A Semantic Ontology for Dialogue
Jonathan Ginzburg · Oxford University Press eBooks · 2012
This chapter describes the semantic ontology which is the basis for subsequent representation of dialogue contexts. It suggests that a semantic ontology for dialogue needs to provide the following: firstly, a theory of events/situations; secondly, a theory of abstract entities, including an explication of what propositions and questions are; and, thirdly, an account of Grounding/Clarification Interaction conditions. It is argued that the logical framework of Type Theory with Records (TTR) — synthesizing as it does insights from Situation Semantics, Discourse Representation Theory, and Montague Semantics — is particularly adept for this. A detailed introduction to TTR is provided.