A Computational Theory of Perspective and Reference in Narrative

A COMPUTATIONAL THEORY OF PERSPECTIVE AND REFERENCE IN NARRATIVE Janyce M. Wlebe and William J. Rapaport Department of Computer Science State University of New York at Buffalo Buffalo, NY 14260 wiebe~s.buffalo.edu, rapapurt~s.buffalo.edu ABSTRACT Narrative passages told from a character's perspective convey the character's thoughts and perceptions. We present a discourse process that recognizes characters' thoughts and perceptions in third-person narrative. An effect of perspective on reference In narrative is addressed: references in passages told from the perspec- tive of a character reflect the character's beliefs. An algorithm that uses the results of our discourse process to understand references with respect to an appropriate set of beliefs is presented. 1. INTRODUCTION. A narrative is often told from the perspective of one or more of its characters; it cam also con- tain passages that are not told from the perspective of any character. We present a computational theory of how readers recognize the current perspective in thixd-person n~- rative, end of the effects of perspective on the way readers understand references in third-person narrative. We consider published novels and short stories, rather than m.ificially constructed narratives. 2. BANFIELD'S THEORY. Our notion of perspective in narrative is based on Ann Bardield's (1982) c~t_egorization of the sentences of narration into subjective and objective sentences. Subjective sentences include those that portray a character's thoughts (represented thought) or present a scene a~ a character perceives it (represented perception). Objec- tive sentences present the story directly, rather than through the thoughts or perceptions of a character. The language used to convey thoughts and perceptions is replete with linguistic elements that make no sense unless they are inter- preted with respect to the thinking or perceiving character's consciousness. Banfield calls them subjective elements; they appear only in subjective sentences and cannot appear within objective sentences. Banfield identifies perspective in narra- tive with subjectivity, which is expressible via subjective elements. We call the thinking or perceiving character of a subjective sentence the subjective character. 3. A DISCOURSE-LEVEL APPROACH. Our task of recognizing the currant perspective is, therefore, to recognize subjective sentences and the subjective characters to whom they are attributed. However, we cannot take a umtence- by-sentence approach, deciding independently for each sen- tence whether it is objective or subjective, and, if subjective, who the subjective character is. First, although thoughts and perceptions are often reported (as by sentences beginning with "He thought that ..." or "She saw ... "), end thoughts are often accompsnied by narrative parerttheticaLs (such as "he thought" or "he realized"), many thoughts and perceptions are not marked in these ways. Second, sub- jective sentences do not always explicitly indicate who the subjective character is. For example: (1) 1"1He wanted to talk to Dennys. 1"2How were they going to be able to get home from this strange desert land into which they had been cast and which was hcaven knew where in all the countless solar systems in all the countless galaxies? [L'Engle, Many Waters, p. 91] (2) ~lBut what [Muhammad] had seen in those …

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