---
title: "Discovery Procedures for Sublanguage Selectional Patterns:"
description: "Selectional constraints are domain-specific rules about which semantic word classes may combine in… 19 references, cited by 24 papers here."
authors: ["Ralph Grishman", "Lynette Hirschman", "Ngo Thanh Nhan"]
year: 1986
venue: "Computational Linguistics"
source: "https://aclanthology.org/J86-3002/"
licence: "CC BY-NC-SA 3.0 (ACL Anthology, before 2016)"
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summary_licence: "Elamur Cosmic License"
canonical: "https://research.elamur.ai/free/en/papers/grishman-1986-discovery-procedures-sublanguage-selectional-patterns/"
---
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# Discovery Procedures for Sublanguage Selectional Patterns: Initial Experiments

**Authors:** [Ralph Grishman](https://md.research.elamur.ai/free/en/authors/ralph-grishman/), [Lynette Hirschman](https://md.research.elamur.ai/free/en/authors/lynette-hirschman/) and Ngo Thanh Nhan · **Year:** 1986 · **Venue:** [Computational Linguistics](https://md.research.elamur.ai/free/en/venues/cl/) ([Computational Linguistics 1986](https://md.research.elamur.ai/free/en/venues/cl/1986/)) · **Licence:** [CC BY-NC-SA 3.0 (ACL Anthology, before 2016)](https://creativecommons.org/licenses/by-nc-sa/3.0/)

**Links:** [Publisher's page](https://aclanthology.org/J86-3002/) · [PDF](https://aclanthology.org/J86-3002.pdf) · [OpenAlex](https://openalex.org/W1715319291)

**Citations:** 77 citations (OpenAlex, 2026-10-14) · [24](https://md.research.elamur.ai/free/en/papers/grishman-1986-discovery-procedures-sublanguage-selectional-patterns/cited-by/) in our library, of the 149,439 papers whose bibliographies we read

## Summary
Selectional constraints are domain-specific rules about which semantic word classes may combine in clause structures, prepositional phrases, prenominal adjectives and compound nouns. They help a parser reject wrong analyses, but they must be rebuilt for each new subject area, which makes systems hard to port. Grishman, Hirschman and Nhan explore a semi-automated way to acquire these rules. They parse a sample of sublanguage text, in this case medical hospital discharge summaries, with the Linguistic String Parser. They then collect the class co-occurrence patterns found in the analyses and reuse them to constrain parsing of further texts. A relaxation procedure compensates for patterns missing from the collected set. A baseline experiment shows that selection hardly changes how many sentences receive correct parses, but it sharply reduces incorrect ones, so undetected errors become detectable failures. Patterns gathered from a modest sample, combined with relaxation, perform roughly as well as hand-crafted ones. The authors stress that substantial human supervision remains necessary. They suggest combining text-driven collection with interactive elicitation from domain experts.

## Key points
- The test corpus contained 407 sentences and fragments from hospital discharge summaries. It was parsed with the NYU Linguistic String Project medical grammar, an augmented context-free grammar with restrictions written in Restriction Language.
- With manually built selection, results were 76% good, 7% bad and 17% no parse. Without selection, they were 75% good, 17% bad and 8% no parse.
- With selection, 21 sentences went from a good parse to no parse because the constraints were too strict. Another 23 moved from a bad parse to a good or acceptable one.
- The growth curves for discovered patterns indicate that fuller coverage and better parsing would come from a corpus several times the current size.
- Planned next steps include an interactive environment for resolving homographs and ambiguities and for reviewing newly found patterns. The authors also propose bootstrapping through expert elicitation, citing a BBN system that generalizes patterns via a class hierarchy.

*Our summary of the paper, in our own words — not its text. The work belongs to its authors; read it at the links above.*

## Institutions

- [New York University](https://md.research.elamur.ai/free/en/universities/new-york-university/) — University, New York, United States · 219 works · 103,487 citations

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## Cite

Cite as: Ralph Grishman, Lynette Hirschman and Ngo Thanh Nhan. 1986. Discovery Procedures for Sublanguage Selectional Patterns: Initial Experiments. Computational Linguistics.

The paper itself, not this page. BibTeX from the library's record of the work.

```bibtex
@article{grishman1986discovery,
  title = {{Discovery Procedures for Sublanguage Selectional Patterns: Initial Experiments}},
  author = {Ralph Grishman, Lynette Hirschman and Ngo Thanh Nhan},
  journal = {Computational Linguistics},
  year = {1986},
  url = {https://aclanthology.org/J86-3002/}
}
```

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## References

19 references, 0 of them with a card of ours. ↗ leads to the work, «find» searches for one we have no id for yet.

