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<Paper uid="W00-1007">
  <Title>Abstract Anaphora Resolution in Danish</Title>
  <Section position="4" start_page="57" end_page="57" type="metho">
    <SectionTitle>
CONTINUE
RETAIN
SHIFT
</SectionTitle>
    <Paragraph position="0"> ing ranking constraints on the S-list entities are valid (Strube, 1998)\[p.1253\]: s 1. ifxEOLDandyEMED, thenx~y if x E OLD and y E NEW, then x --&lt; y ifx E MED and y E NEW, then x ~ y 2. if x,y E OLD or x,y E MED or x,y E NEW, then if uttx &gt; Utty then x ~ y if utt~ = utty and posz &lt; posy then x -~ y The S98-algorithm Consists in testing a referring expression against the elements in the S-list from left to right until the test succeeds. The S-list is then updated so that new elements are inserted according to the S-list ranking criteria. When the analysis of an utterance is finished all the entities which were not realized in the utterance axe removed from the S-list.</Paragraph>
  </Section>
  <Section position="5" start_page="57" end_page="58" type="metho">
    <SectionTitle>
3 Eckert and Strube's Algorithm
</SectionTitle>
    <Paragraph position="0"> ES99 propose a new algorithm for resolving anaphors with abstract object antecedents.</Paragraph>
    <Paragraph position="1"> Analyzing a collection of telephone conversations they distinguish the following anaphor types: individual anaphors, discourse deictics, inferrable-evoked anaphors 6 and vague anaphors. Other types of pronoun are not taken into consideration.</Paragraph>
    <Paragraph position="2"> Predicates that are preferentially associated with abstract objects are marked as I-incompatible (*I) while predicates that are preferentially associated with individual objects are marked as A-incompatible (*A).</Paragraph>
    <Paragraph position="3">  plttral pronoun they indirectly co-specifying with a singular NP which indicates a country or an institution. null ES99 define the following *I predicates (Eckert and Strube, 1999b)\[p. 40\]: Equating constructions where a pronominal referent is equated with an abstract object, e.g., x is making it easy, x is a suggestion.</Paragraph>
    <Paragraph position="4"> Copula constructions whose adjectives can only be applied to abstract entities, e.g., x is true, x ks false, x is correct, x is right, x isn't right.</Paragraph>
    <Paragraph position="5"> Arguments of verbs describing propositional attitude which take S'-complements, e.g., assume.</Paragraph>
    <Paragraph position="6"> Object of do.</Paragraph>
    <Paragraph position="7"> Predicate or anaphoric referent is a &amp;quot;reason&amp;quot;, e.g., x is because I like her, x is why he's late.</Paragraph>
    <Paragraph position="8"> Predicates that are preferentially associated with individual objects are the following (Eckert and Strube, 1999b)\[p. 40\]: Equating constructions where a pronominal referent is equated with a concrete individual referent, e.g., x is a ear.</Paragraph>
    <Paragraph position="9"> Copula constructions with adjectives which can only be applied to concrete entities, e.g., x is expensive, x is tasty, x is loud.</Paragraph>
    <Paragraph position="10"> Arguments of verbs describing physical contact/stimulation, which cannot be used anaphorically, e.g., break x, smash z, eat x, drink x, smell x but NOT *see x Grounded acts are used as domain for the anaphor resolution algorithms in dialogues.  In particular two dialogue acts, Initiations (Is) and Acknowledgments (As) are recognized. Is have semantic content, while As are only used to ground the preceding I. Acknowledgments/Initiations (A/Is) are dialogue acts that have both the function of grounding the preceding I and that of establishing a new I. An I and the corresponding A, together with longer Is in the same turn-taking which do not need to be acknowledged, constitute a Synchronizing Unit (SU). Short Is which are not acknowledged are ignored by the resolution algorithms.</Paragraph>
    <Paragraph position="11"> ES99 follow i.a. (Webber, 1991) in assuming that anaphoric discourse deictic reference involves reference coercion and that only discourse sections adjacent to the anaphor or, using Webber's terminology, sections on the right frontier of the discourse structure tree, are available for discourse-deictic reference. Like (Asher, 1993) they assume that the type of abstract object is determined by the context in which the anaphor occurs. Anaphora referring to abstract objects are resolved using a list, the A-list. The A-list is only filled when discourse deictics occur and its elements remain for one I. The parts of the linguistic contexts are accessed in the following order: 1. the A-list; 2. in the same I the clause to the left of the clause which contains the anaphor; 3. within the previous I the rightmost main clause and subordinated clauses to its right; 4. within previous Is the rightmost complete sentence, if previous I is an incomplete sentence. null The anaphora resolution algorithm for third person singular neuter personal pronouns is the following (Eckert and Strube, 1999a): case PRO is I-incompatible if resolveDiscourseDeictic(P RO ) then classify as discourse deictic else classify as vague pronoun; case PRO is A-incompatible if resolveIndividual (PRO ) then classify as individual pronoun else classify as vague pronoun; case PRO is ambiguous if resolveIndividual(PRO ) then classify as individual pronoun else if resolveDiscourseDeictic(PRO) then classify as discourse deictic else classify as vague pronoun; The same algorithm is used for demonstratives, with the exception that the last two if constructions in the algorithm for pronouns are reversed reflecting the preference for demonstratives to be discourse deictics (Webber, 1991).</Paragraph>
