In this paper we review the current state of research on the issue of discourse structure (DS)/information structure (IS) interface. This field has received a lot of attention from discourse semanticists and pragmatists, and has made substantial progress in recent years. In this paper we summarize the relevant studies. In addition, we look at the issue of DS/ISinteraction at a different level - that of phonetics. It is known that both information structure and discourse structure can be realized prosodically, but the issue of phonetic interaction between the prosodic devices they employ has hardly ever been discussed in this context. We think that a proper consideration of this aspect of DS/IS-interaction would enrich our understanding of the phenomenon, and hence we formulate some related research-programmatic positions.

This dissertation describes a research project concerned with establishing the topical structure of long informal documents. In this research, we place special emphasis on literary data, but also work with speech transcripts and several other types of data. It has long been acknowledged that discourse is more than a sequence of sentences but, for the purposes of many Natural Language Processing tasks, it is often modelled exactly in that way. In this dissertation, we propose a practical approach to modelling discourse structure, with an emphasis on it being computationally feasible and easily applicable. Instead of following one of the many linguistic theories of discourse structure, we attempt to model the structure of a document as a tree of topical segments. Each segment encapsulates a span that concentrates on a particular topic at a certain level of granularity. Each span can be further sub-segmented based on finer fluctuations of topic. The lowest (most refined) level of segmentation is individual paragraphs. In our model, each topical segment is described by a segment centre -- a sentence or a paragraph that best captures the contents of the segment. In this manner, the segmenter effectively builds an extractive hierarchical outline of the document. In order to achieve these goals, we use the framework of factor graphs and modify a recent clustering algorithm, Affinity Propagation, to perform hierarchical segmentation instead of clustering. While it is far from being a solved problem, topical text segmentation is not uncharted territory. The methods developed so far, however, perform least well where they are most needed: on documents that lack rigid formal structure, such as speech transcripts, personal correspondence or literature. The model described in this dissertation is geared towards dealing with just such types of documents. In order to study how people create similar models of literary data, we built two corpora of topical segmentations, one flat and one hierarchical. Each document in these corpora is annotated for topical structure by 3-6 people. The corpora, the model of hierarchical segmentation and software for segmentation are the main contributions of this work.

Linguistic discourse refers to the meaning of larger text segments, and could be very useful for guiding attempts at text mining such as document selection or summarization. The aim of this project is to apply discourse information to Knowledge Discovery in Databases. As far as we know, this is the first attempt at combining these two very different fields, so the goal is to create a basis for this type of knowledge extraction. We approach the problem by extracting discourse relations using unsupervised methods, and then model the data using pattern structures in Formal Concept Analysis. Our method is applied to a corpus of medical articles compiled from PubMed. This medical data can be further enhanced with concepts from the UMLS MetaThesaurus, which are combined with the UMLS Semantic Network to apply as an ontology in the pattern structures. The results show that despite having a large amount of noise, the method is promising and could be applied to domains other than the medical domain. Powered by TCPDF (www.tcpdf.org)

In this thesis a study of discourse segmenting is carried out, which investigates both segment boundaries and segment content. The results are related to discourse theory. We study the questions of how the prosody and the text structure influence subjects' annotations of discourse boundaries and discourse prominence. The hypothesis was that the annotations would be influenced by the discourse type. Two studies were carried out. 1) a study of boundary annotation, 2) a study of prominence annotation. All studies were made on four different discourse types, scripted and spontaneous monologue and scripted and spontaneous dialogue. In addition the annotations were carried out under two different conditions 1) based on transcripts alone and 2) based on transcripts together with access to the speech signal. The results indicate that the boundary annotations were less dependent on the speech signal than the prominence annotations. It seems that subjects have segmented on the basis of the text structure, while prominence to a great extent was annotated on the basis of the prosody. In the case of boundary markings the boundary context in terms of parts of speech differs across speaking styles, which is not the case for the prominences. A separate study of segment intentions was also made, and it was found that the interpretation of a specific intention, questions, seems to be arrived at primarily on the basis of the text structure. However, in some cases also the prosody affects the annotations. The picture that emerges indicates a distribution of labour between text structure and prosody, governed by the principle of economy. In cases where the boundaries were less well definied, as in e.g. spontaneous monologue, the pattern of the prominences was clearer. In cases where the boundaries were more clearly indicated, as in read aloud text, the prominences were less clearly communicated. The findings were interpreted within Grosz and Sidner's (1986) discourse theory. It is suggested that differences in the segmenting strategy originating from the interaction of text structure and prosody can be expressed as differences in the contributions from the different components of discourse suggested in the framework of Grosz and Sidner (1986). / <p>För att köpa boken skicka en beställning till exp@ling.su.se/ To order the book send an e-mail to exp@ling.su.se</p>

