Abstract
This paper outlines a number of ways in which defeasible rules can contribute to the content selection and discourse structuring components of a text generation system. We suggest that, for certain types of descriptive text, the characterisation of discourse structuring mechanisms as operations on or involving defeasible rules provides an attractive framework for addressing important issues in content selection/structuring. We describe an architecture which incorporates defeasible rules into a systemic model of generation, and illustrate its use in the description of objects in a museum gallery.
While defeasible rules are traditionally used in theorem proving applications, to make predictions about the consequences of known facts, we are here concerned with three separate issues: (i) how such rules may need to be expressed by the NLG system in order to achieve its goals; (ii) how their interaction with facts about particular objects enables the use of valuable coherence relations; and (iii) how they are relevant in taking account of the system's user model.
While defeasible rules are traditionally used in theorem proving applications, to make predictions about the consequences of known facts, we are here concerned with three separate issues: (i) how such rules may need to be expressed by the NLG system in order to achieve its goals; (ii) how their interaction with facts about particular objects enables the use of valuable coherence relations; and (iii) how they are relevant in taking account of the system's user model.
Original language | English |
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Title of host publication | In Proceedings of the 6th European Workshop on Natural Language Generation, Gerhard-Mercator University |
Pages | 2-6 |
Number of pages | 5 |
Publication status | Published - 1997 |
Event | 6th European Workshop on Natural Language Generation - Gerhard-Mercator University, Duisburg, Germany Duration: 24 Mar 1997 → 26 Mar 1997 |
Conference
Conference | 6th European Workshop on Natural Language Generation |
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Country/Territory | Germany |
City | Duisburg |
Period | 24/03/97 → 26/03/97 |
Keywords / Materials (for Non-textual outputs)
- defeasible rule
- content selection
- text structuring
- theorem-proving application
- particular object
- certain type
- attractive framework
- important issue
- known fact
- text generation system
- valuable coherence relation
- nlg system
- museum gallery
- separate issue
- systemic model
- descriptive text