Pragmatics and natural language generation

摘要

This paper addresses the question “why and how is it that we say the same thing differently to different people, or even to the same person in different circumstances?” We vary the content and form of our text in order to convey more information than is contained in the literal meanings of our words. This information expresses the speaker's interpersonal goals toward the hearer and, in general, his or her perception of the pragmatic aspects of the conversation. This paper discusses two insights that arise when one studies this question: the existence of a level of organization that mediates between communicative goals and generator decisions, and the interleaved planning-realization regime and associated monitoring required for generation. To illustrate these ideas, a computer program is described which contains plans and strategies to produce stylistically appropriate texts from a single representation under various settings that model pragmatic circumstances.