An Algorithm For Resolving Individual And Abstract Anaphora In Danish Texts And Dialogues

This paper describes the dar-algorithm for resolving intersentential pronominal anaphors referring to individual and abstract entities in Danish texts and dialogues. Individual entities are resolved combining models which identify high degree of salience with high degree of givenness (topicality) of entities in the hearer’s cognitive model, e.g. (Grosz et al., 1995), with Hajičová et al.’s (1990) salience account which assigns the highest degree of salience to entities in the focal part of an utterance in Information Structure terms. These focal entities often introduce new information in discourse. Anaphors referring to abstract entities are resolved with an extension of the algorithm presented by Eckert and Strube (2000). Manual tests of the dar-algorithm and other well-known resolution algorithms on the same data show that dar performs significantly better on most types of anaphor.