Referential expressions: a centering approach



My interest is in applying insights from theories of discourse coherence such as centering [Grosz, Joshi, Weinstein 1995] to the interpretation and generation of referring expressions.

Initially, the focus of my work was on the alternation of different referential expressions in Italian, more specifically the two pronominal systems of weak (null subject and clitics) and strong pronouns (overt stressable pronouns), and full noun phrases. My analysis provides some insights into the resolution of pronominal references during sentence processing: for example, it is the context up to and including the verbal complex that helps to disambiguate a null subject. I have also been investigating how such analysis extends to various types of referential expressions in a variety of naturally occurring texts of different genres.

Currently, I am collaborating with Dr. Massimo Poesio of the University of Essex, UK (with initial support from the National Science Foundation, award 9996195, and from NATO Scientific programme). We are studying the effect of discourse structure on referring expressions. Specifically, the effect on referring expressions of intentional structure, i.e., the structure induced in the text by the purposes the speaker has in mind, and informational relations, i.e., how the described events are correlated at the domain level (e.g., by causality).

Publications