German prefix verbs. ESSLLI SemRefPlus Workshop: Referential Semantics One Step Further: Incorporating Insights from Conceptual and Distributional Approaches to Meaning.
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  @inproceedings{pross16:_over, address = {Bolzano, Italy}, author = {Pross, Tillmann and Rossdeutscher, Antje and Padó, Sebastian and Lapesa, Gabriella and Kisselew, Max}, booktitle = {ESSLLI SemRefPlus Workshop: Referential semantics one step further: Incorporating insights from conceptual and distributional approaches to meaning}, title = {'Over reference': A comparative study on {G}erman prefix verbs}, year = 2016 }
4. Padó, S., Herbelot, A., Kisselew, M., & Snajder, J. (2016). Predictability of Distributional Semantics in Derivational Word Formation. Proceedings of COLING, 1285--1296. http://www.aclweb.org/anthology/C/C16/C16-1122.pdf
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  @inproceedings{pado16:_predic_distr_seman_deriv_word_format, abstract = {Compositional distributional semantic models (CDSMs) have successfully been applied to the task of predicting the meaning of a range of linguistic constructions. Their performance on semi-compositional word formation process of (morphological) derivation, however, has been extremely variable, with no large-scale empirical investigation to date. This paper fills that gap, performing an analysis of CDSM predictions on a large dataset (over 30,000 German derivationally related word pairs). We use linear regression models to analyze CDSM performance and obtain insights into the linguistic factors that influence how predictable the distributional context of a derived word is going to be. We identify various such factors, notably part of speech, argument structure, and semantic regularity.}, address = {Osaka, Japan}, author = {Padó, Sebastian and Herbelot, Aurélie and Kisselew, Max and \v{S}najder, Jan}, booktitle = {Proceedings of COLING}, pages = {1285--1296}, title = {Predictability of Distributional Semantics in Derivational Word Formation}, url = {http://www.aclweb.org/anthology/C/C16/C16-1122.pdf}, year = 2016 }
  Link
  http://www.aclweb.org/anthology/C/C16/C16-1122.pdf
5. Lapesa, G., Kisselew, M., Padó, S., Pross, T., & Rossdeutscher, A. (2016). Characterizing the pragmatic component of distributional vectors in terms of polarity: Experiments on German über verbs. ESSLLI DISSALT Workshop: Distributional Semantics and Semantic Theory.
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  @inproceedings{lapesa16:_charac, address = {Bolzano, Italy}, author = {Lapesa, Gabriella and Kisselew, Max and Padó, Sebastian and Pross, Tillmann and Rossdeutscher, Antje}, booktitle = {ESSLLI DISSALT Workshop: Distributional Semantics and Semantic Theory}, title = {Characterizing the pragmatic component of distributional vectors in terms of polarity: Experiments on {G}erman \textit{über} verbs}, year = 2016 }
2015
1. Padó, S., Palmer, A., Kisselew, M., & Snajder, J. (2015). Measuring Semantic Content To Assess Asymmetry in Derivation. Proceedings of the IWCS Workshop on Advances in Distributional Semantics. https://www.nlpado.de/~sebastian/pub/papers/iwcs15_pado.pdf
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  @inproceedings{pado15:_measur_seman_conten_to_asses_asymm_deriv, address = {London, UK}, author = {Pad\'o, Sebastian and Palmer, Alexis and Kisselew, Max and \v{S}najder, Jan}, booktitle = {Proceedings of the IWCS Workshop on Advances in Distributional Semantics}, title = {Measuring Semantic Content To Assess Asymmetry in Derivation}, url = {https://www.nlpado.de/~sebastian/pub/papers/iwcs15_pado.pdf}, year = 2015 }
  Link
  https://www.nlpado.de/~sebastian/pub/papers/iwcs15_pado.pdf
2. Gupta, A., Utt, J., & Padó, S. (2015). Dissecting the Practical Lexical Function Model for Compositional Distributional Semantics. Proceedings of STARSEM, 153--158. http://www.aclweb.org/anthology/S15-1017.pdf
