Preferred Argument Structure For Discourse Understanding

The main purpose of communication is to exchange information. Any discourse understanding model should be able to process the flow of information throughout the entire text. According to Du Bois (1987)'s studies of information flow in discourse across a number of languages, information distribution among argument positions in clauses is by no means random, but cemdn grammatical patterns tend to recur consistently. He thus formulated a Preferred Argument Structure (PAS) for the preferential structural configurations of arguments. In our examination of Chinese narrative discourse, the language also displays PAS, yet the Chinese PAS challenges tim universality of the one Du Bois proposed. Based on the quantity and distribution of lexical arguments and new referents across grammatical roles in discourse, it is realized that Chinese PAS also maintains one new argument at most within a basic information processiug unit. Since new referents in Chinese have to be encoded in full NP form,...

• Type: Conference
• Year: 1992
• Where: COLING
• Authors: Ka-Wai Chui
• Keywords: Chinese PAS, COLING 1992, COLING 2008, Discourse Understanding Model, Grammatical