The 2026-05-19 cumulative live probe surfaced a stark gap: ~52% of
realistic conversational definition prompts ("Define X", "What does
X mean?", "What is to V?", "How does X work?", "What causes X?")
returned ``grounding_source="none"`` *even though every subject
lemma was pack-resident* across the 9 mounted English packs.
Root cause: the bottleneck was intent classification + subject
extraction, not lexicon coverage. Five patterns either had no rule
or routed to an intent the runtime dispatcher couldn't handle. The
fluency assessment at
``/Users/kaizenpro/.codex/worktrees/6533/core/notes/fluency_assessment_2026-05-19.md``
named these as Root Cause #1 ("public chat path does not use the
cognitive spine") and Root Cause #3 ("proposition graphs are too
thin"). This commit closes the surface-level half of that gap;
the deeper answer-plan layer (gloss propositions, P3 in the
assessment) is the next step.
Patterns fixed in ``generate/intent.py``:
1. ``Define X`` — added ``^define\s+`` rule mapping to
DEFINITION (placed after ``^what is/are``
so multi-word DEFINITION patterns still
prefer the question form).
2. ``What does X mean?`` — was matching TRANSITIVE_QUERY with
relation=``mean``. Now re-routes to
DEFINITION inside ``classify_intent`` so
``pack_grounded_surface`` fires on X.
Other transitive relations (precede,
ground, etc.) remain TRANSITIVE_QUERY.
3. ``What is to V?`` — added infinitive-marker strip to
``_normalize_subject`` for DEFINITION /
RECALL. ``to`` is gated on intent tag so
it never strips a transfer preposition
from CAUSE / VERIFICATION.
4. ``How does X work?`` — added ``_HOW_DOES_X_RE`` (third-person
mechanistic-cause). Distinct from the
first-person PROCEDURE rule ("How do I
X?"). Verbs: work / function / operate /
happen / exist / behave / act / emerge.
5. ``What causes X?`` — added causative-verb rule (causes /
triggers / enables / prevents / drives /
produces / induces / yields) routing to
CAUSE with X as subject.
Deliberate NON-fix: I considered adding a ``pack_grounded_surface``
fallback in the CAUSE / VERIFICATION dispatcher when no teaching
chain matches the subject. Reverted on review — that masks the
"would_have_grounded" discovery-candidate signal the teaching
pipeline uses to identify teaching-content gaps (see
``tests/test_discovery_candidates``). CAUSE on a pack-resident
lemma without a teaching chain stays ``grounding_source=='none'``
so the discovery layer can log the gap honestly.
``chat/pack_grounding.py``:
Extended ``_CORRECTION_TOPIC_STOPWORDS`` to include polarity
markers (no / yes / maybe / perhaps / hardly / indeed / surely /
definitely). Without this the CORRECTION composer would
short-circuit on ``no`` from "No, my parent disagrees" and miss
the topical lemma ``parent``.
Cumulative probe lift (44 realistic conversational prompts):
BEFORE: pack=16 none=23 oov=4 teaching=1 (52% NONE)
AFTER: pack=37 none=2 oov=4 teaching=1 ( 5% NONE)
The remaining 2 NONE responses are CAUSE-shaped prompts with no
teaching chain — deliberately preserved as the discovery-gap
signal described above.
Tests: tests/test_intent_classification_extensions.py — 23 new
tests covering each pattern + the lift invariant.
Verification:
Cognition eval byte-identical on both splits (100/100/91.7/100
public, 100/100/83.3/100 holdout).
All 111 intent-affected tests green:
test_intent_classification_extensions.py (23)
test_intent_proposition_graph.py / test_intent_ratifier.py /
test_intent_subject_extraction.py / test_narrative_example_intents.py
test_procedure_surface.py
test_correction_topic_lemma.py
test_cross_pack_grounding.py (including the polarity-stopword fix)
test_discovery_candidates.py
test_contemplation_wiring.py
test_en_core_polarity_v1_pack.py
b52e04a72f