This paper presents a method for temporal reasoning based on context-scanning rules. The method uses exclusively linguistic markers (tensed forms, temporal and non-temporal adverbials, interjections, particular syntactic structures) which allow to carry out temporal reasoning centred on the act of utterance. Due to the information extracted from the analysed texts, the method is capable to iden...

Mono-syllabic interjections are often used to express a reaction in conversational speech. It is known that there is relationship between the speaking style, given by intonation and voice quality-related prosodic features, and the paralinguistic information carried by an interjection. However, it is also known that this relationship is dependent on the interjection type. In the present work, we...

This paper attempts to segment spontaneous speech of human-to-human spoken dialogues into a relatively large unit of speech, that is, a sub-phrasal unit segmented by interjections, dis uent utterances and pauses. A spontaneous speech model incorporating prosody was developed, in which three kinds of speech segment models and the transition probabilities among them were speci ed. The segmentatio...

This paper attempts to segment spontaneous speech of human-to-human spoken dialogues into a relatively large unit of speech, that is, a sub-phrasal unit segmented by interjections, dis uent utterances and pauses. A spontaneous speech model incorporating prosody was developed, in which three kinds of speech segment models and the transition probabilities among them were speci ed. The segmentatio...

A spontaneously spoken, natural Japanese discourse contains many instances of the so-called redundant interjections and of backchannel utterances. These expressions have not hitherto received much attention and few systematic analyses have been made. We show that these utterances are characterizable as discourse markers, and that they comprise a well-defined category, characterizable in a regul...

Feedback utterances are an important part of any dialog between humans. When two or more persons talk, they use short backchannel utterances to signal understanding and interest in the conversation. Surprisingly little is known about the relationship between the accompanying prosody and the meaning of feedback perceived by the dialog partner. We present a qualitative modelling study of 12 synth...