A cooperative yes-no query system featuring discourse particles
Kjell Johan Sæbø · 1988
Cooperative dialog systems will offer extended answers to questions, that is, they will volunteer information not explicitly asked for. A complete response will be complex and the member sentences will evince an extensive parallel, the indirect answer substituting an alternative for a focus in the question. Research on discourse particles has shown that they are necessary to ensure coherence between adjacent sentences evincing an extensive parallel, that is, that they reflect discourse relations as given in complex answers, so that such answers emerge as core contexts. Thus the proper mode of representation for discourse particles in a system coincides with the framework of cooperative question-answering. The PASSAT system centers on the rle of particles in characterizing and reflecting relations such as underlie complex response.