  </Section>
  <Section position="6" start_page="58" end_page="60" type="metho">
    <SectionTitle>
4 Danish Data
</SectionTitle>
    <Paragraph position="0"> In this section I shortly describe Danish third person personal and possessive pronouns and demonstrative pronouns. The description focuses on the discourse deictic use of these pronouns based on occurrences in three Danish dialogue collections, Bysoc, 7 SL and PID.</Paragraph>
    <Paragraph position="1"> My description is also based on (Allan et al., 1995). The third person singular personal and possessive pronouns can be found in table 2, while the third person plural personal and possessive pronouns can be found in table 3. s Den, det and de are also used as definite articles (the) and demonstrative determiners (this/that and these/those). In spoken language the demonstratives are always stressed. 9 Den, det, de are demonstratives if followed by the adverbials her and der in which case they correspond to the English this/these and that/those respectively. Furthermore, the demonstratives denne, dette (this) and disse (these) exist.</Paragraph>
    <Paragraph position="2"> Femjnlne and masculine pronouns generally co-refer 1deg with persons, but can also refer to pets as in English. Common gender pronouns refer to common gender nouns which do not denote humans. Common gender nouns denoting humans are neutral as to the sex of the person they refer to. Thus the gender of  gender subject object reflexive possessive pos.refl. feminine hun she hende her sig herself hendes hers si-nJtJne hers  de they dem them sig themselves deres their/theirs the referring pronoun corresponds to the sex of the person the noun refers to.</Paragraph>
    <Paragraph position="3"> Neuter gender pronouns are used to refer to neuter nouns. They can also refer to a few common person nouns in neuter gender, such as barn (child) and menneske (person) if the sex of the person is unknown or irrelevant (syntactic agreement). In case the sex is known or relevant, the appropriate feminine or masculine pronouns are used (semantic agreement). The two cases are illustrated in the following examples: barnet var pd millimeter sd stort det skulle v,~re i l,~ngden og i hovedstcrrelsen og...</Paragraph>
    <Paragraph position="4"> (the child was precisely as high as it ought to be and its head was as big as it ought to and... ) sd ch... jeg kunne gd ud \]or jeg havde mit barnebarn reed pd tre et halvt dr sd..., kunne jeg jo bare holde hami hdnden (so oh... I could leave because I was together with my three and half year old grandchild so..., I could just hold his hand) Both den and det can refer to collective nouns. In this case the choice between the singular den or det and plural de depends on whether the speaker focuses on the collective meaning or on the individuals. Det and in few idiomatic expressions den are also used as expletives.</Paragraph>
    <Paragraph position="5"> In Danish the most frequently used discourse deictic is det which corresponds to it, this or that. Other discourse deictics are det her (this) and det der (that). These two deictics can be used in most of the same contexts as det, although there seems to be a preference for using them to refer to several clauses. The neuter demonstrative dette (this) has also a discourse deictic use, but is mostly used in written language. I did not found any occurrences of it in the three dialogue collections. As discourse deictic det refers to an infinitive or a clause, as it is the case in the following examples: At ryge er \]arligt og det er ogsd dyrt (Smoking is dangerous and it is also expensive) A: Du skal rage en blodprcve (You have to take a blood test) B: Hvorffor det? (Why that.*) Det is also used as the subject complement of vmre (be) and blive (become) in answers.</Paragraph>
    <Paragraph position="6"> A: Blev du ff,~rdig reed opgaven? (Were you done with the task?) B: Ja, det blev jeg (lit. Yes, that was I) (Yes, I was) Det refers to a verb phrase when it is used as the object complement for the verb have (have), gCre (do) and modal verbs as in  Alle faldt, men det gjorde jeg ikke (lit. All fell, but that did I not) (All fell, but I did not) Det refers to a clause in constructions with attitude verbs and other verbs which take clausal complements, such as synes (think), fro (believe) and vide (know), sige (say), hdbe (hope): A: Det begynder snart at regne.</Paragraph>
