A Survey on Legal Question Answering Systems

Many legal professionals think that the explosion of information about local, regional, national, and international legislation makes their practice more costly, time-consuming, and even error-prone. The two main reasons for this are that most legislation is usually unstructured, and the tremendous amount and pace with which laws are released causes information overload in their daily tasks. In the case of the legal domain, the research community agrees that a system allowing to generate automatic responses to legal questions could substantially impact many practical implications in daily activities. The degree of usefulness is such that even a semi-automatic solution could significantly help to reduce the workload to be faced. This is mainly because a Question Answering system could be able to automatically process a massive amount of legal resources to answer a question or doubt in seconds, which means that it could save resources in the form of effort, money, and time to many professionals in the legal sector. In this work, we quantitatively and qualitatively survey the solutions that currently exist to meet this challenge.Comment: 57 pages, 1 figure, 10 table

Acts of Requesting in Dynamic Logic of Knowledge and Obligation

Although it seems intuitively clear that acts of requesting are different from acts of commanding, it is not very easy to sate their differences precisely in dynamic terms. In this paper we show that it becomes possible to characterize, at least partially, the effects of acts of requesting and compare them with the effects of acts of commanding by combining dynamified deontic logic with epistemic logic. One in- teresting result is the following: each act of requesting is appropriately differenti- ated from an act of commanding with the same content, but for each act of request- ing, there is another act of commanding with much more complex content which updates models in exactly the same way as it does. We will also consider an application of our characterization of acts of requesting to acts of asking yes-no questions. It yields a straightforward formalization of the view of acts of asking questions as requests for information

JURI SAYS:An Automatic Judgement Prediction System for the European Court of Human Rights

In this paper we present the web platform JURI SAYS that automatically predicts decisions of the European Court of Human Rights based on communicated cases, which are published by the court early in the proceedings and are often available many years before the final decision is made. Our system therefore predicts future judgements of the court. The platform is available at jurisays.com and shows the predictions compared to the actual decisions of the court. It is automatically updated every month by including the prediction for the new cases. Additionally, the system highlights the sentences and paragraphs that are most important for the prediction (i.e. violation vs. no violation of human rights)

