ESSLLI 2001 Workshop
Information Structure, Discourse Structure
and Discourse Semantics
FINAL PAPERS
These are the final papers as they appear on the CD-ROM published by the ESSLLI organizers.
If you want the the entire proceedings, you can
download the the
PDF file here.
Introduction
Two Dimensions of Information Structure in Relation to
Discourse Semantics and Discourse Structure(Final paper: PDF)
Mark Steedman (University of Edinburgh; contact email) and Ivana Kruijff-Korbayová (University of the Saarland; contact email)
Invited
A Note on the Relationship of Information Structure to
Discourse Structure
(Extended abstract: PDF)
Livia Polanyi (FXPAL; contact email), Martin van den Berg (FXPAL; contact email) and David Ahn (University of Rochester; contact email)
Fragments in Information Packaging
(Extended abstract: PDF)
Enric Vallduví (Dept de Traduccio, Universitat Pompeu Fabra; contact email)
Discourse Parsing with a Lexicalized Tree-Adjoining Grammar (D-LTAG)
(Final paper: PDF)
Katherine Forbes, Eleni Miltsakaki, Rashmi Prasad, Anoop
Sarkar, Aravind Joshi and Bonnie Webber
(University of Pennsylvania;
contact email)
We present an implementation of a discourse parsing system for a lexicalized
Tree-Adjoining Grammar for discourse (D-LTAG). We specify the integration
of sentence level and discourse level processing. Our system takes a discourse
(a sequence of sentences) as input, parses the sentences with LEM (an LTAG-based
parser developed by (Sarkar, 2000), extracts discourse connectives and
clausal units from the output derivation representation, and reparses the
same discourse with the discourse grammar. The discourse grammar (D-LTAG)
consists of a set of elementary trees anchored by discourse connectives
or null realizations of feature structures. The system described is based
on the assumption that the compositional aspects of semantics at the discourse
level parallels the compositional semantics at the sentence level. This
coupling is achieved by factoring away inferential semantics and anaphoric
features of discourse connectives. This approach has been developed by
Webber et. al. in some recent papers (Webber and Joshi, 1998; Webber et.
al.1999a;1999b;1999c;2000). Computationally, this parallelism is achieved
because both the sentence grammar and the discourse grammar are LTAG based
and the same parser works at both these levels.
Entangled Information Structure: Analysis of Complex Sentence
Structures(Final paper: PDF)
Nobo Komagata
(University of Pennsylvania; contact
email)
While information structure has traditionally been viewed as a single
partition of information within an utterance, there are opposing views
that identify multiple such partitions in an utterance. The existence of
alternative proposals raises questions about the notion of information
structure itself and also its relation to discourse structure. This paper
supports the traditional view by observing contextual requirements and
linguistic phenomena associated with information structure for each alternative.
Information Structure and the Semantics of ``otherwise'' (Final paper: PDF)
Ivana Kruijff-Korbayová and Bonnie L. Webber
(Charles Unversity,
Prague, Czech Republic and University of Edinburgh, U.K.; contact
email)
We have been developing an account of the semantics of discourse
connectives that takes account of the Information Structure (IS) of the
clauses or sentences they relate. Here we focus on the anaphoric connective
``otherwise'' and show how the IS of its antecedent affects what condition
it can be ``otherwise'' to. This work is part of a larger enterprise aimed
at understanding how discourse structure and semantics conveyed in part
by discourse connectives, interacts with IS in discourse.
Connecting Information and Discourse Structure Levels through
"Kontrast:" Evidence from Colloquial Russian Particles -TO, ZHE, and VED' (Final paper: PDF)
Svetlana McCoy
(Boston University; contact
email)
The notion of kontrast, or the ability of certain linguistic expressions
to generate a set of alternatives, originally proposed by Vallduvi and
Vilkuna (1998) as a clause-level concept, is re-analyzed here as connecting
the level of information packaging in the clause to the level of discourse
structure in the following way: kontrast is encoded at the clausal level
but has repercussions for discourse structure. This claim is supported
by evidence from the distribution properties of three colloquial Russian
particles -to, zhe, and ved' which are analyzed as unambiguous markers
of kontrast. Both the placement of these particles at the clausal level
and their role in discourse are viewed as consequences of the type of the
kontrast set and the cognitive status of information marked by each particle.
Complement set reference (Final paper: PDF)
Rick Nouwen
(Utrecht University, the Netherlands; contact
email)
The paper considers the phenomenon of complement anaphora and offers
an analysis in the framework of optimality theoretic semantics / pragmatics.
Following (Kibble 1997) I argue that witness-hood plays a key role in selecting
suitable antecedents for a plural pronoun. Contrary to Kibble I argue that
there is an additional preference for reference to the so-called REFSET
over all other alternatives. In a way this set represents the aboutness
of the quantification. Reference to the complement set is thus only possible
when two conditions are met: (i) the complement set is a witness verifying
an antecedent sentence and (ii) the reference set is ruled out as an antecedent
for independent reasons.
