Centering, Anaphora Resolution, and Discourse Structure

Centering was formulated as a model of the relationship between attentional state, the form of referring expressions, and the coherence of an utterance within a discourse segment (Grosz, Joshi and Weinstein, 1986; Grosz, Joshi and Weinstein, 1995). In this chapter, I argue that the restriction of centering to operating within a discourse segment should be abandoned in order to integrate centering with a model of global discourse structure. The within-segment restriction causes three problems. The first problem is that centers are often continued over discourse segment boundaries with pronominal referring expressions whose form is identical to those that occur within a discourse segment. The second problem is that recent work has shown that listeners perceive segment boundaries at various levels of granularity. If centering models a universal processing phenomenon, it is implausible that each listener is using a different centering algorithm.The third issue is that even for utterances within a discourse segment, there are strong contrasts between utterances whose adjacent utterance within a segment is hierarchically recent and those whose adjacent utterance within a segment is linearly recent. This chapter argues that these problems can be eliminated by replacing Grosz and Sidner's stack model of attentional state with an alternate model, the cache model. I show how the cache model is easily integrated with the centering algorithm, and provide several types of data from naturally occurring discourses that support the proposed integrated model. Future work should provide additional support for these claims with an examination of a larger corpus of naturally occurring discourses.Comment: 35 pages, uses elsart12, lingmacros, named, psfi

Pronominal types and abstract reference in the Danish and Italian DAD corpora

Proceedings of the Second Workshop on Anaphora Resolution (WAR II). Editor: Christer Johansson. NEALT Proceedings Series, Vol. 2 (2008), 63-71. © 2008 The editors and contributors. Published by Northern European Association for Language Technology (NEALT) http://omilia.uio.no/nealt . Electronically published at Tartu University Library (Estonia) http://hdl.handle.net/10062/7129

Modelling the flow of discourse in a corpus of written academic English

Discourse studies attempt to describe how context affects text, and how text progresses from one sentence to the next. Systemic Functional Linguistics (SFL) offers a model of language to describe how information flow varies according to context and co-text through the Textual metafunction, especially using the functions of Participant Identification and Tracking, Theme and Information Structure. These systems were evaluated by assembling a corpus of academic texts and assessing their information flow. Results of the analysis of the three grammatical systems in the Textual Metafunction demonstrate significant patterns, or unmarked choices, where the participant, thematic and information systems combine to powerful effect. Where the systems are not aligned, there is a recognisable effect on the flow of information

On L1 Attrition and Prosody in Pronominal Anaphora Resolution

This thesis is a collection of four studies on pronominal anaphora resolution with a focus on first language (L1) attrition and prosody. In Study I, we explored the temporariness of attrition effects on anaphora resolution in L1 Italian speakers who moved to Sweden after puberty (i.e., late bilinguals). An experimental group of 20 late Italian-Swedish bilinguals and a control group of 21 Italian monolinguals completed a self-paced interpretation task twice, and we measured response preferences and response times. In Study II, we investigated how L1 Italian and L1 Swedish speakers use pause features and prominence cues to resolve globally ambiguous anaphora sentences, and whether their patterns in the use of prosody mirror the divergent coreference patterns in the two languages. 28 L1 Italian speakers and 28 L1 Swedish speakers completed a speech production task, in which we analyzed the inter-clausal pause length and the pronoun’s degree of prosodic prominence, and a control interpretation task, in which we considered response preferences. Study III represents a continuation of Study II, since we examined a group of 18 late Italian-Swedish bilinguals, who completed the same experimental tasks of Study II. Study IV is a theoretical investigation, in which we discussed previous inconsistent findings on anaphora resolution in light of the interplay between hierarchical structure and linear order of a sentence. The results of the four studies suggest, first, that anaphora resolution may also affect null pronouns, and that task-learning effects should be taken into account for further research on L1 re-immersion. Second, they suggest that inter-clausal pause and prosodic prominence of pronouns are likely to break the canonical coreference pattern, both in a null subject language and in a non-null subject language. Third, the findings also reveal that L1 attrition affects prominence patterns and pause features in pronoun resolution. In particular, the longer the residence in the foreign language (FL) environment, the higher the probability that late bilinguals adapt to the FL patterns when they use prosody to resolve anaphora sentences. Fourth, both monolinguals and bilinguals are sensitive to the interplay between hierarchical structure and linear order of anaphora. However, they employ different strategies to interpret an anaphora sentence, in which hierarchical structure and linear order favor different antecedents. The implications of the findings are discussed in light of the role of processing and cross-linguistic influence (CLI) in L1 attrition, as well as in light of the use of prosodic cues to resolve an anaphoric reference, both in relation to the Null Subject Parameter and in relation to L1 attrition

Grammatical properties of pronouns and their representation : an exposition

This volume brings together a cross-section of recent research on the grammar and representation of pronouns, centering around the typology of pronominal paradigms, the generation of syntactic and semantic representations for constructions containing pronouns, and the neurological underpinnings for linguistic distinctions that are relevant for the production and interpretation of these constructions. In this introductory chapter we first give an exposition of our topic (section 2). Taking the interpretation of pronouns as a starting point, we discuss the basic parameters of pronominal representations, and draw a general picture of how morphological, semantic, discourse-pragmatic and syntactic aspects come together. In section 3, we sketch the different domains of research that are concerned with these phenomena, and the particular questions they are interested in, and show how the papers in the present volume fit into the picture. Section 4 gives summaries of the individual papers, and a short synopsis of their main points of convergence