Real-time generation and adaptation of social companion robot behaviors

Social robots will be part of our future homes. They will assist us in everyday tasks, entertain us, and provide helpful advice. However, the technology still faces challenges that must be overcome to equip the machine with social competencies and make it a socially intelligent and accepted housemate. An essential skill of every social robot is verbal and non-verbal communication. In contrast to voice assistants, smartphones, and smart home technology, which are already part of many people's lives today, social robots have an embodiment that raises expectations towards the machine. Their anthropomorphic or zoomorphic appearance suggests they can communicate naturally with speech, gestures, or facial expressions and understand corresponding human behaviors. In addition, robots also need to consider individual users' preferences: everybody is shaped by their culture, social norms, and life experiences, resulting in different expectations towards communication with a robot. However, robots do not have human intuition - they must be equipped with the corresponding algorithmic solutions to these problems. This thesis investigates the use of reinforcement learning to adapt the robot's verbal and non-verbal communication to the user's needs and preferences. Such non-functional adaptation of the robot's behaviors primarily aims to improve the user experience and the robot's perceived social intelligence. The literature has not yet provided a holistic view of the overall challenge: real-time adaptation requires control over the robot's multimodal behavior generation, an understanding of human feedback, and an algorithmic basis for machine learning. Thus, this thesis develops a conceptual framework for designing real-time non-functional social robot behavior adaptation with reinforcement learning. It provides a higher-level view from the system designer's perspective and guidance from the start to the end. It illustrates the process of modeling, simulating, and evaluating such adaptation processes. Specifically, it guides the integration of human feedback and social signals to equip the machine with social awareness. The conceptual framework is put into practice for several use cases, resulting in technical proofs of concept and research prototypes. They are evaluated in the lab and in in-situ studies. These approaches address typical activities in domestic environments, focussing on the robot's expression of personality, persona, politeness, and humor. Within this scope, the robot adapts its spoken utterances, prosody, and animations based on human explicit or implicit feedback.Soziale Roboter werden Teil unseres zukünftigen Zuhauses sein. Sie werden uns bei alltäglichen Aufgaben unterstützen, uns unterhalten und uns mit hilfreichen Ratschlägen versorgen. Noch gibt es allerdings technische Herausforderungen, die zunächst überwunden werden müssen, um die Maschine mit sozialen Kompetenzen auszustatten und zu einem sozial intelligenten und akzeptierten Mitbewohner zu machen. Eine wesentliche Fähigkeit eines jeden sozialen Roboters ist die verbale und nonverbale Kommunikation. Im Gegensatz zu Sprachassistenten, Smartphones und Smart-Home-Technologien, die bereits heute Teil des Lebens vieler Menschen sind, haben soziale Roboter eine Verkörperung, die Erwartungen an die Maschine weckt. Ihr anthropomorphes oder zoomorphes Aussehen legt nahe, dass sie in der Lage sind, auf natürliche Weise mit Sprache, Gestik oder Mimik zu kommunizieren, aber auch entsprechende menschliche Kommunikation zu verstehen. Darüber hinaus müssen Roboter auch die individuellen Vorlieben der Benutzer berücksichtigen. So ist jeder Mensch von seiner Kultur, sozialen Normen und eigenen Lebenserfahrungen geprägt, was zu unterschiedlichen Erwartungen an die Kommunikation mit einem Roboter führt. Roboter haben jedoch keine menschliche Intuition - sie müssen mit entsprechenden Algorithmen für diese Probleme ausgestattet werden. In dieser Arbeit wird der Einsatz von bestärkendem Lernen untersucht, um die verbale und nonverbale Kommunikation des Roboters an die Bedürfnisse und Vorlieben des Benutzers anzupassen. Eine solche nicht-funktionale Anpassung des Roboterverhaltens zielt in erster Linie darauf ab, das Benutzererlebnis und die wahrgenommene soziale Intelligenz des Roboters zu verbessern. Die Literatur bietet bisher keine ganzheitliche Sicht auf diese Herausforderung: Echtzeitanpassung erfordert die Kontrolle über die multimodale Verhaltenserzeugung des Roboters, ein Verständnis des menschlichen Feedbacks und eine algorithmische Basis für maschinelles Lernen. Daher wird in dieser Arbeit ein konzeptioneller Rahmen für die Gestaltung von nicht-funktionaler Anpassung der Kommunikation sozialer Roboter mit bestärkendem Lernen entwickelt. Er bietet eine übergeordnete Sichtweise aus der Perspektive des Systemdesigners und eine Anleitung vom Anfang bis zum Ende. Er veranschaulicht den Prozess der Modellierung, Simulation und Evaluierung solcher Anpassungsprozesse. Insbesondere wird auf die Integration von menschlichem Feedback und sozialen Signalen eingegangen, um die Maschine mit sozialem Bewusstsein auszustatten. Der konzeptionelle Rahmen wird für mehrere Anwendungsfälle in die Praxis umgesetzt, was zu technischen Konzeptnachweisen und Forschungsprototypen führt, die in Labor- und In-situ-Studien evaluiert werden. Diese Ansätze befassen sich mit typischen Aktivitäten in häuslichen Umgebungen, wobei der Schwerpunkt auf dem Ausdruck der Persönlichkeit, dem Persona, der Höflichkeit und dem Humor des Roboters liegt. In diesem Rahmen passt der Roboter seine Sprache, Prosodie, und Animationen auf Basis expliziten oder impliziten menschlichen Feedbacks an

