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Where to next? Pronoun interpretation as a side effect of discourse direction
Hannah Rohde, Andy Kehler, & Jeff ElmanUC San Diego
CUNY Conference on Human Sentence Processing, March 29-31 2007
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Transfer of possession (Stevenson et al. 1994)
(1) handed a book to . ______________.John Bill HeJohn He recommended it
Transfer Verb
Source (subject)
Goal (to-phrase)
AmbiguousPronoun Prompt
thanked JohnBill He
50/50: Goal continuations / Source continuations No subject preference or grammatical parallelism Two explanations considered:
Thematic Role Preference Event Structure Bias
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Outline
Background: Rohde et al. 2006 Test Thematic-Role and Event-Structure biases Alternative account: Discourse Coherence
Experiments 1 & 2: test predictions of a coherence- based model using story continuations
Preliminary results: discourse effects in relative clause attachment
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(2) handed a book to . ______ .JohnSOURCE BillGOAL He(3) was handing a book to . ___ .JohnSOURCE BillGOAL He
Explaining salience of Goal (Rohde et al. 2006)
0%
20%
40%
60%
80%
100%
Perfective Imperfective
% Interpretation
SourceGoal
Goal bias ~ side effect of Event Structure
Thematic role preference or event structure bias?
Equivalent thematic roles but different event structure
Effect of aspectF(1,48)=50.622p<0.0001
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Establishing coherence: infer a relationship between the meanings expressed by two sentences (P&Q below) (Hobbs 1979, Kehler 2002)
Effects of coherence (Rohde et al. 2006)
(5) Matt passed a sandwich to David. He said thanks.
[Result: P Q]
David He
(4) Matt passed a sandwich to David. He didn’t want David to starve.
[Explanation: Q P]
Matt He
Causal relations (Explanation, Result, Violated Expectation)
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(6) Matt passed a sandwich to David. He did so carefully.
[Elaboration: infer P from both S1 and S2]
Coherence cont.
[Occasion: infer initial state of event described in S2 to be final state of event described in S1]
(7) Matt passed a sandwich to David. He ate it up.David He
Matt He
Similarity relations (Parallel, Elaboration)
Contiguity relations (Occasion)
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Goal bias following perfective context sentences limited to Occasion & Result (see Arnold 2001)
Interpretation as side effect of coherence distribution
Perfective Context Sentences
050
100150200
OccasionElaborationExplanationViolated-ExpResultParallel
CountSourceGoal
Discourse coherence effects (Rohde et al.)
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Test predictions of a coherence-driven model More Occasion/Result more Goal resolutions More Explanation/Elaboration/Violated-Exp more
Source
Shift coherence shift interpretation
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Experiment 1: objects-of-transfer
(8) John handed a book to Bill. He ___________ .
(9) John handed a bloody meat cleaver to Bill. He __ .
Proposal: elicit different continuations with different objects Stimuli: normal and bizarre objects
Predictions: If… Abnormal objects more Explanations and Explanations Source bias More Source continuations for (9) than (8)
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Methodology
Subjects: 69 monolingual English speakers Task: write 50 continuations, just like Rohde et al. Stimuli: 21 transfer-of-possession like Rohde et al.
(+ bizarre objects) Evaluation: judges assess coherence/interpretation Analysis:
Effect of within-subject factor of Object Type on Coherence (Elab/Expl/Occ/Par/Res/Viol-Exp) Pronoun interpretation (Source/Goal)
Mixed-effects logistic regression Controls for random effects of Subject and Item
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0%
20%
40%
60%
80%
100%
Normal Abnormal
% Coherence
ExpElabV-EResOccPar
Coherence varies by object
Results
0.81
0.820.99
0.050.17
0.71
Consistent prob(Source|coh)Exp 1Rohde et al.Coherence
Elaboration
0.87Violated-expectation
0.75Explanation0.99
0.16Result0.20Occasion
0.45Parallel
p<0.0001Source Source
Goal} Goal}
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Results
0%
20%
40%
60%
80%
100%
Normal Abnormal
% Interpretation
SourceGoal
Subjects: F(1,68)= 0.052p<0.820
Items: F(1,20)=0.111p<0.743
No effect of object type on pronoun interpretation
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Experiment 2: ‘What next?’ or ‘Why?’
(10) John handed a book to Bill. He ___________ .
Stimuli & Design: identical to Rohde et al. 2006
Predictions: “What next?” more Occasions Goal bias “Why?” more Explanations Source bias
Instructions: write continuations answering either “What happened next?” or “Why?”
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Methodology
Subjects: 42 monolingual English speakers Task: identical to Rohde et al. 2006 (w/instructions) Stimuli: identical to Rohde et al. 2006 Evaluation: judges assess coherence/interpretation
Analysis: Effect of between-subject factor of Instruction Type
on coherence distribution & pronoun interpretation
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0%
20%
40%
60%
80%
100%
What next? Why?
% Coherence
ExpElabV-EResOccPar
Results
Coherence varies w/instruction (p<0.0001)
Goal Source
0.81
0.811.00
0.110.28
0.46
Consistent prob(Source|coh)Exp 2Rohde et al.Coherence
Elaboration
0.87Violated-expectation
0.75Explanation0.99
0.16Result0.20Occasion
0.45Parallel
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Results
Effect of Instruction type on pronoun interpretation
0%
20%
40%
60%
80%
100%
What next? Why?
