Representation Theory 1090 Jan

Discourse Representation Theory is a specific name for the work of Hans Kamp in the area of dynamic interpretation of natural language. Also, it has gradually become a generic term for proposals for dynamic interpretation of natural language in the same spirit. These proposals have in common that each new sentence is interpreted in terms of the contribution it makes to an existing piece of interpreted discourse. The interpretation conditions for sentences are given as instructions for updating the representation of the discourse. This article first introduces the problem that discourse representation theory, in its specific sense, sets out to solve. Then the basic ideas of the theory are listed, various extensions of the basic theory are discussed, the relation to partial interpretation of language is sketched, and proof theory for discourse representation structures is presented. The paper ends with a brief account of the use of ‘unresolved’ discourse representation structures for the representation of ambiguities. 1 The Problem of Unbound Anaphora The most straightforward way to establish links between anaphoric pronouns and their antecedents is to translate the pronouns as variables bound by their antecedents. This approach does not work when the link crosses a sentence boundary, as in example (1). A man1 met an attractive woman2. He1 smiled at her2. (1) It should be possible to interpret the first sentence of this discourse as soon as it is uttered, and then later on, while processing the second sentence, establish the links between the pronouns and their intended antecedents.