Cette thèse s’inscrit à l’interface d’une part de la phonétique et de la phonologie prosodiques et d’autre part de l’analyse du discours. Plus spécifiquement, ce travail a eu pour objet de décrire et d’expliquer les phénomènes relatifs au marquage prosodique de la structure du discours narratif en français. Notre méthodologie s’appuie sur l’analyse d’un corpus de 58mn de parole naturelle issue des narrations de 20 locuteurs français natifs, qui devaient raconter le contenu de BD. D’une part, le corpus a été aligné aux niveaux phonématique, syllabique, lexical et en unités inter-pausales ; des données acoustico-phonétiques ont ensuite été extraites à tous ces niveaux de granularité. D’autre part, nous avons appliqué une segmentation en parties narratives selon les critères du modèle de Labov (1972) qui se base sur des critères sémantiques et informationnels. La mise en correspondance de ces deux analyses a été faite sur deux niveaux structurels : global et local. Les résultats ont démontré l’existence d’un lien entre le découpage séquentiel narratif et les variations à long terme de la mélodie, du débit de parole et de l’intensité. Toutefois ces résultats n’ont pas mis en évidence un effet des variations prosodiques à court terme sur le découpage structurel. Par ailleurs, nous avons pu démontrer, pour chaque domaine prosodique, la réalisation d’une réinitialisation au niveau de l’enchainement narratif. Sans prôner une relation biunivoque entre organisation prosodique et structuration discursive, nos résultats démontrent ainsi que la prosodie, au même titre que la syntaxe ou la sémantique, participe aux marquages de la continuité et de la discontinuité informationnelles. / This thesis is at the interface of, on one hand, prosodic phonetics and phonology and, on the other hand, of discourse analysis. More specifically, this work aims to describe, explain and compare the phenomena related to prosodic marking of the narrative structure of discourse in French.Our methodology is based on the analysis of a 58-minute-long corpus of 20 natural speech narratives by French native speakers, who were asked to tell the content of comics without any warning. On one hand, the corpus was aligned with phonemic, syllabic, lexical and inter-pausales units levels; acoustic-phonetic data was then extracted automatically with all levels of granularity. On the second hand, we applied a narrative segmentation according to the criteria of Labov’s evaluative model (1972) which is based on semantic and informational criteria.The mapping of these two analyzes was made on two structural levels: global and local. The results showed the existence of a link between the narrative sequential segmentation and long-term variations of melody, speech rate and intensity. However, these results did not show an effect in the short term prosodic variations related to the structural segmentation. Furthermore, we demonstrated that for each prosodic domain, the realization of a reset at the narrative junction.Without advocating one relationship between prosodic and discursive organization structure, our results demonstrate, that prosody, as well as syntax or semantics, takes part in marking informational continuity and discontinuity.

