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Anaphora Resolution Involving Interactive Knowledge Acquisition

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Controlled Natural Language (CNL 2009)

Part of the book series: Lecture Notes in Computer Science ((LNAI,volume 5972))

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Abstract

Anaphora resolution in current computer-processable controlled natural languages relies mainly on syntactic information, accessibility constraints and the distance of the anaphoric expression to its antecedent. This design decision has the advantage that a text can be processed automatically without any additional ontological knowledge, but it has the disadvantage that the author is severely restricted in using anaphoric expressions while writing a text. I will argue that we can allow for a wider range of anaphoric expressions whose resolution requires inference-supporting knowledge, if we consider the anaphora resolution process as an interactive knowledge acquisition process in those cases where no suitable noun phrase antecedent can be found. In particular, I will focus on definite descriptions that stand in a synonymy, subclass/superclass or part-whole relation to their noun phrase antecedent, and show how the original anaphora resolution algorithm of PENG Light can be extended in a systematic way in order to take care of these bridging definite descriptions. The solution to this problem also sheds some light on the adequate treatment of part-whole relations in a controlled natural language context.

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Authors and Affiliations

  1. Centre for Language Technology, Macquarie University, Sydney, 2109, NSW, Australia

    Rolf Schwitter

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  1. Rolf Schwitter
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Editor information

Editors and Affiliations

  1. Department of Informatics & Institute of Computational Linguistics, University of Zurich, Switzerland

    Norbert E. Fuchs

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Schwitter, R. (2010). Anaphora Resolution Involving Interactive Knowledge Acquisition. In: Fuchs, N.E. (eds) Controlled Natural Language. CNL 2009. Lecture Notes in Computer Science(), vol 5972. Springer, Berlin, Heidelberg. https://doi.org/10.1007/978-3-642-14418-9_3

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  • DOI: https://doi.org/10.1007/978-3-642-14418-9_3

  • Publisher Name: Springer, Berlin, Heidelberg

  • Print ISBN: 978-3-642-14417-2

  • Online ISBN: 978-3-642-14418-9

  • eBook Packages: Computer ScienceComputer Science (R0)

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