Abstract
This paper describes the pronominal anaphora resolution module of SQUIRREL system, a portable natural language front end to databases originally conceived to treat single sentences. The incorporation of the Discourse Module aimed to provide continuous consultations, however preserving the system's overall portability.
Candidate antecedents, selected from the user's queries and database answers, are organised into a context stack for subsequent inter-sentential reference. The context is segmented in accordance to changes of topic in the current dialogue between user and interface.
When an anaphor is found in the query, suitable candidates are selected from the context on the basis of syntactic features, as well as domain information from the system's Data Model. When no more reliable automatic selection is possible, competing candidates are presented to the user, who chooses the referent for the anaphor.
The work reported here was developed while the author was pursuing her Ph.D. at Essex University (UK), under the supervision of Anne DeRoeck.
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© 1996 Springer-Verlag Berlin Heidelberg
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Barros, F.A. (1996). Semi-automatic anaphora resolution in portable natural language interfaces. In: Borges, D.L., Kaestner, C.A.A. (eds) Advances in Artificial Intelligence. SBIA 1996. Lecture Notes in Computer Science, vol 1159. Springer, Berlin, Heidelberg. https://doi.org/10.1007/3-540-61859-7_13
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DOI: https://doi.org/10.1007/3-540-61859-7_13
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