1. Ballard, B.; Lusth, J.; and Tinkham, N. 1984 LDC-I: A Transportable Knowledge-Based Natural Language Processor for Office Environments. ACM Transactions on Office Information Systems 2: 1-25. [find](https://scholar.google.com/scholar?q=Ballard%2C+B%2E%3B+Lusth%2C+J%2E%3B+and+Tinkham%2C+N%2E+1984+LDC%2DI%3A+A+Transportable+Knowledge%2DBased+Natural+Language+Processor+for+Office+Environments%2E+ACM+Transactions+on+Office+Information+Systems+2%3A+1%2D25%2E)
2. Chevalier, M. et al. 1978 TAUM-METEO: Description du Syst~me. Groupe de recherche en traduction automatique, Universit6 de Montr6al. [find](https://scholar.google.com/scholar?q=Chevalier%2C+M%2E+et+al%2E+1978+TAUM%2DMETEO%3A+Description+du+Syst%7Eme%2E+Groupe+de+recherche+en+traduction+automatique%2C+Universit6+de+Montr6al%2E)
3. Grishman, R. and Hirschman, L. 1982 Natural Language Interfaces Using Limited Semantic Information. NSF Final Report, New York University, New York, New York. [find](https://scholar.google.com/scholar?q=Grishman%2C+R%2E+and+Hirschman%2C+L%2E+1982+Natural+Language+Interfaces+Using+Limited+Semantic+Information%2E+NSF+Final+Report%2C+New+York+University%2C+New+York%2C+New+York%2E)
4. Grishman, R.; Hirschman, L.; and Friedman, C. 1982 Natural Language Interfaces using Limited Semantic Information. Proceedings of the 9th International Conference on Computational Linguistics. Prague, Czechoslovakia: 89-94. [find](https://scholar.google.com/scholar?q=Grishman%2C+R%2E%3B+Hirschman%2C+L%2E%3B+and+Friedman%2C+C%2E+1982+Natural+Language+Interfaces+using+Limited+Semantic+Information%2E+Proceedings+of+the+9th+International+Conference+on+Computational+Linguistics%2E+Prague%2C)
5. Grishman, R.; Hirsehman, L.; and Friedman, C. 1983 Isolating Domain Dependencies in Natural Language Interfaces. Proceedings of the Conference on Applied Natural Language Processing. Santa Monica, California: 46-53. [find](https://scholar.google.com/scholar?q=Grishman%2C+R%2E%3B+Hirsehman%2C+L%2E%3B+and+Friedman%2C+C%2E+1983+Isolating+Domain+Dependencies+in+Natural+Language+Interfaces%2E+Proceedings+of+the+Conference+on+Applied+Natural+Language+Processing%2E+Santa+Monica%2C+Cal)
6. Grishman, R.; Nhan, N. T.; and Marsh, E. 1984 Tuning Natural Language Grammars for New Domains. Proceedings o f the Conference on Intelligent Systems and Machines. Rochester, Minnesota: 342-346. [find](https://scholar.google.com/scholar?q=Grishman%2C+R%2E%3B+Nhan%2C+N%2E+T%2E%3B+and+Marsh%2C+E%2E+1984+Tuning+Natural+Language+Grammars+for+New+Domains%2E+Proceedings+o+f+the+Conference+on+Intelligent+Systems+and+Machines%2E+Rochester%2C+Minnesota%3A+342%2D346%2E)
7. Grishman, R.; Nhan, N. T.; Marsh, E.; and Hirschman, L. 1984 Automated Determination of Sublanguage Syntactic Usage. Proceedings of COLING84 (Tenth International Conference on Computational Linguistics). Stanford, California: 96-100. [find](https://scholar.google.com/scholar?q=Grishman%2C+R%2E%3B+Nhan%2C+N%2E+T%2E%3B+Marsh%2C+E%2E%3B+and+Hirschman%2C+L%2E+1984+Automated+Determination+of+Sublanguage+Syntactic+Usage%2E+Proceedings+of+COLING84+%28Tenth+International+Conference+on+Computational+Linguistic)
8. Grosz, B. 1983 TEAM: A Transportable Natural-Language Interface System. Proceedings of Conference on Applied Natural Language Processing. Santa Monica, California: 39-45. [find](https://scholar.google.com/scholar?q=Grosz%2C+B%2E+1983+TEAM%3A+A+Transportable+Natural%2DLanguage+Interface+System%2E+Proceedings+of+Conference+on+Applied+Natural+Language+Processing%2E+Santa+Monica%2C+California%3A+39%2D45%2E)
9. Harris, Z. 1968 Mathematical Structures of Language. Wiley Interscience, New York, New York. [find](https://scholar.google.com/scholar?q=Harris%2C+Z%2E+1968+Mathematical+Structures+of+Language%2E+Wiley+Interscience%2C+New+York%2C+New+York%2E)