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  @inproceedings{gupta15:_dissec_pract_lexic_funct_model, abstract = {The Practical Lexical Function model (PLF) is a recently proposed compositional distributional semantic model which provides an elegant account of composition, striking a balance between expressiveness and robustness and performing at the state-of-the-art. In this paper, we identify an inconsistency in PLF between the objective function at training and the prediction at testing which leads to an over- counting of the predicate’s contribution to the meaning of the phrase. We investigate two possible solutions of which one (the exclusion of simple lexical vector at test time) improves performance significantly on two out of the three composition datasets.}, address = {Denver, CO}, author = {Gupta, Abhijeet and Utt, Jason and Pad\'o, Sebastian}, booktitle = {Proceedings of STARSEM}, pages = {153--158}, title = {Dissecting the Practical Lexical Function Model for Compositional Distributional Semantics}, url = {http://www.aclweb.org/anthology/S15-1017.pdf}, year = 2015 }
  Link
  http://www.aclweb.org/anthology/S15-1017.pdf
3. Kisselew, M., Padó, S., Palmer, A., & Snajder, J. (2015). Obtaining a Better Understanding of Distributional Models of German Derivational Morphology. Proceedings of IWCS, 58--63. http://www.aclweb.org/anthology/W15-0108.pdf
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  @inproceedings{kisselew15:_obtain_better_under_distr_model, abstract = {Derivationally related words (read / read+er) usually have closely related meanings. It is an interesting challenge for distributional semantics to account for this relationship by predicting the meaning (represented as a vector) of a derived term (read+er) from the meaning of its base term (read). Previous work has framed this task as an instance of compositional meaning construction, but its properties are not yet well understood. Our goal is to better understand the factors influencing performance on this task via quantitative and qualitative analysis of two existing composition models on a set of German derivation patterns (e.g., -in, durch-). We begin by introducing a rank-based evaluation metric that provides a more relevant assessment of the models’ practical value and reveals the task to be challenging due to specific properties of German (compounding, capitalization). We also find that performance varies greatly between patterns and even among base-derived term pairs of the same pattern. A regression analysis shows that semantic coherence of the base and derived terms within a pattern, as well as coherence of the semantic shifts from base to derived terms, all significantly impact prediction quality. Finally, we investigate false positives, finding that different models capture complementary aspects of the semantic shifts.}, address = {London, UK}, author = {Kisselew, Max and Pad\'o, Sebastian and Palmer, Alexis and \v{S}najder, Jan}, booktitle = {Proceedings of IWCS}, note = {Acceptance rate: 36\%}, pages = {58--63}, title = {Obtaining a Better Understanding of Distributional Models of German Derivational Morphology}, url = {http://www.aclweb.org/anthology/W15-0108.pdf}, year = 2015 }
  Link
  http://www.aclweb.org/anthology/W15-0108.pdf
2014
1. Zeller, B., Padó, S., & Snajder, J. (2014). Towards Semantic Validation of a Derivational Lexicon. Proceedings of COLING, 1728--1739. http://www.aclweb.org/anthology/C14-1163.pdf
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  @inproceedings{zeller14:_towar_seman_valid_deriv_lexic, abstract = {Derivationally related lemmas like (friend – friendly – friendship) are derived from a common stem. Frequently, their meanings are also systematically related. However, there are also many examples of derivationally related lemma pairs whose meanings differ substantially, e.g., (object – objective). Most broad-coverage derivational lexicons do not reflect this distinction, mixing up semantically related and unrelated word pairs. In this paper, we investigate strategies to recover the above distinction by recognizing semantically related lemma pairs, a process we call semantic validation. We make two main contributions: First, we perform a detailed data analysis on the basis of a large German derivational lexicon. It reveals two promising sources of information (distributional semantics and structural information about derivational rules), but also systematic problems with these sources. Second, we develop a classification model for the task that reflects the noisy nature of the data. It achieves an improvement of 13.6\% in precision and 5.8\% in F1-score over a strong majority class baseline. Our experiments confirm that both information sources contribute to semantic validation, and that they are complementary enough that the best results are obtained from a combined model.