Layout in Language: the role of Document Structure

Abstract:

This talk will present the case for abstract document structure as a separate descriptive level in the analysis and generation of written texts. The purpose of this representation is to mediate between the message of a text (i.e., its discourse structure) and its physical presentation (i.e., its organization into graphical constituents like sections, paragraphs, sentences, bulleted lists, figures, footnotes and so forth). Abstract document structure can be seen as an extension of Nunberg's `text-grammar'; it is also closely related to `logical' mark-up in languages like HTML and LaTeX. I will argue that by using this intermediate representation, several subtasks in language generation and language understanding can be defined more cleanly.

Short bio:

Professor Donia Scott is the head of the Information Technology Research Institute at The University of Brighton. Her current research interests lie primarily in Artificial Intelligence and Natural Language Processing, especially Natural Language Generation and Discourse. What makes a text coherent? What determines its level of comprehensibility? These questions form the main thread of Donia's research interest. Since the early 1990s, Professor Scott has been exploring these issues in the context of natural language generation, particularly:

• the structuring of discourse relations
• the relationship between discourse and style
• the determinants of pragmatic congruence in discourse

Parking: Visitors requiring a parking pass are asked to contact us at least one working day before the seminar.

Enquiries: sals@ics.mq.edu.au