An agent-based architecture for online dispute resolution services

Tese de doutoramento em "Philosophy in Informatics"Conflicts are a natural consequence of our daily social interactions and should be regarded as opportunities to improve some aspect, condition or flaw. In order for conflicts to have positive outcomes, not only from an economical view but also concerning the maintenance of good interpersonal-relationships, tools are needed that can explain to the parties the inner mechanisms of the conflict resolution process, its restrictions and its rules. Only well-informed parties can take good and realistic decisions and better understand the others’. In this thesis, the most important aspects in a conflict resolution process concerning the aforementioned are identified, with the objective of designing a tool that can effectively support the parties from the beginning to the end of the conflict. The resulting tool, UMCourt , has as main objective to support decisions by providing the right information in the right moment to the right stakeholders. Specifically, several problems are addressed that include the definition of a suitable agent-based architecture, the building of important knowledge and the support in the negotiation process, either by generating solutions or by analysing the behaviour of the parties. This last issue is addressed in more detail in this thesis. In fact, the most serious drawback that was identified in current conflict resolution methods is their complete disregard for contextual and subjective information about the parties: the trend has been, for many years, to focus on the objective aspects of the conflict. The main contribution of this thesis is a vision on conflict resolution that goes the other way around: asides from objective information, decisions should also be based on contextual features such as our level of stress, body language, attitudes or our conflict handling style. We rely on this information on a daily basis to communicate efficiently. It results only logical that it should be included in conflict resolution methods that rely so heavily on communication. The approach put forward relies on the analysis of the individual’s behaviour in order to infer such context information. Disputant parties and, in particular, mediators and negotiators, can better understand the state of the participants and take better decisions (e.g. make a pause, understand how a party is affected by an issue). This is particularly important when online dispute resolution methods that rely on cold and impersonal communication technologies (often constituting a barrier to efficient communication) are used.Os conflitos são uma consequência natural das nossas interações sociais e devem ser vistos como oportunidades para melhorar determinados aspetos, condições ou mesmo falhas. Para que tenham resultados positivos, não só do ponto de vista económico mas também do ponto de vista das relações interpessoais, são necessárias ferramentas que expliquem às partes as particularidades do processo, as suas restrições e as suas regras. Apenas partes bem informadas podem tomar decisões realísticas e melhor entender as decisões dos restantes. Nesta tese, os aspetos mais importantes num processo de resolução de conflitos são identificados, com o objetivo de definir uma ferramenta que possa, efetivamente, suportar as partes do início ao fim do conflito. A ferramenta resultante, designada UMCourt , tem como principal objetivo suportar decisões fornecendo a informação certa no momento certo às entidades certas. Especificamente, vários problemas são atacados que incluem a definição de uma arquitetura de software adequada, a construção de conhecimento e o suporte à negociação, quer através da geração de soluções quer através da análise comportamental das partes. Este último tópico é tratado em mais detalhe nesta tese. De facto, a limitação mais significante que foi identificada nos atuais métodos de resolução de conflitos é a negligência da importância dos fatores contextuais e da informação subjetiva acerca das partes: a tendência tem sido no sentido de se focarem apenas nos aspetos objetivos. A principal contribuição desta tese é a de uma visão do processo de resolução de conflitos que aponta no sentido oposto: para além da informação objetiva, as decisões devem também ser baseadas em aspetos contextuais tais como o nível de stress, a linguagem corporal ou o estilo de lidar com o conflito. Enquanto indivíduos, baseamonos nestes aspetos diariamente para comunicar de forma eficiente. É portanto lógico que tal informação seja incluída em métodos de resolução de conflitos que se baseiam de forma tão clara na comunicação. A abordagem proposta baseia-se na análise comportamental de cada indivíduo para aquisiçao da informação de contexto. As partes em conflito e, em particular, os mediadores e negociadores, podem entender melhor o estado de todos os participantes e tomar melhores decisões (e.g. fazer uma pausa, perceber como uma parte é afetada por uma questão). Isto é especialmente importante quando são usados métodos de resolução de conflitos em linha baseados no uso de tecnologias de comunicação frias e impessoais, que geralmente configuram elas próprias um obstáculo à eficiência da comunicação