% Interpretation
SourceGoal
F(1,20)=52.672p<0.0001
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Predicting pronoun interpretation
€
=%Exp * p(SR |Exp) + %Elab* p(SR |Elab) + %V - E * p(SR | V - E) +
%Occ* p(SR |Occ) + %Res * p(SR |Res) + %Par* p(SR |Par)
p(Source)Coherence
Elaboration0.81
0.820.99
V-E
Explanation
0.050.17
ResultOccasion
0.45Parallel
Predict % Source Resolutions in Exp 2 using: Exp2 coherence breakdown Exp1 conditional probabilities
€
(1) %SR =
€
* p(SR |Coh)
€
coh∑
€
%coh
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Capturing subject variation
0%
20%
40%
60%
80%
100%
1 6 11 16 21 26 31 36 41 Participant
Observed%Source
Predicted%Sourceusing (1)
linear regression R2=0.604 F(1,40)=61.097, p<0.0001
€
* p(SR |Coh)
€
coh∑
€
(1) %SRi =
€
%cohi for subject i in Exp 2
“What next” “Why”
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R2=0.604, F(1,40)=61.097*Exp1: average across verbal aspects & object types
R2=0.586, F(1,40)=51.165*Exp1: imp, abnormal objects
R2=0.561, F(1,40)=51.165*Exp1: perf, abnormal objects
R2=0.627, F(1,40)=67.371*Exp1: imp, normal objects
R2=0.606, F(1,40)=61.612*Exp1: perf, normal objects
R2 value/ANOVAConditional Probability Estimator
* Indicates p<0.0001
Consistency of biases across conditions
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Shift coherence Shift pronoun interpretation No model relying only on surface-level cues can
account for observed variation, since stimuli were near-identical (Exp 1) or identical (Exp 2)
Need richer models incorporating discourse-level factors (see Wolf et al. 2004; Kertz et al. 2006)
Summary
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lowhigh Relative clause attachment ambiguity
What else can discourse do for you?
(11) Beth babysits the children of the musician who ____
Proposal: try to shift RC attachment using verbs that require Explanations and that attribute
cause to the referent occupying higher NP
musical prodigies themselves. arethe children
Function of a relative clause
(12) John despises the employee who is always late.
Implicit Causality (NP2 IC) verbs attribute cause to direct object
at the club downtown.playsthe musician
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Predictions & results
0%
20%
40%
60%
80%
100%
nonIC ICVerb Type
% Attachment
lowhigh
F(1,51)=31.082 p<0.0001
Further evidence that discourse influences interpretation
nonIC: Beth babysits the children of the musician who _____
0%
20%
40%
60%
80%
100%
nonIC ICVerb Type
% Coherence
ModExpElabOccResPar
p<0.0001
IC: Beth despises the children of the musician who ______
playsat the club downtown.
the musician low
and yell during rehearsals. screamthe children
high
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References
Arnold, J. E. (2001) The effects of thematic roles on pronoun use and frequency of reference. Discourse Processes, 31(2): 137-162.
Chambers, G. C. & Smyth, R. (1998) Structural parallelism and discourse coherence: A test of Centering Theory. Journal of Memory and Language, 39: 593-608.
Crawley, R., Stevenson, R., & Kleinman, D. (1990) The use of heuristic strategies in the interpretation of pronouns. Journal of Psycholinguistic Research, 4: 245–264.
Kameyama, M. (1996) Indefeasible semantics and defeasible pragmatics. In M. Kanazawa, C. Pinon, and H. de Swart, editors, Quantifiers, Deduction, and Context. CSLI Stanford, pp. 111-138.
Hobbs, J. R. (1979) Coherence and coreference, Cognitive Science, 3:67-90. Hobbs, J. R. (1990) Literature and Cognition. CSLI Lecture Notes 21. Stanford, CA. Kehler, A. (2002) Coherence, reference, and the theory of grammar. CSLI Publications, Stanford, CA.Kertz, L., Kehler, A., & Elman, J. (2006) Grammatical and Coherence-Based Factors in Pronoun
Interpretation. 28th Annual Conference of the Cognitive Science Society, Vancouver, July 2006.Moens, M. & Steedman, M. (1988) Temporal ontology and temporal reference. Computational
Linguistics 14(2):15-28.Smyth, R. H. (1994) Grammatical determinants of ambiguous pronoun resolution. Journal of
Psycholinguistic Research, 23: 197-229.Stevenson, R., Crawley R., & Kleinman D. (1994) Thematic roles, focusing and the representation of
events. Language and Cognitive Processes, 9:519–548.Wolf, F., Gibson, E. & Desmet, T. (2004) Coherence and pronoun resolution. Language and Cognitive
Processes, 19(6): 665-675
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Variation by instruction and aspect
(17) John was giving a book to Bill. He ___________ .(16) John gave a book to Bill. He ___________ .
…“What happened next?”
Interpretation (instr x aspect interaction p<0.0001)
0%
20%
40%
60%
80%
100%
whatnext?
why? whatnext?
why?
perfective imperfective
SourceGoal
0%
100%
whatnext?
why? whatnext?
why?
perfective imperfective
SourceGoal
Coherence (instr x aspect interaction p<0.0001)
0%
20%
40%
60%
80%
100%
Whatnext?
Why? Whatnext?
Why?
Perfective Imperfective
ParV-EElabExpResOcc0%
100%
Whatnext?
Why? Whatnext?
Why?
Perfective Imperfective
ParV-EElabExpResOcc
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Discourse coherence effectsPerfective Context Sentences
0
50
100
150
200
OccasionElaborationExplanationViolated-Exp
Result Parallel
Count
SourceGoal
Imperfective Context Sentences
0
50
100
150
200
OccasionElaborationExplanation
Result
Violated-ExpParallel
Count
SourceGoal