Foundations of the Language of Argumentation

This work investigates the role of semantic clause types and modality in argumentative texts. We annotate argumentative microtexts with Situation Entity (SE) classes and additionately label the segments that contain modal verbs with their modal senses. We analyse both the correlation of SE classes and of modal verbs and senses with components of argument structures (such as premises and conclusions) and their functions (such as support and rebuttal). We find interesting tendencies in the correlations between both argument components and argumentative functions with SE types. We also see interesting distribution di↵erences of modal verbs and senses within argumentative components and functions, as well as evidence that modal senses can be helpful to distinguish conclusions and premises. We conclude that both semantic clause types as well as modal senses can be deployed for automatic recognition and fine-grained classification of argumentative text passages. NOTE: some of the material presented in this paper overlaps with [1].