Logical Structure and Discourse Anaphora Resolution

Logical Structure and Livia Polanyi FX Palo Alto Laboratory 3400 Hillview Ave Bldg 4 Palo Alto CA 94304 polanyi@pal, xerox, com Discourse Anaphora Resolution* Martin van den Berg FX Palo Alto Laboratory 3400 Hillview Ave Bldg 4 Palo Alto CA 94304 vdberg@pal, xerox, com Abstract Working within the Dynamic "Quantifier Logic (DQL) framework (van den Berg 1992, 1996a,b), we claim in this paper that in every language the trans- lation into a logical language will be such that the preference ordering of possible discourse referents for an anaphor in a sentence can be explained in terms of the scopal order of the exp _re~Lslons in the antecedent that introduce the discourse referents. Since the scope of terms is derived from arguments indepen- dent of any discourse theory, our account explal~ discour~ anaphora resolution in terms of general principles of utterance semantics, from whichthe predictions of centering theory follow. When com- b'med with the powerful discourse structural frame- work of the Linguistic Discourse Model (Polanyi (1985, 1986, 1988, 1996) Potanyi and Scha (1984), Scha and Polanyi (1988), Prfist, H., tL Scha and M. tLvan den Berg, 1994; Po~u~, L. and M. H. van den Berg 1996; van den Berg, M. H. 1996b), we provide a uni6ed account of di~ourse anaphora resolution. 1 Introduction In thl. paper, we use a semantic theory based on Dy- namic Quantifier Logic (van den Berg 1992,1998a,b) to present an approach to discom~ anaphora resolu- tion under the Linguistic DL~ourse Model (Polanyi (1985, 1986, 1988, 1996) Pohmyi and Scha (1984), Scha and Pclawfi (1988), Prfmt, H., It Scha and M. H. van den Berg, 1994; Po~q~ L. and M. IL van den Berg 1996; van den Berg, M. H. 1996b). Our treatment integrates the imights of the Center- ~g framework (Jmbi audK,,h- 1979, 1981; Grosz et~l. 1983, 1986, 1995; Gundel 1998; Walker et.al. 1998b) into a -n~Sed theory of discourse level struc- tufa/and semantic relations. In our account, dis- course level aaaphora resolution effects fall out of a general theory of discourse quantification. Scope orderinge in the logical representation of the antecedent utterance result in d|fferences in " The authors dedkate this paper to the memory of Megumi Kameyama (1953-1999), a dedicated researcher and a very dear friend. accessibility for potential referents in a target utterance. No additional c~ntering mechanisms are required, the centering predictions follow from this theory. Our treatment is universal: explanations of rela- tive coherence do not depend on conventions that might differ in different languages. Furthermore, we provide a treatment for the resolution of mul- tiple anaphors, resulting from a range of possi- ble antecedents including plurals and multiple an- tecedents. The approach to discourse anaph°ra resolution we take in this paper integrates a rigorous formal se- mantic machinery within a theory Of discourse strtlc- ture. Before giving a detailed account of our treat- meat of di~murse reference resolution, we would llke to address explicitly some of the positions towards rdereace resolution and discour~ ~mcture which inform our work. 1.1 Theoretical and Methodological …

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