}, address = {Dublin, Ireland}, author = {Zeller, Britta and Pad\'o, Sebastian and \v{S}najder, Jan}, booktitle = {Proceedings of COLING}, note = {Acceptance rate: 31\%}, pages = {1728--1739}, title = {Towards Semantic Validation of a Derivational Lexicon}, url = {http://www.aclweb.org/anthology/C14-1163.pdf}, year = 2014 }
  Link
  http://www.aclweb.org/anthology/C14-1163.pdf
2013
1. Padó, S., Snajder, J., & Zeller, B. D. (2013). Derivational Smoothing for Syntactic Distributional Semantics. Proceedings of ACL, 731--735. http://www.aclweb.org/anthology/P13-2128.pdf
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  @inproceedings{pado:2013, abstract = {Syntax-based vector spaces are used widely in lexical semantics and are more versatile than word-based spaces (Baroni and Lenci, 2010). However, they are also sparse, with resulting reliability and coverage problems. We address this problem by derivational smoothing, which uses knowledge about derivationally related words (oldish -- old) to improve semantic similarity estimates. We develop a set of derivational smoothing methods and evaluate them on two lexical semantics tasks in German. Even for models built from very large corpora, simple derivational smoothing can improve coverage considerably.}, address = {Sofia, Bulgaria}, author = {Padó, Sebastian and \v{S}najder, Jan and Zeller, Britta D.}, booktitle = {Proceedings of ACL}, note = {Acceptance rate: 26\%}, pages = {731--735}, title = {Derivational Smoothing for Syntactic Distributional Semantics}, url = {http://www.aclweb.org/anthology/P13-2128.pdf}, year = 2013 }
  Link
  http://www.aclweb.org/anthology/P13-2128.pdf
2. Utt, J., Lenci, A., Pado, S., & Zarcone, A. (2013). The Curious Case of Metonymic Verbs: A Distributional Characterization. Proceedings of the IWCS Workshop “‘Towards A Formal Distributional Semantics.’” http://www.aclweb.org/anthology/W/W13/W13-0604.pdf
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  @inproceedings{utt13:_curious_case_meton_verbs, abstract = {Logical metonymy combines an event-selecting verb with an entity-denoting noun (e.g., The writer began the novel), triggering a covert event interpretation (e.g., reading, writing). Experimental investigations of logical metonymy must assume a binary distinction between metonymic (i.e. event- selecting) verbs and non-metonymic verbs to establish a control condition. However, this binary distinction (whether a verb is metonymic or not) is mostly made on intuitive grounds, which introduces a potential confounding factor. We describe a corpus-based approach which characterizes verbs in terms of their behavior at the syntax-semantics interface. The model assesses the extent to which transitive verbs prefer event-denoting objects over entity-denoting objects. We then test this “eventhood” measure on psycholinguistic datasets, showing that it can distinguish not only metonymic from non-metonymic verbs, but that it can also capture more fine-grained distinctions among different classes of metonymic verbs, putting such distinctions into a new graded perspective.}, address = {Potsdam, Germany}, author = {Utt, Jason and Lenci, Alessandro and Pado, Sebastian and Zarcone, Alessandra}, booktitle = {Proceedings of the IWCS workshop ''Towards A Formal Distributional Semantics''}, title = {The Curious Case of Metonymic Verbs: A Distributional Characterization}, url = {http://www.aclweb.org/anthology/W/W13/W13-0604.pdf}, year = 2013 }
  Link
  http://www.aclweb.org/anthology/W/W13/W13-0604.pdf
2012
1. Boleda, G., Padó, S., & Utt, J. (2012). Regular polysemy: A distributional model. Proceedings of *SEM, 151--160. http://www.aclweb.org/anthology/S12-1023.pdf
