Anaphora and Discourse Structure

Bonnie Webber, Matthew Stone, Aravind Joshi, Alistair Knott

Research output: Contribution to journalArticlepeer-review

Abstract

We argue in this article that many common adverbial phrases generally taken to signal a discourse relation between syntactically connected units within discourse structure instead work anaphorically to contribute relational meaning, with only indirect dependence on discourse structure. This allows a simpler discourse structure to provide scaffolding for compositional semantics and reveals multiple ways in which the relational meaning conveyed by adverbial connectives can interact with that associated with discourse structure. We conclude by sketching out a lexicalized grammar for discourse that facilitates discourse interpretation as a product of compositional rules, anaphor resolution, and inference.
Original languageEnglish
Pages (from-to)545-587
JournalComputational Linguistics
Volume29
Issue number4
DOIs
Publication statusPublished - 1 Dec 2003

Fingerprint

Dive into the research topics of 'Anaphora and Discourse Structure'. Together they form a unique fingerprint.

Cite this