    <Paragraph position="7"> (It will soon begin to rain) B: Det hdber jeg ikke (lit. That hope I not) (I hope not) In the latter three cases the pronoun det is often topicalized, i.e. it appears before the main verb, in the place that usually is occupied by the subject 11.</Paragraph>
    <Paragraph position="8"> Det can also refer to more clauses, or to something that can vaguely be inferred from the discourse.</Paragraph>
    <Paragraph position="9">  (and then he also got a blood transfusion, didn't he) B: mmh A: det havde hans storebror ogs~i (lit. that had his brother too) (his brother had it too)  A: altsd jeg red ikke om deter noget jeg skal, om deL skal skrives nogen steder eller gCres noget red (so I don't know whether it is something I should do, whether it should be written somewhere or something should be done) In the above example the deictics in the last utterance do not refer to a single clause or predicate, but to the whole family history of icterus.</Paragraph>
    <Paragraph position="10"> To conclude, Danish deictics are used in more contexts than the English ones. Especially noticeable is the Danish use of discourse deictics in cases where elliptical constructions are normal in English. 12</Paragraph>
  </Section>
  <Section position="7" start_page="60" end_page="61" type="metho">
    <SectionTitle>
5 The Adapted ES99-algorithm
</SectionTitle>
    <Paragraph position="0"> On the basis of the deictics in the two Danish dialogue corpora, SL and PID I have established the following *I predicates for Danish: constructions where a pronoun is equated with an abstract object, e.g., x er et forslag (x is a suggestion) copula constructions with adjectives which can only be applied to abstract entities, such as x er sandt (x is true), x er usandt (x is untrue), x er rigtigt (x is correct) arguments of verbs which take S'complements, e.g., fro (believe), antage (ass-me), mene (think), sige (say) anaphoric referent in constructions such as x er /ordi du er holdt op reed at ryge  * object of have (have) if&amp;quot; the verb was not used as a main verb in the previous clause * object of modal verbs  The last four predicates are specific for Danish. I have assumed the following *A predicates, which are mainly' translations of the English ones: * constructions where a pronominal referent is equated with a concrete individual referent, such as x er en legemsdel (x is a body part), x er et barn (x is a baby) * copula constructions with adjectives which can only be applied to concrete entities, such as x er rcdt (x is red) * arguments of verbs describing physical contact/stimulation, which cannot be used anaphorically, e.g. spise x (eat x), drikke x (drink x) As Eckert and Strube notice for English, also in Danish there are cases where the contexts of an anaphor can allow both an individual NP and an abstract object. Some examples are copula constructions like x er godt/ddrligt (x is good/bad), and objects of verbs such as elske (love), hade (hate), foretraekke (prefer). To partially accomodate this, I have added the following condition to the algorithm: in the above cases the anaphor is classified as A* incompatible unless the previous clause contain.~ a raising adjective construction in which case it is considered I* incompatible. Consider the fi)llowing two examples: null Peter boede iet r~dt hus. Det hadede han.</Paragraph>
    <Paragraph position="1"> (Peter lived in a red house. He hated it.) Deter dcdsygt at sidde pd et vaskeri.</Paragraph>
    <Paragraph position="2"> Det hader jeg.</Paragraph>
    <Paragraph position="3"> (It is boring to be in a laundry. I hate it) In the first example the algorithm chooses et r~dt hus (a red house) as the antecedent of det, while in the second example the algorithm chooses at sidde pd et vaskeri (being in a laundry) instead of et vaskeri. There are cases, similar to the first example, where it is impossible, without a deeper analysis of the discourse to determine whether an anaphor refers to an individual NP or an abstract object. null In the test I have taken into account the metaphorical uses of verbs encoded in a semantic lexicon, the Danish SIMPLE lexicon (Pedersen and Nimb, 2000).</Paragraph>
    <Paragraph position="4"> From the analysis of anaphors in the considered dialogue collections I found that many individual anaphors refer back to entities which have not been evoked in the immediately preceding utterances (SUs) and thus they would not be on the S-list (the entities which are not evoked in the current SU are removed from the list). Thus I have extended the scope of resolution for all individual anaphors except the neutral singular. If an antecedent to an individual NP cannot be resolved by looking at the actual S-list, the elements on the S-lists for the preceding SUs are considered. 13</Paragraph>
  </Section>
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