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Degree

The UMR guidelines discuss degree constructions in Part 3-3-6. That part focus on degree adverbs like very and somewhat, and on their morphological counterparts in other languages. The keyword degree is used in two different ways:

  • If there is a lexical degree adverb, it is used as a child node of the relation :degree (they refer to it as “attribute” here but it should probably be a “relation” when it gets child concepts).
velmi velký “very large”
(v/ velký-001 'large'
    :degree (v2/ velmi 'very'))

The AMR guidelines provide more examples, as, e.g., I hardly know her.

(k / know-01
  :ARG0 (i / i)
  :ARG1 (s / she)
  :degree (h / hardly))
  • When the degree is expressed morphologically, :degree becomes an attribute with one of the values Intensifier, Downtoner, Equal. The example is from Sanapaná:
ak-yav-ay'-a “very large”
(e/ enyavay'a-00 'large'
    :degree Intensifier)

Compare example 3-3-6 (1) from the Guidelines -- the first part represents the annotation for the morphologically expressed “very” intensifier (in Sanapaná), the second one is for the lexical degree adverb very (in English).

ak-yav-ay'-a=ngkoye		yamet
2/3F-be.large-TI-PFV.NMLZ=INTNS	tree
'The tree is very large.'
(h/ have-mod-91
	:ARG1 (y/ yamet 'tree')
	:ARG2 (e/ enyavay'a-00 'large'
		:degree Intensifier)
	:aspect State
	:modstr FullAff)
	
(h/ have-mod-91
	:ARG1 (t/ tree)
	:ARG2 (l/ large
		:degree (v/ very))
	:aspect State
	:modstr FullAff)
Lexicon: Very - Intensifier

They suggest that in Czech, the lexicon will explain that velmi is an Intensifier. (They actually show it on the example of English very.)

TODO: Lexicon of Czech intensifiers and downtowners

Comparisons and superlatives - degree of a quality

While the UMR guidelines do not analyze comparison, the AMR guidelines do provide some examples. Since UMR does not negate the AMR approach, maybe it is done the same way there. AMR employs the abstract event have-degree-91.
The UMR guidelines mention this abstract event only in one example in Part 3-1-3-8. However, the abstract predicate have-degree-91is listed in the UMR abstract roleset list, with tyhe following set of roles:

Have-degree-91
Arg1: domain, entity characterized by attribute (e.g. girl)
Arg2: attribute (e.g. tall)
Arg3: degree itself (e.g. more, most, less, least, times, equal, enough, too, so, to-the-point, at-least, times)
Arg4: compared-to (e.g. (than the) BOY)
Arg5: superlative: reference to superset
Arg6: reference, threshold of sufficiency (e.g. (tall enough, to ride the rollercoaster) )

the most expensive dress
(d/ dress
    :ARG1-of (h/ have-degree-91
        :ARG2 (e/ expensive)
        :ARG3 (m/ most)))

The superlative in Czech is morphological but the :degree Intensifier attribute would not be appropriate here because nejvíce is not the same concept as velmi. Also, it is not clear how we would use the attribute instead of the have-degree-91 event.

nejdražší šaty “the most expensive dress”
(š/ šaty
    :ARG1-of (h/ have-degree-91
        :ARG2 (d/ drahý-001)
        :ARG3 (n/ nejvíce)))

AMR uses :ARG3 and :ARG4 of have-degree-91 to express the standard of comparison.

According to the AMR Guidelines, "Annotators are encouraged to use have-degree-91 as the root concept (...) when a comparison seems to be the main focus of the sentence, which include cases of the copular construction (e.g., the girl is taller than the boy, she is the tallest girl on the team—see below, see below).

dívka je vyšší než chlapec “the girl is taller than the boy”
(h/ have-degree-91
    :ARG1 (d/ dívka)
    :ARG2 (v/ vysoký-001)
    :ARG3 (v2/ více)   
    :ARG4 (ch/ chlapec))

AMR also uses :ARG6 to express purpose or result (it is small enough to fit in your pocket, he was so tired that he slept for 10 hours).

Problem: :degree vs. have-degree-91:
Where we should use the :degree relation and where the have-degree-91 predicate?
Possible solution: Reserve have-degree-91 only for explicitly expressed comparisons and superlatives (or for cases annotated as comparison in PDT).

Feedback from Julia: I use these in the same way you mentioned above. For sentences like He was the tallest boy in the room, I would use have-degree-91 as the top node of the graph and treat it as an event, with :aspect/:modstr/:temporal dependency.

But for a sentence like she ate the biggest banana of the bunch, I would use have-degree-91 so that I could capture the superset entity as a numbered argument (the bunch), but I wouldn't treat it as an event.

Comparison of quantity

The counterexamples in AMR indicate that the abstract event have-degree-91 should not be used when comparing quantities, as in I need more money or Most students don't like math. On the other hand, the way the AMR examples are annotated probably is not right in UMR, where we have the :quant attribute / relation. See quantity.md.

However, AMR also offers the have-quant-91 abstract predicate which should be used in a parallel way as have-degree-91 for comparison of qualities of things (i.e., if some amount is compared to some reference amount), see Quantity.