24th International Conference on Information Modelling and Knowledge Bases

In the last three decades information modelling and knowledge bases have become essentially important subjects not only in academic communities related to information systems and computer science but also in the business area where information technology is applied. The series of European – Japanese Conference on Information Modelling and Knowledge Bases (EJC) originally started as a co-operation initiative between Japan and Finland in 1982. The practical operations were then organised by professor Ohsuga in Japan and professors Hannu Kangassalo and Hannu Jaakkola in Finland (Nordic countries). Geographical scope has expanded to cover Europe and also other countries. Workshop characteristic - discussion, enough time for presentations and limited number of participants (50) / papers (30) - is typical for the conference. Suggested topics include, but are not limited to: 1. Conceptual modelling: Modelling and specification languages; Domain-specific conceptual modelling; Concepts, concept theories and ontologies; Conceptual modelling of large and heterogeneous systems; Conceptual modelling of spatial, temporal and biological data; Methods for developing, validating and communicating conceptual models. 2. Knowledge and information modelling and discovery: Knowledge discovery, knowledge representation and knowledge management; Advanced data mining and analysis methods; Conceptions of knowledge and information; Modelling information requirements; Intelligent information systems; Information recognition and information modelling. 3. Linguistic modelling: Models of HCI; Information delivery to users; Intelligent informal querying; Linguistic foundation of information and knowledge; Fuzzy linguistic models; Philosophical and linguistic foundations of conceptual models. 4. Cross-cultural communication and social computing: Cross-cultural support systems; Integration, evolution and migration of systems; Collaborative societies; Multicultural web-based software systems; Intercultural collaboration and support systems; Social computing, behavioral modeling and prediction. 5. Environmental modelling and engineering: Environmental information systems (architecture); Spatial, temporal and observational information systems; Large-scale environmental systems; Collaborative knowledge base systems; Agent concepts and conceptualisation; Hazard prediction, prevention and steering systems. 6. Multimedia data modelling and systems: Modelling multimedia information and knowledge; Contentbased multimedia data management; Content-based multimedia retrieval; Privacy and context enhancing technologies; Semantics and pragmatics of multimedia data; Metadata for multimedia information systems. Overall we received 56 submissions. After careful evaluation, 16 papers have been selected as long paper, 17 papers as short papers, 5 papers as position papers, and 3 papers for presentation of perspective challenges. We thank all colleagues for their support of this issue of the EJC conference, especially the program committee, the organising committee, and the programme coordination team. The long and the short papers presented in the conference are revised after the conference and published in the Series of “Frontiers in Artificial Intelligence” by IOS Press (Amsterdam). The books “Information Modelling and Knowledge Bases” are edited by the Editing Committee of the conference. We believe that the conference will be productive and fruitful in the advance of research and application of information modelling and knowledge bases. Bernhard Thalheim Hannu Jaakkola Yasushi Kiyok

Les robots et l'Empire du droit. Forces et limites de la gouvernance par le droit pour l'encadrement normatif du développement de la robotique interactive