10. Hirschman, L.; Grishman, R.; and Sager, N. 1975 Grammatically-based Automatic Word Class Formation. Information Processing and Management 11 : 39-57. [find](https://scholar.google.com/scholar?q=Hirschman%2C+L%2E%3B+Grishman%2C+R%2E%3B+and+Sager%2C+N%2E+1975+Grammatically%2Dbased+Automatic+Word+Class+Formation%2E+Information+Processing+and+Management+11+%3A+39%2D57%2E)
11. Hirschman, L.; Story, G.; Marsh, E.; Lyman, M.; and N. Sager. 1981 An Experiment in Automated Health Care Evaluation of Narrative Medical Records. Computers and Biomedical Research 14: 447-463. [find](https://scholar.google.com/scholar?q=Hirschman%2C+L%2E%3B+Story%2C+G%2E%3B+Marsh%2C+E%2E%3B+Lyman%2C+M%2E%3B+and+N%2E+Sager%2E+1981+An+Experiment+in+Automated+Health+Care+Evaluation+of+Narrative+Medical+Records%2E+Computers+and+Biomedical+Research+14%3A+447%2D463%2E)
12. Hirschman, L. and Sager, N. 1983 Automatic Information Formatting of a Medical Sublanguage. In Kittredge and Lehrberger: 27-80. [find](https://scholar.google.com/scholar?q=Hirschman%2C+L%2E+and+Sager%2C+N%2E+1983+Automatic+Information+Formatting+of+a+Medical+Sublanguage%2E+In+Kittredge+and+Lehrberger%3A+27%2D80%2E)
13. Kittredge, R. and Lehrberger, J., Eds. 1983 Sublanguage: Studies of Language in Restricted Semantic Domains. Series of Foundations of Communications, Walter de Gruyter, Berlin: 27-80. [find](https://scholar.google.com/scholar?q=Kittredge%2C+R%2E+and+Lehrberger%2C+J%2E%2C+Eds%2E+1983+Sublanguage%3A+Studies+of+Language+in+Restricted+Semantic+Domains%2E+Series+of+Foundations+of+Communications%2C+Walter+de+Gruyter%2C+Berlin%3A+27%2D80%2E)
14. Lehrberger, J. 1983 Automatic Translation and the Concept of Sublanguage. In Kittredge and Lehrberger. [find](https://scholar.google.com/scholar?q=Lehrberger%2C+J%2E+1983+Automatic+Translation+and+the+Concept+of+Sublanguage%2E+In+Kittredge+and+Lehrberger%2E)
15. Ralph Grishman, Lynette Hirsehman, Ngo Thanh Nhan Marsh, E. 1983 Utilizing Domain-Specific Information for Processing Compact Text,~ Proceedings of Conference on Applied Natural Language Processing. Santa Monica, California: 99-103. [find](https://scholar.google.com/scholar?q=Ralph+Grishman%2C+Lynette+Hirsehman%2C+Ngo+Thanh+Nhan+Marsh%2C+E%2E+1983+Utilizing+Domain%2DSpecific+Information+for+Processing+Compact+Text%2C%7E+Proceedings+of+Conference+on+Applied+Natural+Language+Processing%2E+S)
16. Marsh, E.; Hamburger, H.; and Grishman, R. 1984 A Production Rule System for Message Summarization. Proceedings of the 1984 National Conference on Artificial Intelligence. Austin, Texas. [find](https://scholar.google.com/scholar?q=Marsh%2C+E%2E%3B+Hamburger%2C+H%2E%3B+and+Grishman%2C+R%2E+1984+A+Production+Rule+System+for+Message+Summarization%2E+Proceedings+of+the+1984+National+Conference+on+Artificial+Intelligence%2E+Austin%2C+Texas%2E)
17. Sager, N. 1981 Natural Language Information Processing: A Computer Grammar of English and its Applications. Addison-Wesley, Reading, Massachusetts. [find](https://scholar.google.com/scholar?q=Sager%2C+N%2E+1981+Natural+Language+Information+Processing%3A+A+Computer+Grammar+of+English+and+its+Applications%2E+Addison%2DWesley%2C+Reading%2C+Massachusetts%2E)
18. Sager, N. and Grishman, R. 1975 The Restriction Language for Computer Grammars of Natural Language. Communications ACM 18: 390-400. [find](https://scholar.google.com/scholar?q=Sager%2C+N%2E+and+Grishman%2C+R%2E+1975+The+Restriction+Language+for+Computer+Grammars+of+Natural+Language%2E+Communications+ACM+18%3A+390%2D400%2E)
19. Weischedel, R. M. and Sondheimer, N . K . 1983 Meta-rules as a Basis for Processing Ill-Formed Input. Journal of Computational Linguistics 9: 161-177. [find](https://scholar.google.com/scholar?q=Weischedel%2C+R%2E+M%2E+and+Sondheimer%2C+N+%2E+K+%2E+1983+Meta%2Drules+as+a+Basis+for+Processing+Ill%2DFormed+Input%2E+Journal+of+Computational+Linguistics+9%3A+161%2D177%2E)

*Updated 30 October 2026*