Testing the JANUS model of noun-phrase anaphor interpretation

写作良好的文本和正常的对话最明显的特征之一是，相同的人、地点和事情被多次提及。令人惊讶的是，从科学的角度来看，这种重复引用经常使用不同的语言表达方式。因此，例如，最初被称为“在肉店服务的人”的人，后来可能被称为“该人”或简单地称为“他”，使用被称为“回指”的短语，或指回到先前文本的短语。对于语言使用者来说，语言表达的这些变化似乎是非常自然的，但这种变化的潜在解释是什么？近年来，有一些试探性的尝试，试图用科学的术语对指称和共指如何在语言理解和语言产生中起作用进行全面的解释。其中一个账户是由我们的团队在以前ESRC资助的项目中开发的。它之所以被称为Janus，是因为它说，要理解“男人”或“他”这样的表达在文本中是如何起作用的，有必要考虑它们如何与已经说过的话和即将到来的文本中可能说的话联系起来。链接到已经说过的内容的主要方法是找出与当前单词引用相同的人或事的先前单词(或者有时以不那么直接的方式链接到那个人或事物)。我们如何与可能会说的话建立联系还没有太多的研究，但可能包括预期对一个人或一件事的看法发生变化。Janus模型声称，当预期到类似视角的变化时，使用的词将与其他情况下使用的词不同。一般来说，它会更具体(例如，如果在屠宰场工作的人被称为“足球运动员”，而不仅仅是“他”，文本可能会继续谈论他的体育活动，而不是他的工作)。理解文本理解的基本过程可以使文本设计得通俗易懂。在一个我们的大部分理解都发生在非个人环境中的世界里，这样的文本变得越来越重要，比如互联网(例如，网络浏览和在线表格填写)。从长远来看，我们的工作将对设计自动从文本中提取信息的工具产生影响。我们研究的另一个重要应用问题是理解理解是如何崩溃的，例如，在脑损伤或退行性疾病的情况下，因此它可能会提出帮助有理解问题的人的方法。本项目将试图为Janus模型提供经验支持。它将测试该模型的一些具体主张，即如何与已经说过的话建立联系：例如，关于文本中提到的哪些人和事被认为是现在正在谈论的人或事的主张。其中一些主张与其他竞争对手框架中的主张形成对比，例如阿米特·阿尔莫的信息负荷假说(ILH)。它还将考虑Janus关于可能会说的话的链接的具体预测。如果使用比预期更具体的表达方式，表示对所指的人或事物的观点发生了变化，那么遵循与这种观点的变化相一致的信息(例如，关于足球比赛的信息，当一个人意外地被称为足球运动员)应该是容易理解的。另一方面，如果下一条信息不是关于足球的，理解起来应该会比其他情况下稍微困难一些。

One of the most obvious features of well-written text and normal conversation is that the same people, places, and things are referred to a number of times. Surprisingly, from a scientific perspective, such repeated references often use different linguistic expressions. So, for example, someone referred to initially as "the person serving in the butcher's shop" might later be referred to as "the man" or simply "he", using what are called "anaphoric" expressions, or expressions that refer back to the previous text. To a language user these changes of linguistic expression seem perfectly natural, but what is the underlying explanation for such variation? In recent years there have been a few tentative attempts to provide an overall account, in scientific terms, of how reference and co-reference work in language understanding and language production. One of these accounts was developed by our group on a previous ESRC-funded project. It is called JANUS, because it says that to understand how an expression such as "the man" or "he" works in text it is necessary to take account of both how they link to what has already been said and to what might be said in the upcoming text. The main way of linking back to what has already been said is to identify previous words that refer to the same person or thing as the current word (or sometimes to link up to that person or thing in a less direct way). How we make links to what might be said has not been studied so much, but might include such things as anticipating a change in perspective on a person or thing. The JANUS model claims that when something like a change in perspective is anticipated, the word used will be different from what it otherwise might have been. Generally, it will be more specific (e.g., if the person working in the butchers is referred to as "the footballer", rather than just "he", the text is probably going to go on to talk about his sporting activities, rather than his work).Understanding the basic processes of text comprehension allows the design of texts that are easy to understand. Such texts are increasingly important in a world in which much of our comprehension takes place in impersonal contexts, such as the internet (e.g, web browsing, and on-line form-filling). In the longer term, our work will have implications for designing tools for extracting information from text automatically. Another important applied issue on which our research bears is the understanding of how comprehension breaks down, for example, in cases of brain injury or degenerative disease, and hence it may suggest ways of helping people with comprehension problems.This project will try to provide empirical support for the JANUS model. It will test some specific claims of that model about how links to what has already been said are made: claims about, for example, which people and things mentioned in a text are considered as the person or thing now being talked about. Some of these claims contrast with those made in other, rival, framework's, such as Amit Almor's Informational Load Hypothesis (ILH). It will also consider a specific prediction from JANUS about links to what might be said. If using an expression that is more specific than expected signals a change in perspective on the person or thing referred to, then following information that is consistent with that change of perspective (e.g. something about a football match, when a person is unexpectedly called a footballer) should be easy to understand. On the other hand, if the next bit of information is not about football, comprehension should be slightly more difficult than it otherwise would have been.