L’avènement de certaines technologies comme les biotechnologies ou les nanotechnologies a entraîné de nombreux impacts tant positifs que négatifs à l’encontre de divers enjeux techniques, sécuritaires, économiques, éthiques, légaux et sociaux. Compte tenu des récentes avancées réalisées dans les domaines de l’intelligence artificielle et de la microélectronique, le développement de robots destinés à interagir de plus en plus avec les humains apparaît lui aussi soulever une pluralité d’enjeux à titre de technologie de rupture. De fait, le développement de robots interactifs dotés d’un degré d’autonomie décisionnelle de plus en plus complexe soulève de nombreuses incertitudes quant aux impacts qu’ils pourraient entraîner et suscite ainsi de nombreuses réflexions sur leur encadrement normatif. Au cœur de ces réflexions, nous retrouvons un questionnement sur la capacité du droit comme mode de gouvernance à encadrer les enjeux concernés par l’essor de la robotique interactive. En guise de réponse, le soft law est régulièrement invoqué dans la littérature juridique sur la régulation du développement technologique, puisqu’il offrirait une alternative plus efficace compte tenu de sa flexibilité et de son adaptabilité. Le développement de la robotique interactive ne fait pas exception à cette réaction, alors que plusieurs acteurs publics et privés proposent de recourir à des chartes éthiques, des lignes directrices et d’autres types de normes pour mieux prendre en compte les différents enjeux soulevés. Le recours à ces formes alternatives de régulation sociale qu’offre le soft law permettrait ainsi d’assurer un développement plus socialement responsable de robots interactifs. Or, la transposition du constat de l’insuffisance des cadres juridiques effectué pour le développement technologique à celui de la robotique interactive interpelle la nécessaire analyse des forces et des limites autant du droit dur traditionnel (hard law) que celles du soft law à titre de modes de gouvernance sociale. C’est dans cette optique que cette thèse entend contribuer à la réflexion amorcée sur la régulation du développement de la robotique, en examinant jusqu’à quel point la gouvernance qu’offre le droit peut effectivement encadrer les enjeux soulevés par l’essor de robots de plus en plus autonomes. Pour ce faire, le recours à un cadre théorique permettant d’analyser la capacité effective du droit comme mode de gouvernance du développement technologique, et plus particulièrement celui de la robotique, est essentiel. Dans un premier temps, notre cadre théorique situe, puis caractérise les différents champs normatifs du droit comme mode de gouvernance en les catégorisant sous trois formes particulières : le droit dur, le droit souple et le droit mou. Cette cartographie de la normativité du droit comme mode de gouvernance s’inspire ainsi des travaux de C. Thibierge et de l’étude annuelle du Conseil d’État français sur le droit souple. Dans un second temps, notre cadre théorique permet d’examiner la capacité effective du droit comme mode de gouvernance à encadrer l’essor de la robotique en recourant à deux critères d’analyse : (1) son efficacité réelle à prendre en compte les impacts entraînés par le développement de robots interactifs à l’égard des différents enjeux qu’il soulève et (2) son efficacité normative à assurer une légitimité et une adhésion auprès des destinataires visés. La seconde partie du cadre théorique présente ainsi une grille d’analyse d’impacts du développement de la robotique et de la capacité effective du droit à les encadrer, qui se base notamment sur les différents travaux menés par J. Lenoble en matière de gouvernance et par C. Thibierge sur le concept de force normative. Cette thèse permet ainsi d’examiner de quelle manière les trois formes dure, souple et molle du droit mobilisé comme mode de gouvernance peuvent encadrer de manière effective les différents enjeux soulevés par le développement de la robotique interactive. Notre appliquerons d’abord dans un second chapitre notre grille d’analyse à différents dispositifs juridiques du droit dur et souple, notamment reliés au droit réglementaire, à la responsabilité civile et à la protection des renseignements personnels. Le recours à notre grille d’analyse permettra ainsi d’examiner les forces et les limites des normes juridiques de droit dur et souple à encadrer certains enjeux spécifiques, tels que la sécurité humaine et la vie privée, soulevés par le développement actuel et futur de robots interactifs. Nous appliquerons ensuite cette même grille d’analyse dans un troisième chapitre à divers instruments normatifs, comme des codes de conduite et des lignes directrices provenant d’acteurs publics et privés ou encore la Déclaration de Montréal sur le développement responsable de l’intelligence artificielle, qui se rattachent tous à la catégorie du droit mou. Ce faisant, le recours à notre grille d’analyse nous permettra d’illustrer l’ampleur des enjeux sociaux ciblés par le droit mou, de même que leurs différentes limites, lorsque certains instruments normatifs sont mobilisés pour réguler le développement de robots interactifs. De cette manière, cette thèse offre un diagnostic normatif des forces et limites des trois formes de droit mobilisées pour gouverner l’essor de robots interactifs en tenant compte de leur efficacité réelle pour ce faire, ainsi que de leur efficacité normative. L’analyse précise ainsi de quelle manière les normes issues des formes dure, souple et molle du droit peuvent travailler en synergie pour assurer un développement technologique responsable, qui tient compte des différents impacts et enjeux soulevés. Par le fait même, cette thèse ouvre le champ à une réflexion approfondie sur les conditions propices à la mise en œuvre d’une gouvernance par le droit du développement technologique.Abstract: The development of emerging technologies, such as biotechnology and nanotechnology, has caused various positive and negative impacts regarding technical, health and safety, environemental, economical, ethical, legal, and social issues. Given the recent advances in artificial intelligence and microelectronics, robots designed to interact in numerous ways with humans will likely generate the same issues and thus possibly become the next disruptive technology. The development of interactive robots which incorporate an increasingly complex degree of decisional autonomy raise several uncertainties and many consider current legal frameworks inadequate to effectively regulate them. More specifically, these reflections bring the focus on the capacity of the law to govern the issues generated by the rise of interactive robotics. In this context, soft law is often called upon by the legal litterature to regulate technological development, as it provides a flexible and adaptative approach judged more suitable to emerging technologies. Interactive robotics is no different from other disruptive technologies such as nanotechnology or biotechnology and thus, many public and private actors have invoked ethical charters, guidelines and different alternative norms to specifically regulate the various issues raised by social robots. In doing so, the use of soft law as a normative alternative would provide a more socially responsible development of interactive robotics. However, the answer provided by these alternative norms challenges the traditional role of hard law and thus postulates that legal norms are insufficient to regulate interactive robotics. By doing so, this normative stance mobilizes the necessary analysis of the strenghts and limits of hard law and soft law as social modes of governance. In this context, this thesis will contribute to the emerging reflection on the regulation of interactive robotics by examining to what extent the law as a social mode of governance can effectively regulate the numerous issues raised by the rise of autonomous interactive robots. It is thus necessary to mobilize a theoretical framework to analyse the effective capacity of the law as a social mode of governance to regulate the technological development and more specifically the development of interactive robotics. This framework is detailed in the first chapter of the thesis. In the first part of the first chapter, our theoretical framework identifies and characterizes the normative fields related to the concept of law as a social mode of governance, which comprises three different forms: hard law (droit dur), legally recognized soft law (droit souple), and non legally recognized soft law (droit mou). This normative cartography draws on the French annual study from the Conseil d’État on soft law and the theoretical works from Catherine Thibierge on the normativity of the law. In the second part of the first chapter, our theoretical framework provides two analytical criteria to analyse the effective capacity of the law as a social mode of governance to regulate the development of interactive robotics: (1) its real effectiveness to take into account the various impacts raised by interactive robots on certain issues; and (2) its normative effectiveness, which is based on the democratic legitimacy of the norms invoked and the normative adherence they can have upon targeted recipients. The second part of our theoretical framework thus provides an analytical grid which can be used to examine the various impacts raised by the development of interactive robotics and analyse the effective capacity of law as a social mode of governance. This analytical grid is grounded on theoritical works on legal governance from J. Lenoble and on the concept of normative force developped by C. Thibierge. Building on this theoretical framework, our thesis will analyse how the three normative forms identified in the law as a social mode of governance can effectively regulate the various issues raised by the development of interactive robotics. In a second chapter, our analytical grid will be used to analyse hard law and legally recognized soft law norms found in regulatory law, civil liability, and personal information protection legislations. The application of our analytical grid will provide an analysis of the strengths and limits of hard law and legally recognized soft law norms invoked to regulate two specific issues raised by the current and future developement of interactive robotics: safety issues and privacy issues. In a third chapter, the same analytical grid will be used to analyse various normative documents, such as ethical charters and guidelines, codes of conducts issued by public and private actors or the Declaration of Montreal on the responsible development of AI, all of which are categorized as non legally recognized soft law instruments. Our analytical grid will provide an analysis of the normative scope these documents provide and their inherent limits to regulate the numerous issues raised by the development of interactive robots. This thesis will thus offer a normative diagnosis of the strengths and limits of both hard and soft legal norms, whether legally recognized or not, that are mobilized as a social mode of governance by examining their real and normative effectiveness to regulate the rise of sophisticated and autonomous interactive robots. Our analysis details in a specific manner how the three different types of hard and soft legal norms can work in synergy to provide a responsible technological development able to consider the impacts and issues generated by the development of interactive robotics. This thesis opens further discussion on how to set out the appropriate conditions to implement a more responsible legal governance of technological development