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  @inproceedings{boleda12:regular, abstract = {Many types of polysemy are not word specific, but are instances of general sense alternations such as Animal-Food. Despite their pervasiveness, regular alternations have been mostly ignored in empirical computational semantics. This paper presents (a) a general framework which grounds sense alternations in corpus data, generalizes them above individual words, and allows the prediction of alternations for new words; and (b) a concrete unsupervised implementation of the framework, the Centroid Attribute Model. We evaluate this model against a set of 2,400 ambiguous words and demonstrate that it outperforms two baselines.}, address = {Montr\'{e}al, Canada}, author = {Boleda, Gemma and Pad{\'o}, Sebastian and Utt, Jason}, booktitle = {Proceedings of {*}SEM}, pages = {151--160}, title = {Regular polysemy: A distributional model}, url = {http://www.aclweb.org/anthology/S12-1023.pdf}, year = 2012 }
  Link
  http://www.aclweb.org/anthology/S12-1023.pdf
2. Padó, S., & Utt, J. (2012). A Distributional Memory for German. Proceedings of the KONVENS Workshop on Recent Developments and Applications of Lexical-Semantic Resources. http://www.oegai.at/konvens2012/proceedings/67_pado12w/67_pado12w.pdf
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  @inproceedings{utt12:_distr_memor_german, abstract = {This paper describes the creation of a Distri- butional Memory (Baroni and Lenci 2010) resource for German. Distributional Mem- ory is a generalized distributional resource for lexical semantics that does not have to commit to a particular vector space at the time of creation. We induce a resource from a German corpus, following the original de- sign decisions as closely as possible, and discuss the steps necessary for a new lan- guage. We evaluate the German DM model on a synonym selection task, finding that it can compete with existing models.}, address = {Vienna, Austria}, author = {Padó, Sebastian and Utt, Jason}, booktitle = {Proceedings of the KONVENS workshop on recent developments and applications of lexical-semantic resources}, title = {A Distributional Memory for {G}erman}, url = {http://www.oegai.at/konvens2012/proceedings/67_pado12w/67_pado12w.pdf}, year = 2012 }
  Link
  http://www.oegai.at/konvens2012/proceedings/67_pado12w/67_pado12w.pdf
3. Frank, A., & Padó, S. (2012). Semantics in Computational Lexicons. In C. Maienborn, K. von Heusinger, & P. Portner (Eds.), Semantics: An International Handbook of Natural Language Meaning (Vol. 3, pp. 2887--2917). De Gruyter. http://dx.doi.org/10.1515/9783110253382.2887
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  @incollection{frank09:_seman_comput_lexic, abstract = {This chapter gives an overview of work on the representation of semantic information in lexicon resources for computational natural language processing (NLP). It starts with a broad overview of the history and state of the art of different types of semantic lexicons in Computational Linguistics, and discusses their main use cases. Section 2 is devoted to questions of how to construct semantic lexicons for Computational Linguistics. We discuss diverse modelling principles for semantic lexicons and methods for their construction, ranging from largely manual resource creation to automated methods for learning lexicons from text, semi-structured or unstructured. Section 3 addresses issues related to the cross-lingual and multi-lingual creation of broad-coverage semantic lexicon resources. Section 4 discusses interoperability, i.e., the combination of lexical (and other) resources describing different meaning aspects. Section 5 concludes with an outlook on future research directions.}, author = {Frank, Anette and Pad\'o, Sebastian}, booktitle = {Semantics: An International Handbook of Natural Language Meaning}, editor = {Maienborn, Claudia and von Heusinger, Klaus and Portner, Paul}, pages = {2887--2917}, publisher = {De Gruyter}, title = {Semantics in Computational Lexicons}, url = {http://dx.doi.org/10.1515/9783110253382.2887}, volume = 3, year = 2012 }
  Link
  http://dx.doi.org/10.1515/9783110253382.2887
2011
1. Padó, S., & Peirsman, Y. (Eds.). (2011). Proceedings of the EMNLP Workshop on Geometrical Models of Natural Language Semantics.