This dissertation investigates the interrelation between information structure and discourse structure. Information-structurally backgrounded material is here generally treated as being anaphoric in a very strict sense. It is argued that, apart from having more descriptive content, elements from the sentence background are not different from other types of anaphora: they are subject to the same locality restrictions and they must correspond to the same semantic types. The treatment of the sentence background as a monolithic and atomic unit is refuted. Instead it is argued that sentence backgrounds may be built up from smaller units which are linguistically realise as links and tails (in the sense of Vallduví, 1992). It is shown that links and tails play different roles with respect to the structure of discourse: linguistically realised links have to be bound by a discourse topic, while tails have to be bound by other salient referents within the discourse environment. / Este trabajo investiga la interrelación entre la estructura informativa y la estructura del discurso. El material del trasfondo lingüístico (background) de la oración se trata como una serie de elementos anafóricos en sentido estricto. Aunque tengan más contenido descriptivo, comparten las mismas características con otros tipos de anáfora en términos de restricciones de localidad y del tipo semántico. Se rechaza un tratamiento del background de la oración como una unidad atómica. En este trabajo se argumenta que el background se puede construir a partir de elementos más fundamentales, llamados links y tails (siguiendo Vallduví, 1992). Links y tails juegan un papel muy distinto con respecto a la estructura del discurso: los constituyentes realizados como links tienen que estar ligados por un tópico discursivo, mientras que los constituyentes realizados como tails necesitan estar ligados por otros referentes discursivos que estén salientes en el entorno del discurso.

No description available.

本研究使用Schiffrin (1987) 提出的言談結構（discourse structure）為分析架構，旨在觀察漢語兒童在同儕互動中使用口語中常出現的言談標記「好」和「對」的情形，藉以檢驗其如何反映漢語兒童的溝通技巧以及同儕互動的特性。研究語料來自六位五歲的漢語兒童兩兩之間互動的對話，共237分鐘。 研究發現五歲漢語兒童能掌握言談標記「好」和「對」在三個言談結構的功能，且他們使用此兩個言談標記的不同功能時有所異同。首先，「好」和「對」主要使用於交談順序結構（exchange structure）作為表同意的標記。雖然在成人對話中「好」和「對」皆可用於交談順序結構及語意結構（ideational structure），作為表知曉（acknowledgement）的反饋應答標記和話題轉換（topic transition）標記，但研究結果發現漢語兒童在交談順序結構中只使用「好」作為表知曉的反饋應答標記；在語意結構只用「對」作為話題轉換標記。研究結果顯示五歲漢語兒童在與同儕互動時，已能夠使用反饋標記「好」表現參與對方話題的意願，而他們不使用「對」則可能與「對」作為反饋應答標記時的用法和應答詞（backchannels）相似有關。根據先前研究指出應答詞屬於兒童較晚才習得的溝通技巧（Hess & Johnston, 1988）。此外，五歲漢語兒童亦展現出使用話題轉換標記「對」的能力，顯示他們已知道如何使用言談標記幫助建構言談連貫性（discourse coherence）；而他們選擇使用「對」而非「好」來轉換話題，則可能與「好」的此項功能所隱含的發話者權威性有關（Chen & Liu, 2009），若使用這類帶有發話者權威的言談標記，則可能損害其與同儕間的關係。本研究因而推論漢語兒童在同儕互動中言談標記「好」和「對」各種功能的使用，不僅僅顯示出他們的溝通技巧，同時也反映了同儕互動的特性。 / The thesis aims to investigate Mandarin-speaking children’s use of two frequently appearing discourse markers, hao ‘okay’ and dui ‘right’, when interacting with peers in order to examine how their use of these markers may reflect their communicative skills and the characteristics of peer relation. The data included 237 minutes of 5-year-old Mandarin children’s conversations with friends while playing. Schiffrin’s (1987) model of discourse structures, which includes the exchange structure, the action structure, the ideational structures, the participation frameworks, and the information state, was used for the analysis. The results showed that Mandarin-speaking children used hao in the information state, the exchange structure and the action structure while dui in the information state, the exchange structure and the ideational structure. The functions of hao and dui in the present data demonstrated several similarities and differences. Both markers were used by the children in the exchange structure to show the speaker’s agreement. However, only hao functioned as an acknowledgement marker to indicate the receipt of information in the exchange structure while only dui marking topic transitions in the ideational structure, even though both markers can serve these two functions in adult conversation. Mandarin-speaking children’s use of hao and dui to express agreements, which indicates their collaborative stances, may help them establish alliances with each other (Wang et al., 2010). Moreover, Mandarin-speaking children at age five demonstrated their ability to use hao as an acknowledgement marker to show their intention to participate in their peer’s current talk. In addition, that only hao but not dui served as an acknowledgement marker may result from the similarity between the acknowledging function of dui and that of backchannels, which has been considered among the last acquired communicative skills (Hess & Johnston, 1988). Furthermore, Mandarin 5-year-old children had the ability to use dui as a topic transition marker to establish discourse coherence. Meanwhile, that dui, instead of hao, was chosen by the children as a transition marker may reflect the relatively equal relations between peers, since hao is usually used by a speaker with higher status to control the topics in adult conversation (Chen & Liu, 2009). It is concluded that Mandarin children’s use of the two markers not only demonstrates their communicative skills but also reflects the particular nature of peer interaction.