Experiencing in Japanese: The Experiencer Restriction across Clausal Types

Adjectives of sensation and emotion (Experiencer adjectives) in Japanese can take only the speaker as their experiencer subject in declarative root sentences and the addressee in interrogative root sentences in conversation. This constraint, which I call the Experiencer restriction, is lifted in other various clauses, however. This dissertation examines the Experiencer restriction across clausal types under scrutiny, and presents two analyses of the phenomenon, following the claim by Krifka (2001, 2004), Speas and Tenny (2003) and others that speech acts are syntactically realized. First, I introduce the phenomenon and give a brief review of its analyses which were made before the proposal of the speech act projection (Chapter 1). Then I explain the Japanese complementizer system and provide basic data on the Experiencer restriction across clausal types (Chapter 2). A conceptual-structural analysis of Experiencers by Jackendoff (1990) and syntactic analyses of Experiencers by Landau (2010) and others suggest that Experiencers are mental locations. Based on that, I propose a situation semantic analysis of Experiencers as mental locations in Chapter 3. In Chapter 4, I apply the situation-based analysis to the Experiencer restriction in non-restrictive relative clauses after arguing that Schlenker’s (2010, 2013a,b) uni-dimensional analysis explains properties of Japanese non-restrictive relative clauses. In Chapter 5, I turn to another possible analysis, according to which Experiencer NPs agree with an epistemic modal head via a sentient feature [sen] and an index feature [n]. It can be seen as a revision of Tenny’s (2006) feature checking analysis, which claims that a [+sentient] feature and a [+discourse participant] feature are checked. I argue that the principle of parsimony favors the situation-based analysis over the feature-checking one. In Chapter 6, I compare recent formal analyses of the Experiencer restriction with my analyses. This dissertation improves our understanding of situation semantics in connection to mind-body dualism. Also, it shows that study of Experiencers in Japanese gives us an insight into the syntax/semantics/pragmatics interface. It tells us not only properties of Experiencers but also properties of speech acts and the speech act projection