A Computational Approach to the Semantics of Function Words in Dialogue Context
Bernd Ludwig, Günther Görz, Heinrich Niemann · University of Regensburg Publication Server (University of Regensburg) · 2001
The present paper discusses the importance of function words for understanding dialogues. In a spoken language dialogue system (SLDS), they serve for reconstructing assumptions of the user about the domain. The paper gives examples providing evidence for that claim, presents an approach to parsing function words, and shows how their semantics can be integrated into a DRT-based semantic formalism. On that basis, the paper outlines how function words influence the assignment of speech acts to utterances, and in this way reflect the user's mental state. Finally, implications and consequences of the approach to the theory and development of dialogue systems and their applications are discussed briefly.