Conversational actions and discourse situations (original) (raw)

The dynamics of discourse situations

1997

The effects of utterances such as cue phrases, keep-turn markers, and grounding signals cannot be characterized as changes to a shared record of the propositions under discussed: the simplest (and arguably most natural) way of characterizing the meaning of these utterances is in terms of a theory in which the conversational score is seen as a record of the discourse situation, or at least of the speech acts that have been performed. The problem then becomes to explain how discourse entities are accessible. We consider three hypotheses about the dynamics of a speech act-based theory of the conversational score, and argue that they could be implemented with relatively minor modifications to the technical tools already introduced in theories such as Compositional DRT.

ATTENTION, INTENTIONS, AND THE STRUCTURE OF DISCOURSE

In this paper we explore a new theory of discourse structure that stresses the role of purpose and processing in discourse. In this theory, discourse structure is composed of three separate but interrelated components: the structure of the sequence of utterances (called the linguistic structure), a structure of purposes (called the intentional structure), and the state of focus of attention (called the attentional state). The linguistic structure consists of segments of the discourse into which the utterances naturally aggregate. The intentional structure captures the discourse-relevant purposes, expressed in each of the linguistic segments as well as relationships among them. The attentional state is an abstraction of the focus of attention of the participants as the discourse unfolds. The attentional state, being dynamic, records the objects, properties, and relations that are salient at each point of the discourse. The distinction among these components is essential to provide an adequate explanation of such discourse phenomena as cue phrases, referring expressions, and interruptions. The theory of attention, intention, and aggregation of utterances is illustrated in the paper with a number of example discourses. Various properties of discourse are described, and explanations for the behavior of cue phrases, referring expressions, and interruptions are explored. This theory provides a framework for describing the processing of utterances in a discourse. Discourse processing requires recognizing how the utterances of the discourse aggregate into segments, recognizing the intentions expressed in the discourse and the relationships among intentions, and tracking the discourse through the operation of the mechanisms associated with attentional state. This processing description specifies in these recognition tasks the role of information from the discourse and from the participants' knowledge of the domain.

Prosodic and lexical indications of discourse structure in human-machine interactions

Speech Communication, 1997

From a discourse perspective, utterances may vary in at least two important respects: (i) they can occupy a different hierarchical position in a larger-scale information unit and (ii) they can represent different types of speech acts. Spoken language systems will improve if they adequately take into account both discourse segmentation and utterance purpose. An important question then is how such discourse-structural features can be detected. Analyses of monologues and human-human dialogues have shown that a good indicator of these factors is prosody, defined as the set of suprasegmental speech features. This paper explores whether speakers also use prosody to highlight discourse structure in a particular type of human-machine interaction, viz., information query in a travel-planning domain. More specifically, it investigates if speakers signal (i) the start of a new topic by marking the initial utterance of a discourse segment, and (ii) whether an utterance is a normal request for information or part of a correction sub-dialogue. The study reveals that in human-machine interactions, both discourse segmentation and utterance purpose can have particular prosodic correlates, although speakers also mark this information through choice of wording. Therefore, it is useful to explore in the future the possibilities of incorporating prosody in spoken language systems as a cue to discourse structure. 0 1997 Elsevier Science B.V.

Dialogue acts as context operators constraining the generation of dialogical discourse

2006

A model of dialogical discourse is presented that uses the notion of dialogue acts operating on the information state of the dialogue participants. The model shows that the generation of dialogue acts, and therefore, the continuation of the discourse, is constrained by properties of the information state of the participant that has the turn. Based on a dialogue modelling approach in terms of dialogue acts as developed in Dynamic Interpretation Theory (DIT), our work expands on context specification and mechanisms for context updating and dialogue act generation during a dialogue.

On relevance in spoken interaction

Papers on Language and Literature, 1984

The problem of what it is that holds a text together has recently received considerable attention. Cf. Halliday and Hassan 1976, Enkvist 1978 and Hatakeyama, Petöfi and Sözer 1983. Under the headings of terms like cohesion, coherence and connexity such phenomena as anaphorical reference, tense sequences and topical maintenance have been investigated. In most of the studies the problem of what it is that connects the successive utterances of a multi-speaker interaction have not been dealt with. In fact, the ...

Lexical, prosodic, and syntactic cues for dialog acts

Proceedings of ACL/ …

1 Introduction The structure of a discourse is reflected in many as- pects of its linguistic realization. These include 'cue phrases', words like now and well which can in- dicate discourse structure, as well as other lexical, prosodic, or syntactic 'discourse markers'. Multi- party ...