A collocational based approach to salience-sensitive lexical selection

In this paper we address the organization and use of the lexicon giving special consideration to how the salience of certain aspects of abstract semantic structure may be expressed. We propose an organization of the lexicon and its interaction with grammar and knowledge that makes extensive use of lexical funct ions from the Meaning-Text-Theory of Mel'~uk. We integrate this approach with the architecture of the PENMAN text generation system, showing some areas where that architecture is insufficient, and illustrating how the lexicon can provide functionally oriented guidance for the generation process.