Semantic and dialogue processing in the VERBMOBIL spoken dialogue translation system

In this paper we sketch the role of semantic and dialogue processing in the Verbmobil spoken dialogue translation system. A full demonstration system is currently under development although a "mini\u27; demonstration system has been implemented

Computer-Assisted Language Learning and the Revolution in Computational Linguistics

For a long period, Computational Linguistics (CL) and Computer-Assisted Language Learning (CALL) have developed almost entirely independently of each other. A brief historical survey shows that the main reason for this state of affairs was the long preoccupation in CL with the general problem of Natural Language Understanding (NLU). As a consequence, much effort was directed to fields such as Machine Translation (MT), which were perceived as incorporating and testing NLU. CALL does not fit this model very well so that it was hardly considered worth pursuing in CL. In the 1990s the realization that products could not live up to expectations, even in the domain of MT, led to a crisis. After this crisis the dominant approach to CL has become much more problem-oriented. From this perspective, many of the earlier differences disadvantaging CALL with respect to MT have now disappeared. Therefore the revolution in CL offers promising perspectives for CALL

Dialogue interpreting : data and analysis

Up to the development of the VERBMOBIL-prototype mainly two types of speech data within the domain of appointment scheduling are recorded: 1. German-German dialogues serving as test and training data, 2. Wizard-of-Oz-dialogues and some authentic German-English and German-Japanese dialogues with human interpreter. Most of the dialogues of type 2 are recorded by the VERBMOBIL Subproject 13 in Hamburg and are stored in a special database (DiaBoLiC, Dialogue Interpreting: Analysis Base of Linguistic Corpora). In this paper, we describe characteristic features of the data of type 2, existing analysis and the structure of DiaBoLic, and we present new results of data analysis (extension of the list of dialogue acts for the domain TRAVEL PLANNING, analysis of translation strategies) . As dialogues of type 2 are regarded as relevant for the VERBMOBIL application, the data have been analyzed with reference to key-words in the realization of dialogue acts ([2]). A list of key-words for dialogue acts as well as a list of tested scenarios is attached to this paper

Modelling dialogue: Challenges and Approaches

Schlangen D. Modelling dialogue: Challenges and Approaches. Künstliche Intelligenz. 2005;3/05:23-28

Hybrid discourse modeling and summarization for a speech-to-speech translation system

The thesis discusses two parts of the speech-to-speech translation system VerbMobil: the dialogue model and one of its applications, multilingual summary generation. In connection with the dialogue model, two topics are of special interest: (a) the use of a default unification operation called overlay as the fundamental operation for dialogue management; and (b) an intentional model that is able to describe intentions in dialogue on five levels in a language-independent way. Besides the actual generation algorithm developed, we present a comprehensive evaluation of the summarization functionality. In addition to precision and recall, a new characterization - confabulation - is defined that provides a more precise understanding of the performance of complex natural language processing systems.Die vorliegende Arbeit behandelt hauptsächlich zwei Themen, die für das VerbMobil-System, ein Übersetzungssystem gesprochener Spontansprache, entwickelt wurden: das Dialogmodell und als Applikation die multilinguale Generierung von Ergebnissprotokollen. Für die Dialogmodellierung sind zwei Themen von besonderem Interesse. Das erste behandelt eine in der vorliegenden Arbeit formalisierte Default-Unifikations-Operation namens Overlay, die als fundamentale Operation für Diskursverarbeitung dient. Das zweite besteht aus einem intentionalen Modell, das Intentionen eines Dialogs auf fünf Ebenen in einer sprachunabhängigen Repräsentation darstellt. Neben dem für die Protokollgenerierung entwickelten Generierungsalgorithmus wird eine umfassende Evaluation zur Protokollgenerierungsfunktionalität vorgestellt. Zusätzlich zu "precision" und "recall" wird ein neues Maß - Konfabulation (Engl.: "confabulation") - vorgestellt, das eine präzisere Charakterisierung der Qualität eines komplexen Sprachverarbeitungssystems ermöglicht

Hybrid discourse modeling and summarization for a speech-to-speech translation system

The thesis discusses two parts of the speech-to-speech translation system VerbMobil: the dialogue model and one of its applications, multilingual summary generation. In connection with the dialogue model, two topics are of special interest: (a) the use of a default unification operation called overlay as the fundamental operation for dialogue management; and (b) an intentional model that is able to describe intentions in dialogue on five levels in a language-independent way. Besides the actual generation algorithm developed, we present a comprehensive evaluation of the summarization functionality. In addition to precision and recall, a new characterization - confabulation - is defined that provides a more precise understanding of the performance of complex natural language processing systems.Die vorliegende Arbeit behandelt hauptsächlich zwei Themen, die für das VerbMobil-System, ein Übersetzungssystem gesprochener Spontansprache, entwickelt wurden: das Dialogmodell und als Applikation die multilinguale Generierung von Ergebnissprotokollen. Für die Dialogmodellierung sind zwei Themen von besonderem Interesse. Das erste behandelt eine in der vorliegenden Arbeit formalisierte Default-Unifikations-Operation namens Overlay, die als fundamentale Operation für Diskursverarbeitung dient. Das zweite besteht aus einem intentionalen Modell, das Intentionen eines Dialogs auf fünf Ebenen in einer sprachunabhängigen Repräsentation darstellt. Neben dem für die Protokollgenerierung entwickelten Generierungsalgorithmus wird eine umfassende Evaluation zur Protokollgenerierungsfunktionalität vorgestellt. Zusätzlich zu "precision" und "recall" wird ein neues Maß - Konfabulation (Engl.: "confabulation") - vorgestellt, das eine präzisere Charakterisierung der Qualität eines komplexen Sprachverarbeitungssystems ermöglicht

Annotation of negotiation processes in joint-action dialogues

Situated dialogic corpora are invaluable resources for understanding the complex relationship between language, perception, and action as they are based on naturalistic dialogue situations in which the interactants are given shared goals to be accomplished in the real world. In such situations, verbal interactions are intertwined with actions, and shared goals can only be achieved via dynamic negotiation processes based on common ground constructed from discourse history as well as the interactants' knowledge about the status of actions. In this paper, we propose four major dimensions of collaborative tasks that affect the negotiation processes among interactants, and, hence, the structure of the dialogue. Based on a review of available dialogue corpora and annotation manuals, we show that existing annotation schemes so far do not adequately account for the complex dialogue processes in situated task-based scenarios. We illustrate the effects of specific features of a scenario using annotated samples of dialogue taken from the literature as well as our own corpora, and end with a brief discussion of the challenges ahead