A Hybrid Reasoning Model for Indirect Answers

This paper presents our implemented computational model for interpreting and generating indirect answers to Yes-No questions. Its main features are 1) a discourse-plan-based approach to implicature, 2) a reversible architecture for generation and interpretation, 3) a hybrid reasoning model that employs both plan inference and logical inference, and 4) use of stimulus conditions to model a speaker's motivation for providing appropriate, unrequested information. The model handles a wider range of types of indirect answers than previous computational models and has several significant advantages.

[1]  C. Raymond Perrault,et al.  A Plan-Based Analysis of Indirect Speech Act , 1980, CL.

[2]  Gerald Gazdar,et al.  Pragmatics: Implicature, Presupposition, and Logical Form , 1978 .

[3]  Joseph E. Grimes,et al.  The Thread of Discourse , 1984 .

[4]  William C. Mann,et al.  Rhetorical Structure Theory: Toward a functional theory of text organization , 1988 .

[5]  Anna-Brita Stenström,et al.  Questions and responses in English conversation , 1984 .

[6]  Guy Lapalme,et al.  Text generation , 1990 .

[7]  Eduard H. Hovy,et al.  Planning Coherent Multisentential Text , 1988, ACL.

[8]  Nancy Green,et al.  Conversational Implicatures in Indirect Replies , 1992, ACL.

[9]  Alex Lascarides,et al.  Discourse Relations and Defeasible Knowledge , 1991, ACL.

[10]  James F. Allen A plan-based approach to speech act recognition , 1979 .

[11]  Herbert H. Clark,et al.  Definite reference and mutual knowledge In Aravind K. Joshi, Bonnie L. Webber, and Ivan A. Sag, editors , 1981 .

[12]  Nancy Green A computational model for generating and interpreting indirect answers , 1994 .

[13]  Nancy Green,et al.  Normal State Implicature , 1990, ACL.

[14]  P. Brown,et al.  Universals in language usage: Politeness phenomena , 1978 .

[15]  Helmut Horacek,et al.  An Integrated View of Text Planning , 1992, NLG.

[16]  Sandra Carberry,et al.  Plan Recognition in Natural Language Dialogue , 1990 .

[17]  Jerry R. Hobbs Coherence and Coreference , 1979, Cogn. Sci..

[18]  Livia Polanyi,et al.  The Linguistic Discourse Model: Towards a Formal Theory of Discourse Structure. , 1986 .

[19]  B. Webber,et al.  Elements of Discourse Understanding , 1983 .

[20]  Elizabeth Hinkelman,et al.  Linguistic and pragmatic constraints on utterance interpretation , 1990 .

[21]  Michael Halliday,et al.  Cohesion in English , 1976 .

[22]  Julia Hirschberg,et al.  A theory of scalar implicature , 1985 .

[23]  Rachel Reichman-Adar,et al.  Extended Person-Machine Interface , 1984, Artif. Intell..