{ "paper_id": "C82-1017", "header": { "generated_with": "S2ORC 1.0.0", "date_generated": "2023-01-19T13:12:45.717668Z" }, "title": "ON THE ROLE OF THE HIERARCHY OF ACTIVATION IN THE PROCESS OF NATURAL LANGUAGE UNDERSTANDING", "authors": [ { "first": "Eva", "middle": [], "last": "Haji6ov~", "suffix": "", "affiliation": { "laboratory": "", "institution": "Charles University", "location": { "country": "Prague Czechoslovakia" } }, "email": "" }, { "first": "Jarka", "middle": [], "last": "Vrbov~", "suffix": "", "affiliation": { "laboratory": "", "institution": "Charles University", "location": { "country": "Prague Czechoslovakia" } }, "email": "" } ], "year": "", "venue": null, "identifiers": {}, "abstract": "", "pdf_parse": { "paper_id": "C82-1017", "_pdf_hash": "", "abstract": [], "body_text": [ { "text": "The elements of the stock of knowledge shared .by the speaker and the hearer change their salience, in the sense of being immediately accessible in the bearer's memory. The hierarchy of salience is argued to be a basic component of a mechanism serving for the identification of reference. Some of the regularities of this mechanism are discussed, the description of which is a necessary prerequisite of an automatic understanding of connected texts.", "cite_spans": [], "ref_spans": [], "eq_spans": [], "section": "", "sec_num": null }, { "text": "i. When discussing the question of what is the main contribution of computational linguistics to theoretical linguistics at one of the panel discussions at Coling 80 in Tokyo, the panelists unanimously pointed to the due emphasis laid on the function of natural language in communication.", "cite_spans": [], "ref_spans": [], "eq_spans": [], "section": "", "sec_num": null }, { "text": "In this direction, it is known from the classical Prague School that the topic/focus articulation belongs to the most important aspects connecting the structure of language with the conditions of its use. However, this articulation I was not examined systematically in most of the main linguistic trends, so that the pioneers who are aware of its importance for natural language understanding (esp. Grosz, 1977 , Reichman, 1978 , McKeown, 1979 , Hirst, 1981 attempt to find their own ways.", "cite_spans": [], "ref_spans": [], "eq_spans": [], "section": "", "sec_num": null }, { "text": "During the discourse the stock of \"knowledge\" the speaker assumes to share with the hearer changes according to what is \"in the centre of attention\" at the given time point. 2 Each utterance has its influence on this hierarchy of salience; however, not every mentioning of an object has the same effect. The assumption that the degrees of salience constitute a partial ordering is corroborated e.g. by the degrees of consciousness characterized by Chafe (1974) .", "cite_spans": [], "ref_spans": [], "eq_spans": [], "section": "", "sec_num": null }, { "text": "Let us denote by x ~ an expression x referring to an object a that is salient to the -qa-degree n in the stock; since the maximum of salience can more easily than other degrees be imagined to be fixed, we denote it by ~ = ~, reversing the direction of\"growth\" of the degrees; to the left (right) of the arrow we indicate the state immediately preceding (following) the utterance of a sentence S in which x occurs; x c F (T) stands for \"x belongs to the focus (~opic) of S\";--P(x ) denotes that x is expressed either by a weak pronoun or Ts d~le~ed in S, though--present in its tectogrammatical represent~ ation (TR);3 with--NP. _(x ) we refer to definite NP's and to such _--~a~e a NP's as one of the N, ~o~ (of the) N.", "cite_spans": [], "ref_spans": [], "eq_spans": [], "section": "", "sec_num": null }, { "text": "According to a preliminary empirical investigation it appears that:the following rules concerning the degrees of salience obtain 108 E. HAJI~OVA and J. VRBOVA (cf. a first formulation of some of them in Sgall, 1980a, p.240) , where m, n > ~: (i) If P(X_a), then a_n-+ a_ n- As was pointed out by Sgall (1967a, p.95f.; 198Ob) , the difference between n = ~ and n = 1 is too small to make the reference assignment un[vocal . The complement to the set of five parents -the rest of the pa~ents -retains the degree of a rather high activation, see Rule (3).", "cite_spans": [], "ref_spans": [], "eq_spans": [], "section": "Commentary", "sec_num": null }, { "text": "[6] One of the items the activation of which has been fading away