  - BibTeX
  BibTeX
  @proceedings{pado11:_proceed_of_emnlp_works_geomet, address = {Edinburgh, UK}, editor = {Pad\'o, S. and Peirsman, Y.}, title = {Proceedings of the EMNLP Workshop on Geometrical Models of Natural Language Semantics}, year = 2011 }
2. Kim, S., Kozareva, Z., Nakov, P., Séaghdha, D. Ó., Padó, S., & Szpakowicz, S. (Eds.). (2011). Proceedings of the ACL Workshop on Relational Models of Semantics.
  - BibTeX
  BibTeX
  @proceedings{kim11:_proceed_of_acl_works_relat, address = {Portland, OR}, editor = {Kim, S. and Kozareva, Z. and Nakov, P. and S\'eaghdha, D. \'O and Pad\'o, S. and Szpakowicz, S.}, title = {Proceedings of the ACL Workshop on Relational Models of Semantics}, year = 2011 }
2009
1. Erk, K., & Padó, S. (2009). Paraphrase assessment in structured vector space: Exploring parameters and datasets. Proceedings of the EACL Workshop on Geometrical Methods for Natural Language Semantics, 57--65. http://www.aclweb.org/anthology/W09-0208.pdf
  - BibTeX
  - Link
  BibTeX
  @inproceedings{erk09:_parap_asses_in_struc_vector_space, abstract = {The appropriateness of paraphrases for words depends often on context: ``grab'' can replace ``catch'' in ``catch a ball'', but not in ``catch a cold''. Structured Vector Space (SVS) is a model that computes word meaning in context in order to assess the appropriateness of such paraphrases. This paper investigates ``best-practice'' parameter settings for SVS, and it presents a method to obtain large datasets for paraphrase assessment from corpora with WSD annotation.}, address = {Athens, Greece}, author = {Erk, Katrin and Pad\'o, Sebastian}, booktitle = {Proceedings of the EACL Workshop on Geometrical Methods for Natural Language Semantics}, pages = {57--65}, title = {Paraphrase assessment in structured vector space: Exploring parameters and datasets}, url = {http://www.aclweb.org/anthology/W09-0208.pdf}, year = 2009 }
  Link
  http://www.aclweb.org/anthology/W09-0208.pdf
2007
1. Padó, S. (2007). Cross-lingual Parallelism and Translational Equivalence: The Case of FrameNet Frames. Proceedings of the NODALIDA Workshop on Building Frame Semantics Resources for Scandinavian and Baltic Languages. https://www.nlpado.de/~sebastian/pub/papers/nodalida07_pado.pdf
  - BibTeX
  - Link
  BibTeX
  @inproceedings{pado07:_cross_paral_trans_equiv, abstract = {Annotation projection is a strategy for the cross-lingual transfer of annotations which can be used to bootstrap linguistic resources for low-density languages, such as role-semantic databases similar to FrameNet. In this paper, we investigate the main assumption underlying annotation projection, cross-lingual parallelism, which states that annotation is parallel across languages. Concentrating on the level of frames, we provide a qualitative and quantitative characterisation of the relationship between translation and cross-lingual parallelism on the basis of a trilingual English–French– German corpus. We link frame (non)-parallelism to different kinds of translational shifts and show that a simple heuristic can detect the majority of such shifts.}, address = {Tartu, Estonia}, author = {Padó, Sebastian}, booktitle = {Proceedings of the NODALIDA Workshop on Building Frame Semantics Resources for Scandinavian and Baltic Languages}, title = {Cross-lingual Parallelism and Translational Equivalence: {T}he Case of {FrameNet} Frames}, url = {https://www.nlpado.de/~sebastian/pub/papers/nodalida07_pado.pdf}, year = 2007 }
