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Veins Theory: a model of global discourse cohesion and coherence

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Laurent RomaryAuthors Info & Claims

ACL '98/COLING '98: Proceedings of the 36th Annual Meeting of the Association for Computational Linguistics and 17th International Conference on Computational Linguistics - Volume 1

Pages 281 - 285

https://doi.org/10.3115/980845.980891

Published: 10 August 1998 Publication History

Abstract

In this paper, we propose a generalization of Centering Theory (CT) (Grosz, Joshi, Weinstein (1995)) called Veins Theory (VT), which extends the applicability of centering rules from local to global discourse. A key facet of the theory involves the identification of «veins» over discourse structure trees such as those defined in RST, which delimit domains of referential accessibility for each unit in a discourse. Once identified, reference chains can be extended across segment boundaries, thus enabling the application of CT over the entire discourse. We describe the processes by which veins are defined over discourse structure trees and how CT can be applied to global discourse by using these chains. We also define a discourse «smoothness» index which can be used to compare different discourse structures and interpretations, and show how VT can be used to abstract a span of text in the context of the whole discourse. Finally, we validate our theory by analyzing examples from corpora of English, French, and Romanian.

References

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Cited By

Mitocariu EAnechitei DCristea D(2013)Comparing discourse tree structuresProceedings of the 14th international conference on Computational Linguistics and Intelligent Text Processing - Volume Part I10.1007/978-3-642-37247-6_41(513-522)Online publication date: 24-Mar-2013
https://dl.acm.org/doi/10.1007/978-3-642-37247-6_41
Uzêda VPardo TNunes M(2010)A comprehensive comparative evaluation of RST-based summarization methodsACM Transactions on Speech and Language Processing 10.1145/1767756.17677576:4(1-20)Online publication date: 18-May-2010
https://dl.acm.org/doi/10.1145/1767756.1767757
Forăscu C(2008)Why don't Romanians have a five o'clock tea, Nor Halloween, but have a kind of Valentines day?Proceedings of the 9th international conference on Computational linguistics and intelligent text processing10.5555/1787578.1787586(73-84)Online publication date: 17-Feb-2008
https://dl.acm.org/doi/10.5555/1787578.1787586
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Veins Theory: a model of global discourse cohesion and coherence
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ACL '98/COLING '98: Proceedings of the 36th Annual Meeting of the Association for Computational Linguistics and 17th International Conference on Computational Linguistics - Volume 1

August 1998

768 pages

Program Chairs:
Christian Boitet
Université Joseph Fourier, Grenoble, France
,
Pete Whitelock
Sharp Laboratories of Europe Ltd., Oxford, United Kingdom

Sponsors

Government of Canada
Université de Montréal

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Association for Computational Linguistics

United States

Publication History

Published: 10 August 1998

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Cited By

Mitocariu EAnechitei DCristea D(2013)Comparing discourse tree structuresProceedings of the 14th international conference on Computational Linguistics and Intelligent Text Processing - Volume Part I10.1007/978-3-642-37247-6_41(513-522)Online publication date: 24-Mar-2013
https://dl.acm.org/doi/10.1007/978-3-642-37247-6_41
Uzêda VPardo TNunes M(2010)A comprehensive comparative evaluation of RST-based summarization methodsACM Transactions on Speech and Language Processing 10.1145/1767756.17677576:4(1-20)Online publication date: 18-May-2010
https://dl.acm.org/doi/10.1145/1767756.1767757
Forăscu C(2008)Why don't Romanians have a five o'clock tea, Nor Halloween, but have a kind of Valentines day?Proceedings of the 9th international conference on Computational linguistics and intelligent text processing10.5555/1787578.1787586(73-84)Online publication date: 17-Feb-2008
https://dl.acm.org/doi/10.5555/1787578.1787586
Jasinskaja EKölsch UMayer J(2007)Nuclear accent placement and other prosodic parameters as cues to pronoun resolutionProceedings of the 6th discourse anaphora and anaphor resolution conference on Anaphora: analysis, algorithms and applications10.5555/1757428.1757430(1-14)Online publication date: 29-Mar-2007
https://dl.acm.org/doi/10.5555/1757428.1757430
Pardo TNunes M(2006)Review and evaluation of dizer – an automatic discourse analyzer for brazilian portugueseProceedings of the 7th international conference on Computational Processing of the Portuguese Language10.1007/11751984_19(180-189)Online publication date: 13-May-2006
https://dl.acm.org/doi/10.1007/11751984_19
Cristea DPostolache OPistol I(2005)Summarisation through discourse structureProceedings of the 6th international conference on Computational Linguistics and Intelligent Text Processing10.1007/978-3-540-30586-6_70(632-644)Online publication date: 13-Feb-2005
https://dl.acm.org/doi/10.1007/978-3-540-30586-6_70
Cristea DIde NMarcu DTablan VKay M(2000)An empirical investigation of the relation between discourse structure and co-referenceProceedings of the 18th conference on Computational linguistics - Volume 110.3115/990820.990851(208-214)Online publication date: 31-Jul-2000
https://dl.acm.org/doi/10.3115/990820.990851
Kibble RPower RElhadad M(2000)An integrated framework for text planning and pronominalisationProceedings of the first international conference on Natural language generation - Volume 1410.3115/1118253.1118265(77-84)Online publication date: 12-Jun-2000
https://dl.acm.org/doi/10.3115/1118253.1118265
Schauer H(2000)From elementary discourse units to complex onesProceedings of the 1st SIGdial workshop on Discourse and dialogue - Volume 1010.3115/1117736.1117742(46-55)Online publication date: 7-Oct-2000
https://dl.acm.org/doi/10.3115/1117736.1117742
Ide NCristea DIida H(2000)A hierarchical account of referential accessibilityProceedings of the 38th Annual Meeting on Association for Computational Linguistics10.3115/1075218.1075271(416-424)Online publication date: 3-Oct-2000
https://dl.acm.org/doi/10.3115/1075218.1075271

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