Discourse Structure and Anaphoric Accessibility
(Final paper: PDF)
Massimo
Poesio and Barbara Di Eugenio
(University of Essex and University of
Illinois; contact email)
We evaluate the predictions of Grosz and Sidner's theory of anaphoric
accessibility using a corpus of tutorial dialogues whose discourse structure
was annotated according to Relational Discourse Analysis. We find support
for Moser and Moore's proposal that only segments with an intentional core
should be viewed as expressing Discourse Segment Purposes; we also find
that both embedded cores and embedded contributors should remain open as
long as the RDA-segment in which they occur is open, and discuss the implications
of this finding for Grosz and Sidner's theory.
Topic Structure in Route Explanation Dialogues
(Final paper: PDF)
Laurent
Prévot
(Université Paul Sabatier, France; contact
email)
This paper deals with dialogue representation, including the semantic
sides. We have been working on a real speech corpus of Route Explanation
Dialogues. The paper follows the tradition of the dynamic semantic (Kamp
and Reyle 1993) background, more exactly in SDRT (Asher 1993) which proposes
a treatment of the semantic-pragmatic interface. Traditionally, this kind
of works has focused on discourse issue, but for a few years they have
been looking at dialogue (Asher and Lascarides 1998). To the rhetorical
and intentional structure proposed by SDRT we add a "topic structure" closely
related to the informational structure.
Relating Contrast and Contrastive Topic: a focus-semantic
analysis of "but" (Final paper: PDF)
Carla Umbach
(Universitaet Leipzig, Germany;
contact
email)
The starting point of this paper is the observation that in a question-answer
dialog the use of "but" instead of "and" is obligatory if the answer is
overinformative in that it includes an additional topic. A focus-semantic
analysis of but is presented showing that (a) but is focus-sensitive and
(b) but requires a denial with respect to the appropriate question. This
analysis provides a uniform basis for explaining the different uses, e.g.
semantic opposition, denial-of-expectation, and the topic change use of
but. Beyond that it gives some insight into the interaction between information
structure and discourse relations in constructing the discourse.
Presupposition or Anaphora: Constraints on Choice of Factive
Complements in Spoken Discourse (Final paper: PDF)
Jennifer Spenader
(Stockholm
University; contact email; zipped
ps; contact email)
Using results from an empirical study of factive verbs in spoken English,
a comparison is made between factive verbs and their presupposed complements,
both bound and accommodated, and their non-presupposing alternatives: abstract
object anaphora that derive an antecedent from a discourse-given linguistic
expression. The role of discourse structural constraints and grounding
in choice of expression and the contexts in which they are used is discussed.
Finally, the results are related to theoretical issues in presupposition
theory having to do with the difference between anaphora and presuppositions,
the ability of presuppositions to accommodate and the nature of accommodation.
Reserve Papers
Information structure and pronominal reference
to clausally introduced entities (Final paper: PDF)
Jeanette K. Gundel (University
of Minnesota) and Michael Hegarty (Louisiana State University) and
Kaja Borthen (NTNU, Trondheim, Norway) (contact
email)
Gundel, Hedberg and Zacharski (1993) propose that the cognitive status
'activated' is a necessary condition for reference with a demonstrative
pronoun, while the more restrictive status 'in-focus' is necessary for
reference with a personal pronoun. In this paper, we examine the role that
information structure plays in determining the cognitive status of clausally
introduced referents. Our account is supported by corpus data.
Contrast - from a contrastive perspective(Final paper: PDF)
Valéria Molnár
(Lund University, Sweden; contact
email)
The main concern of this talk is to address some problems that arise
when defining the concept of contrast and to clarify the relation between
contrast and other concepts of information structure. As to the definition
of the notion of contrast, we need to separate the semantic and pragmatic
aspects of contrastiveness as well as identify different semantic types.
There is abundant cross-linguistic evidence for the hypothesis that certain
types of contrast demand a more fine-grained analysis of topicality and
focusing. It will be argued, however, that contrastiveness not only is
a relevant feature for the parametrization of topicality and focusing,
but that contrast indeed represents an autonomous concept of information
structuring.
Intonational Phrasing and Discourse Segmentation(Final paper: PDF)
Klaus von Heusinger
(University of Konstanz, Germany; contact
email)
Theories that relate intonational structure and discourse structure
concentrate on intonational and informational units that either correspond
to a clause (proposition) or to a single referent. However, intermediate
phrases of the intonational phrasing often segment units that are smaller
than a clause, but that do not introduce a referent. Even though they are
acknowledged (cf. Selkirk's "sense units"), there are no approaches that
account for their role in building the discourse structure. The paper presents
a new approach that describes the representation of such intermediate phrases
and accounts for their functions in the construction of a more fine-grained
discourse structure.
November 6, 2001 Ivana Kruijff-Korbayová