Generating Referring Expressions that Involve Gradable Properties

This paper examines the role of gradable properties in referring expressions, from a perspective of natural language generation. Firstly, we propose a simple semantic analysis of vague descriptions (i.e., referring expressions that contain gradable adjectives) that reflects the context-dependent meaning of the adjectives in them. Secondly, we show how this type of analysis can inform algorithms for the generation of vague descriptions from numerical data. Thirdly, we ask when such descriptions should be used. The paper concludes with a discussion of salience and pointing, which are analysed as if they were gradable adjectives.