Event Pattern-Instance Graph: A Multi-Round Role Representation Learning Strategy for Document-Level Event Argument Extraction
Qizhi Wan, LiuTao LiuTao, Changxuan Wan, Rong Hu, Keli Xiao, Yuxin Shuai
Abstract
For document-level event argument extraction, existing role-based span selection strategies suffer from several limitations: (1) ignoring interrelations among arguments within an event instance; (2) relying on pre-trained language models to capture role semantics at either the event pattern or document, without leveraging pattern-instance associations. To address these limitations, this paper proposes a multi-round role representation learning strategy. First, we construct an event pattern-instance graph (EPIG) to comprehensively capture the role semantics embedded in various direct and indirect associations, including those among roles within event patterns, arguments within event instances, and the alignments between patterns and instances. Second, to enhance the learning of role node representation in the graph, we optimize the update mechanisms for both node and edge representations in the EPIG graph. By leveraging the graph attention network, we iteratively update the representations of role nodes and role edges. The role representations learned from the EPIG are then integrated into the original role representations, further enriching their semantic information. Finally, a role representation memory module and a multi-round learning strategy is proposed to retain and refine role representations learned from previously analyzed documents. This memory mechanism enhances the prediction performance in subsequent rounds of span selection. Extensive experiments on three datasets verify the effectiveness of the model.- Anthology ID:
- 2025.findings-acl.94
- Volume:
- Findings of the Association for Computational Linguistics: ACL 2025
- Month:
- July
- Year:
- 2025
- Address:
- Vienna, Austria
- Editors:
- Wanxiang Che, Joyce Nabende, Ekaterina Shutova, Mohammad Taher Pilehvar
- Venues:
- Findings | WS
- SIG:
- Publisher:
- Association for Computational Linguistics
- Note:
- Pages:
- 1865–1877
- Language:
- URL:
- https://preview.aclanthology.org/ingestion-acl-25/2025.findings-acl.94/
- DOI:
- Cite (ACL):
- Qizhi Wan, LiuTao LiuTao, Changxuan Wan, Rong Hu, Keli Xiao, and Yuxin Shuai. 2025. Event Pattern-Instance Graph: A Multi-Round Role Representation Learning Strategy for Document-Level Event Argument Extraction. In Findings of the Association for Computational Linguistics: ACL 2025, pages 1865–1877, Vienna, Austria. Association for Computational Linguistics.
- Cite (Informal):
- Event Pattern-Instance Graph: A Multi-Round Role Representation Learning Strategy for Document-Level Event Argument Extraction (Wan et al., Findings 2025)
- PDF:
- https://preview.aclanthology.org/ingestion-acl-25/2025.findings-acl.94.pdf