Evaluating a Focus-Based Approach to Anaphora Resolution

We present an approach to anaphora resolution based on a focusing algorithm, and implemented within an existing MUC (Message Understanding Conference) Information Extraction system, allowing quantitative evaluation against a substantial corpus of annotated real-world texts. Extensions to the basic focusing mechanism can be easily tested, resulting in refinements to the mechanism and resolution rules. Results show that the focusing algorithm is highly sensitive to the quality of syntactic-semantic analyses, when compared to a simpler heuristic-based approach.

• Type: Conference
• Year: 1998
• Where: ACL
• Authors: Saliha Azzam, Kevin Humphreys, Robert J. Gaizauskas
• Keywords: ACL 1998, ACL 2007, Annotated Real-world Texts, Basic Focusing Mechanism, Information Extraction System