Testing the JANUS model of noun-phrase anaphor interpretation

写得好的文章和正常的对话最明显的特征之一是，相同的人、地点和事物被多次提及。令人惊讶的是，从科学的角度来看，这种重复引用往往使用不同的语言表达。因此，例如，某人最初被称为“在肉店服务的人”，后来可能会被称为“那个人”或简单地称为“他”，使用所谓的“回指”表达，或指回前一篇文章的表达。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，但是这种变化的潜在解释是什么呢？近年来，有一些尝试性的尝试，以科学的方式提供一个全面的说明，说明指称和共同指称如何在语言理解和语言生产中起作用。其中一个帐户是由我们小组在之前的esrc资助项目中开发的。它被称为JANUS，因为它说要理解诸如“男人”或“他”这样的表达是如何在文本中起作用的，有必要考虑它们如何与已经说过的内容以及即将到来的文本中可能会说的内容联系起来。连接到已经说过的内容的主要方法是识别前面的单词，这些单词与当前单词指的是同一个人或同一件事（或者有时以不太直接的方式连接到那个人或那件事）。我们是如何把可能说的话联系起来的还没有得到太多的研究，但可能包括预测对一个人或一件事的看法的变化。JANUS模型声称，当人们预期到某种事情的角度发生变化时，所使用的词将与原本可能使用的词不同。一般来说，它会更具体（例如，如果在肉铺工作的人被称为“足球运动员”，而不仅仅是“他”，那么文章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设计出易于理解的文本。这样的文本在当今世界变得越来越重要，因为我们的大部分理解都发生在非个人环境中，比如互联网（例如，网页浏览和在线填写表格）。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。我们的研究涉及的另一个重要的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，因此它可能提出帮助有理解问题的人的方法。本项目将尝试为JANUS模型提供实证支持。它将测试该模型的一些具体主张，即如何与已经说过的内容建立联系：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框架的主张形成对比，例如Amit Almor的信息负荷假说（ILH）。它还将考虑JANUS关于链接的具体预测。如果使用比预期更具体的表达表明对所提到的人或事的看法发生了变化，那么接下来的信息应该与这种观点的变化相一致（例如，关于足球比赛的事情，当一个人意外地被称为足球运动员时）应该很容易理解。另一方面，如果接下来的信息不是关于足球的，那么理解起来就会稍微困难一些。

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.