Antecedent and referent types of abstract pronominal anaphora€¦ · Abstract Reference: Danish,...

Beyond Semantics, Göttingen February 23-25 2011

Centre for Language Technology

Antecedent and referent types of abstract pronominal

anaphora

Costanza NavarrettaUniversity of Copenhagen

[email protected]

mailto:[email protected]�

Beyond Semantics, Göttingen February 23-25 2011 Dias 2

Third person singular personal pronouns and demonstrative pronouns having

• as antecedents: copula predicates, verbal phrases, clauses/utterances

• as referents: properties, events, facts, speech acts, situations, propositions

Abstract anaphora



DAD parallel and comparable written and spoken corpora in Danish and Italian (approx. 200000 words in Da, 150000 in It) 2007-2010.

Related work: Webber 1988, Fraurud 1992, Byron & Allen 1998, Gundel et al. 2003, 2005, Recasens & Martí 2008, Artstein & Poesio 2008, Dipper & Zinsmeister 2008,2010.

Corpus-based work




Abstract Anaphora in Danish

• written Danish: • det (it/this/that)• dette (this)

• spoken Danish: • unstressed det (it)• d'et (this/that), • d'et h'er (this)• d'et d'er (that)• dette (this) – very seldom



The Danish part of the DAD corpora

The written corpora: • general language texts, legal texts,

literary texts: 86,832 words. The spoken corpora: • DanPASS monologues: 23,957 words• two-party DanPASS dialogues: 52,145• multi-party LANCHART+TV interviews:

26,304 words.



Annotations and evaluation (Navarretta & Olsen LREC-2008)

Texts: structural information, PoS and lemma, (DDT)Spoken data: PoS, (lemma), stress, (prosody,

phrases, hesitations), speakers, interaction segments, utterances, timestamps;

All data:• 3sn: pronominal type, pronominal function (9),

syntactic function;• anaphoric occurrences: antecedents, syntactic type

of antecedents, semantic type of referent (Asher 1993), referential links and their type (identity/non-identity), anaphoric distance (in clauses);


A: hun skulle nok sørge for han kom deroverShe would certainly make sure that he came over there

B: d’et kunne jeg godt være sikker påof that I could be completely sure

LANCHART 2008

Example



Webber (1988,1991): • Abstract anaphors with same antecedent

can refer to objects of different semantic types; the referred object is created on the spot (ostension).

• Strong preference for use of demonstrative pronouns with clausal antecedents - 83.7% occurrences in written corpus.

Similar figures in other data i.a. Byron & Allen 1998, Gundel et al. 2003, 2004, Hedberg et al. 2007, Navarretta 2007.

Abstract Anaphora in English



Entities introduced in discourse by clauses are only activated in the cognitive status of the addressee: they are often not accessible to reference by personal pronouns; entities introduced in discourse by VPs are “in focus” and can be referred to by personal pronouns (Givenness Hierarchy Gundel et al. 1993) .

Referents of anaphors with clausal antecedents are often facts, situations and propositions.

Hegarty 2003, Gundel et al. 2005



Eckert and Strube 2000, Byron 2002, Strube and Müller 2003, Müller 2007: use difference between personal and demonstrative pronouns in abstract reference in their algorithms.

Non valid criterion in Danish.

Resolution algorithms



Personal pronouns (comprising zero anaphora in Italian) have often clausal antecedents and thus refer to facts, situations and propositions. (In Italian abstract pronominal reference is seldom).

Use of demonstrative pronouns (both individual and abstract) in Danish, Italian and English is different.

Abstract Reference: Danish, Italian vs. English



Although many factors influence reference comprising IS, discourse structure, linguistic and extra-linguistic knowledge, some of the language specific differences in abstract reference are systematic and they should/can be explained in terms of the three languages’ pronominal system and syntax (LREC 2010).

Differences –continued



Pronouns for inanimate entities • English: 1 gender • Danish and Italian:2 inanimate genders

Danish: common and neuter – only latter can be abstract anaphorItalian: feminine and masculine – only latter can be abstract anaphor.

In English more necessary to restrict interpretation: via distinction personal-demonstrative pronoun.

Pronominal System



• constructions as clefts and left dislocations are much more frequent in Danish than in English and Italian, thus in Danish the clause is often the entity which is in "focus" (Gundel et al. 1993) – this partly explains the frequent use of personal pronouns (det and unstressed det) with clausal antecedents;

• word order is relatively free in Italian opposed to Danish and English:the use of abstract substantives in Italian restricts the antecedent search space;

Syntax



Only on Danish data: is there a relation between the type of

pronoun, the clausal type of the antecedents, the type of referents and the anaphoric distance?

If yes this could be used to improve anaphora resolution.

Importance of anaphoric distance (Ariel 1988, 1994)

Present work



• Simple main clause (utterance)• Subordinate clause• Complex clause• Matrix clause• Discourse segment (sequence of main

simple clauses and/or complex clauses)

Clausal types



Both det and dette occur with all types of antecedents, but dette has seldom verbal phrase and copula predicate antecedents.

The most frequent clausal antecedents: 1. subordinate clauses 2. simple main clauses.

Det and dette occur with all types of referent, but dette seldom refers to a property.

Dette refers more often to fact-like objects.

Results in texts



Most frequently used abstract anaphor is the unstressed det.

Most frequently occurring antecedents are 1. simple main clauses 2. complex clauses.

Propositions are most frequently referred to by unstressed pronoun det.

Results in monologues



Most common abstract anaphor is the unstressed det.

Most frequent antecedent types are:1. simple main clauses, 2. complex clauses, 3. verbal phrases (map-task).

Propositions are most frequently referred to by the unstressed pronoun det.

Results in dialogues



Distance Texts Monologues Dialogues

zero 88% 92% 61%

one 8% 5% 27%

two 2% 3% 2%

three 1% 0 0.8%

four…

0.4% 0 0.3%

eleven 0 0 0.01%



With anaphoric distance > 1

• Pronouns: unstressed det in dialogues and the det in texts.

• Syntactic types: subordinate clauses and discourse segments in the texts, simple main clauses and discourse segments in dialogues.

• Referent types: eventualities and fact-like objects.

Distance, antecedents, referents



• Machine Learning: pronominal type + referent type + distance antecedent type (only CL or CL types)

• Find a better way to calculate distance

• Resolution

• Relation with non-verbal behaviours

On-going and future work


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Antecedent and referent types of abstract pronominal anaphora€¦ · Abstract Reference: Danish,...

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