Anaphora Resolution in ExtrAns

The true power of anaphora resolution algorithms can only be gauged when embedded into specific Natural Language Processing (NLP) applications. In this paper we report on the anaphora resolution module from ExtrAns, an answer extraction system. The anaphora resolution module is based on Lappin and Leass' original algorithm, which used McCord's Slot Grammar as the inherent parser. We report how to port Lappin and Leass' algorithm to Link Grammar, a freely available dependency-based parsing system that is used in a range of NLP applications. Finally, we report on how the equivalence classes that result from the anaphora resolution algorithm are incorporated into the logical forms used by ExtrAns.

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