Semantic Interpretation of Pragmatic Clues: Connectives, Modal Verbs, and Indirect Speech Acts

Semantic Interpretation of Pragmatic Clues: Connectives, Modal Verbs, and Indirect Speech Acts Michael GERLACH, Michael SPRENGER University of Hamburg Department of Computer Science, Project WISBER, P.O. Box 302762 Jungiusstrasse 6, I)-2000 Hamburg 36, West Germany Abstract Much work in current research in the field of semantic - pragmatic analysis has been concerned with the interpre- tation of natural language utterances in the context of dialogs. In this paper, however, we will present methods for a primary pragmatic analysis of single utterances. Our investigations involve problems which are not currently well understood, for example how to infer the speaker's intentions by using interpretation of connectives and modal verbs. This work k,; part of the joint project WlSBER which is supported by the German Federal Ministery for Research and Technology. The partners in the project are: Nixdorf Computer AG, SCS GmbH, Siemens AG, the University of Hamburg and the University of Saarbrticken. Introduction Much work in current research in the field of semantic - pragmatic analysis has been concerned with the inter- pretation of ~Latural language utterances in the context of dialogs, e.g., determining the speaker's goals [Allen 83], deriving beliefs of one agent about another [Wilks/Bien 83], and planning speech acts [Appelt 85]. In this paper, however, we will present methods for a primary pragmatic analysis of ,~Jingle utterances to construct user model entries which are the starting point for the higher level inference processes just mentioned. Our investigations involve problems which are not currently well understood, for example, how to infer the speaker's intentions by using interpretation of connectives and modal verbs. Our work is a part of the natural language consultation system WISllER [Bergmann/Gerlach 87]. Consultation dialogs require a much wider class of utterances to be understood than other applications (e.g., for data base interface). In advisory dialogs wants and beliefs play a central role. Although a consultation system must be capable of handling the linguistic means which are used for expressing those attitudes, problems of how to treat modal verbs have received little attention in artificial intelligence and computational linguistics. The interpretation processes described in this paper work with our aemantic representation !anguage IRS [Berg- mann et. al. 87] and generate entries for the user model Representations of utterances in IRS still contain uninter preted linguistic features such as modal verbs, modal hedges, connectives, and tense information. We are pre senting methods for deriving the meaning of these features as they occur in utterances: transforming idiomatically- used indirect speech acts, interpreting connectives in compound sentences, and resolving ambiguities in the meaning of modal verbs by using, i.a., temporal restrictions. The last chapter sketches the technical means used by these processes, i.e., the semantic representation language, the way rules are encoded, and the asscrtional knowledge base containing the user model. Fig. 1 shows the different stages of the interpretation process. First, if a connective is found, the analysis process breaks up the sentence into separate propositions, in the next step idomatically-used indirect speech acts are transformed into a direct …

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