diff --git a/test/src/edu/stanford/nlp/semgraph/semgrex/SemgrexTest.java b/test/src/edu/stanford/nlp/semgraph/semgrex/SemgrexTest.java
index 3c2b785f34..e19e27d007 100644
--- a/test/src/edu/stanford/nlp/semgraph/semgrex/SemgrexTest.java
+++ b/test/src/edu/stanford/nlp/semgraph/semgrex/SemgrexTest.java
@@ -222,6 +222,21 @@ public void testNegatedRegex() {
             "ate", "blueberry");
   }
 
+  public void testBrokenContainsExpression() {
+    try {
+      // word is a String, not a Map, so this should throw a parse exception
+      SemgrexPattern pattern = SemgrexPattern.compile("{word@foo=bar}");
+      throw new AssertionError("Expected a SemgrexParseException");
+    } catch (SemgrexParseException e) {
+      // good
+    }
+  }
+
+  public void testContainsExpression() {
+    // morphofeatures is a Map, so this should work
+    //SemgrexPattern pattern = SemgrexPattern.compile("{morphofeatures@foo=bar}");
+  }
+
   public void testReferencedRegex() {
     runTest("{word:/Bill/}", "[ate subj>Bill obj>[bill det>the]]",
             "Bill");