  Link
  https://www.nlpado.de/~sebastian/pub/papers/nodalida07_pado.pdf
2006
1. Burchardt, A., Erk, K., Frank, A., Kowalski, A., Padó, S., & Pinkal, M. (2006). The SALSA corpus: a German corpus resource for lexical semantics. Proceedings of LREC 2006. http://www.lrec-conf.org/proceedings/lrec2006/pdf/339_pdf.pdf
  - BibTeX
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  BibTeX
  @inproceedings{burchardt:_salsa, abstract = {This paper describes the SALSA corpus, a large German corpus manually annotated with role-semantic information, based on the syntactically annotated TIGER newspaper corpus (Brants et al., 2002). The rst release, comprising about 20,000 annotated predicate instances (about half the TIGER corpus), is scheduled for mid-2006. In this paper we discuss the frame-semantic annotation framework and its cross-lingual applicability, problems arising from exhaustive annotation, strategies for quality control, and possible applications.}, address = {Genoa, Italy}, author = {Burchardt, Aljoscha and Erk, Katrin and Frank, Anette and Kowalski, Andrea\ and Padó, Sebastian and Pinkal, Manfred}, booktitle = {Proceedings of {LREC} 2006}, title = {The {SALSA} corpus: a {G}erman corpus resource for lexical semantics}, url = {http://www.lrec-conf.org/proceedings/lrec2006/pdf/339_pdf.pdf}, year = 2006 }
  Link
  http://www.lrec-conf.org/proceedings/lrec2006/pdf/339_pdf.pdf
2. Burchardt, A., Erk, K., Frank, A., Kowalski, A., Padó, S., & Pinkal, M. (2006). SALTO -- A Versatile Multi-Level Annotation Tool. Proceedings of LREC 2006. http://www.lrec-conf.org/proceedings/lrec2006/pdf/341_pdf.pdf
  - BibTeX
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  BibTeX
  @inproceedings{burchardt:_salto, abstract = {In this paper, we describe the SALTO tool. It was originally developed for the annotation of semantic roles in the frame semantics paradigm, but can be used for graphical annotation of treebanks with general relational information in a simple drag-and-drop fashion. The tool additionally supports corpus management and quality control.}, address = {Genoa, Italy}, author = {Burchardt, Aljoscha and Erk, Katrin and Frank, Anette and Kowalski, Andrea\ and Padó, Sebastian and Pinkal, Manfred}, booktitle = {Proceedings of {LREC} 2006}, title = {{SALTO} -- A Versatile Multi-Level Annotation Tool}, url = {http://www.lrec-conf.org/proceedings/lrec2006/pdf/341_pdf.pdf}, year = 2006 }
  Link
  http://www.lrec-conf.org/proceedings/lrec2006/pdf/341_pdf.pdf
3. Burchardt, A., Erk, K., Frank, A., Kowalski, A., Padó, S., & Pinkal, M. (2006). Challenges in lexical semantics: Non-compositionality in SALSA corpus annotation. Deutsche Gesellschaft Für Sprachwissenschaft.
  - BibTeX
  BibTeX
  @inproceedings{burchardt06:_chall, address = {Bielefeld, Germany}, author = {Burchardt, Aljoscha and Erk, Katrin and Frank, Anette and Kowalski, Andrea and Pad\'o, Sebastian and Pinkal, Manfred}, booktitle = {Deutsche Gesellschaft für Sprachwissenschaft}, title = {Challenges in lexical semantics: Non-compositionality in {SALSA} corpus annotation}, year = 2006 }
2003
1. Padó, S., & Boleda Torrent, G. (2003). Towards a better understanding of frame element assignment errors. Proceedings of the Workshop on Prospects and Advances in the Syntax/Semantics Interface.