本研究從新聞整體結構與認知心理學的角度出發，討論讀者如何處理「兩面俱陳」與「單面呈現」兩種不同的新聞言說結構，希望同時觀照訊息與閱聽人兩個面向，更完整描繪新聞媒體訊息與閱聽人兩者之間傳播過程的面貌。研究發現，當個人對新聞報導事件的議題或主角存有先前態度，則新聞言說結構對讀者的資訊處理策略影響並不明顯。影響讀者如何使用資訊處理策略的關鍵在於讀者的先前態度與新聞內容是否一致。研究也發現，在討論個人的資訊處理流程時，要從不同的資訊處理工作區分開來分析中，因為在不同的資訊處理工作階段，個人的處理策略可能會有差異。 　　未來研究方向可以同時從整體訊息結構的特質、不同的認知效果以及可能影響訊息與傳播效果之間的中介變項等三個方向來研究傳播現象，所得到的研究結果可能可以更完整地解釋訊息的傳播過程與效果。

Lo scopo principale di questo lavoro è stato quello di determinare, tramite una ricerca sperimentale sull’acquisizione del russo da parte di italofoni, come la struttura del discorso e la gerarchizzazione sintattica si collocano reciprocamente sull’asse tra linguospecificità e universalità. Per questo è stato creato un corpus (4101 clausole) di racconti narrativi scritti in russo L2, russo L1 e italiano L1, che è stato analizzato in termini di scelte preferenziali dei parlanti. Sono state confrontate le dinamiche acquisizionali tra vari gruppi di parlanti in base al seguente criterio: “più un livello è linguospecifico, più è resistente all’acquisizione delle norme della seconda lingua”. I risultati della ricerca hanno dimostrato che la struttura del discorso oppone più resistenza all’acquisizione delle norme della seconda lingua rispetto alla gerarchizzazione sintattica. Ciò suggerisce che la prima, che è il livello linguistico più vicino al pensiero, è più linguospecifica dell’ultima, e che quindi la linguospecificità del livello del discorso è maggiore di zero. Inoltre nel corpus sono state rilevate evidenze che sostengono che l’uso della lingua è strutturato e la sua struttura è linguospecifica, e che probabilmente il thinking for speaking viene formato non tanto dalle caratteristiche formali della lingua madre quanto dalle specifiche del suo uso. / The goal of this thesis is to position discourse structure and macro-syntax on the axis between language specificity and language universality through an experimental investigation of the acquisition of the Russian language by italophones. To conduct my research, I collected a 4,101-clause corpus of written narratives in Russian L2, Russian L1 and Italian L1, and I analyzed it from the point of view of the speakers’ preferential choices. I compared the acquisition dynamics within different groups of speakers using the following criterion: “more a phenomenon is resistant to the acquisition of the second language norms, more it is language specific”. My research indicated that preferences on the discourse level are more resistant than those on the macro-syntactic level. This suggests that the former, which is the linguistic level closest to thought, is more language specific than the latter, and that thereby the language specificity of the discourse level is greater than zero. I also provide evidence that the habitual structures of the linguistic use are language specific, and that the phenomenon of first language thinking in second language speaking is more significantly impacted by the specifics of the language use than by the formal structure of the mother tongue.