Dialogue semantics for an oral dialogue system
Paul Heisterkamp, Scott McGlashan, Nick Youd · 1992
This paper describes the component in the SUNDIAL spoken dialogue system responsible for semantic interpretation of user input. This component, the `belief module ', constructs interpretations using several sources of knowledge, including static knowledge definitions and a dynamic model of dialogue context, and addresses the problem of the hypothetical nature of the recognition and parsing results as well as the general problems of underspecification and ambiguity. 1 INTRODUCTION We begin by elucidating our notion of dialogue semantics so as to motivate the need for a distinct semantic interpretation component in a spoken dialogue system. We then give an overview of the SUNDIAL system, focusing on interactions between components relevant to the interpretation process. The interpretation process itself is described and illustrated. Finally, we suggest that this interpretation process can be seen as an abductive process. 2 DIALOGUE SEMANTICS Semantic interpretation in spoken dialogue s...