  - BibTeX
  BibTeX
  @inproceedings{pado03:_towar, address = {Nancy, France}, author = {Padó, Sebastian and {Boleda Torrent}, Gemma}, booktitle = {Proceedings of the Workshop on Prospects and Advances in the Syntax/Semantics Interface}, title = {Towards a better understanding of frame element assignment errors}, year = 2003 }
2. Erk, K., Kowalski, A., Padó, S., & Pinkal, M. (2003). Building a Resource for Lexical Semantics. Proceedings of the Workshop on Frame Semantics, XVII. International Congress of Linguists.
  - BibTeX
  BibTeX
  @inproceedings{erk03:_build_resour, address = {Prague, Czech Republic}, author = {Erk, Katrin and Kowalski, Andrea and Padó, Sebastian and Pinkal, Manfred}, booktitle = {Proceedings of the Workshop on Frame Semantics, XVII. International Congress of Linguists}, title = {Building a Resource for Lexical Semantics}, year = 2003 }
3. Erk, K., Kowalski, A., Padó, S., & Pinkal, M. (2003). Towards a Resource for Lexical Semantics: A Large German Corpus with Extensive Semantic Annotation. Proceedings of ACL 2003. http://www.aclweb.org/anthology/P/P03/P03-1068.pdf
  - BibTeX
  - Link
  BibTeX
  @inproceedings{erk03:_towar_resour, abstract = {We describe the ongoing construction of a large, semantically annotated corpus resource as reliable basis for the largescale acquisition of word-semantic information, e.g. the construction of domainindependent lexica. The backbone of the annotation are semantic roles in the frame semantics paradigm. We report experiences and evaluate the annotated data from the first project stage. On this basis, we discuss the problems of vagueness and ambiguity in semantic annotation.}, address = {Sapporo, Japan}, author = {Erk, Katrin and Kowalski, Andrea and Padó, Sebastian and Pinkal, Manfred}, booktitle = {Proceedings of ACL 2003}, note = {Acceptance rate: 20\%}, title = {Towards a Resource for Lexical Semantics: A Large {G}erman Corpus with Extensive Semantic Annotation}, url = {http://www.aclweb.org/anthology/P/P03/P03-1068.pdf}, year = 2003 }
  Link
  http://www.aclweb.org/anthology/P/P03/P03-1068.pdf
4. Erk, K., Kowalski, A., & Padó, S. (2003). The SALSA Annotation Tool. Proceedings of the Workshop on Prospects and Advances in the Syntax/Semantics Interface.
  - BibTeX
  BibTeX
  @inproceedings{erk03:_salsa_annot_tool, address = {Nancy, France}, author = {Erk, Katrin and Kowalski, Andrea and Padó, Sebastian}, booktitle = {Proceedings of the Workshop on Prospects and Advances in the Syntax/Semantics Interface}, title = {The {SALSA} Annotation Tool}, year = 2003 }

Teaching

SS 2018

Lecture "Empirische Methoden der Maschinellen Sprachverarbeitung" (with Antje Schweitzer)
Seminar "Ethics and NLP" (with Thang Vu)

Vita

since 2013:: Professor of Theoretical Computational Linguistics, IMS, Stuttgart University
2010-2013:: Professor of Computational Linguistics, ICL, Heidelberg University
2009-2010:: Juniorprofessor (Assistant Professor) of Computational Linguistics, IMS, Stuttgart University
2007-2009:: Postdoctoral Scholar, Department of Linguistics, Stanford University
2007:: PhD (Dr. phil.) in Computational Linguistics, Saarland University
2002:: MSc in Cognitive Science and Natural Language, University of Edinburgh

Supervision

I offer various BSc and MSc thesis topics. Please come to my office hour or check the IMS theses page on ILIAS.

If you write to me to inquire about internships or external thesis supervision, please add the word 'hospes' to the subject of your email. Otherwise I will not read it.

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Sebastian Padó

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