Computational and Conversational Discourse

Proceedings of the NATO Advanced Research Workshop on Burning Issues in Discourse, held in Maratea, Italy, April 13-15, 1993

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People engage in discourse every day - from writing letters and presenting papers to simple discussions. Yet discourse is a complex and fascinating phenomenon that is not well understood. This volume stems from a multidisciplinary workshop in which eminent scholars in linguistics, sociology and computational linguistics presented various aspects of discourse. The topics treated range from multi-party conversational interactions to deconstructing text from various perspectives, considering topic-focus development and discourse structure, and an empirical study of discourse segmentation. The chapters not only describe each author's favorite burning issue in discourse but also provide a fascinating view of the research methodology and style of argumentation in each field.