Communicative Triad as a Structural Element of Language Interaction

COMMUNICATIVE TRIAD AS A STRUCTURAL ELEMENT OF LANOUAGE INTERACTION F.G.Dinenberg AI Laboratory, Computer Center Siberian Division of the USSR Ac. Sci. Novosibirsk 630090, USSR ABSTRACT Researches on dialogue natural-language inter- action with intellectual "human-computer" systems are based on models of language "human-to-human" interaction, these models representing descriptions of communication laws. An aspect of developing lan- guage interaction models is an investigation of dialogue structure. In the paper a notion of elemen- tary communicative triad (SR-triad) is introduced to model the "stimulus-reaction" relation between utterances in the dialogue. The use of the SR-triad apparatus allows us to represent a scheme of any dialogue as a triad structure. SR-triad structure being inherent both to natural and programming language dialogues, SR-system is claimed to be necessary while developing dialogue processors. 1. INTRODUCTION In earlier papers devoted to interpersonal interaction iFrank,1981; Levinson,1981] much atten- tion is paid to studying the role of speecb act (SA) in dialogue structure. Considering SA as a principal functional element of language interaction (LI) is of special importance for developing natural language models which are to be practically applied to human-computer natural--language interaction. We proceed from the statement that there are not solitary performed speech acts in real communi- cation, SAs are interconnected and involved in a general LI structure [Wunderlich,1980]. Within the framework of our approach to the formal[ description of dialogue structure a notion of SR-triad reflecting the "stimulus-reaction" relation between utterances in the dialogue is proposed to construct a more adequate representation of dialogue structure. Representing any dialogue as a triad structure (T-structure) in contrast to previous analysis [Hundsnurscher,1981] is characterized by distinguishing three phases in the interaction of the type "stimulus-reaction". First we shall consider different roles of speech acts in the dialogue T-structure. Then we shall introduce three types of relations between SR-triads (intersection, a imbedding and succession) and discuss dialogues with complicated structure which is represented by combinations of these relations and reflects diffe- rent strategies to attain some goal. 2. SR-TRIAD AND A TYPOLOGY OF SAS Any dialogue is considered to be a sequence of SAs distributed in time which is charaterized by: a) a change of roles of the speaker and the hearer between communication participants (further desig- nated as X and Y) and b) certain relations between SAs. Each SA is aimed at accomplishing whole complex of goals/tasks. The discussion of their content is not relevant to the purposes of this paper. So we confine our discussion to one goal (g.X) only asso- ciated with some SA of the author X (SA.X). The very fact of producing an SA which "initiates" g.X raises before the addressee Y a communicative task to react to this goal, i.e. to close g.X positively or nega- tively. Thus between SA.X and the following SAs of Y there appear "stimulus- reaction" relations. Between an initiation and a closure of g.X there may take place intermediate interactions aimed at accomplis- hing the communicative task by Y. The intermediate SAs of Y are associated with goals subordinated …

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