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<blockquote TYPE=CITE>>
<br>>
CALL FOR PARTICIPATION
<br>>
<br>>
Analysis for Generation
<br>>
<br>>
a Workshop
<br>>
<br>>
in conjunction with
<br>>
<br>>
The International Conference on Natural
<br>>
Language Generation INLG'2000 (June 13-14)
<br>>
<br>>
<br>>
June 12, 2000, Mitzpe Ramon,
<br>>
Israel
<br>>
<br>> 1. The reasons why the workshop is of interest at this time.
<br>>
<br>> The last decade has seen an explosion in the work done
in the field of NLG with the
<br>> emphasis on the development of independent NLG applications
rather than generation
<br>> modules of MT systems. While it seems natural to consider
problems of
<br>> analysis and generation as two sides of a coin in such
NLP applications as MT,
<br>> researchers working on "pure" generation systems sometimes
treat problems arising
<br>> at every stage of generation—content specification, sentence
planning, and
<br>> surface realization—as independent. Time may be ripe
for examining the mutual
<br>> utility of analysis and generation in greater detail.
The impetus is, as can be
<br>> expected, the goal of minimizing system-building efforts in
language engineering.
<br>>
<br>> 2. A brief technical description of the issues
the workshop will address.
<br>>
<br>> The workshop proposes to address:
<br>>
<br>> • issues connected to the needs
of analysis in generation systems as well as
<br>>
<br>> • issues of interrelation
between generation and analysis from the standpoint
<br>> of reusability and adaptability of analysis techniques
and tools for generation.
<br>>
<br>> • issues of reusability
of analysis knowledge and methodology of its
<br>> acquisition for generation.
<br>>
<br>> Analysis as part of generation. A wide range of complex
problems which are
<br>> considered to be specific for generation—content specification,
planning, and
<br>> grammaticalization—may lead one to believe that generation
is completely
<br>> independent
<br>> of analysis. Most generators tacitly assume that an intermediate
system module can
<br>> use the output of the preceding module as its input without
any processing (that
<br>> is, analysis) of this output. This is not, however, the
case in practice.
<br>>
<br>> A modicum of analysis is, in fact, an essential part
of every generation system.
<br>> The input to generation systems such as raw data in tables,
lists, diagrams,
<br>> elements of various databases or even text snippets that
are fed into the system
<br>> directly
<br>> by a user still must first be somehow processed, that
is, analyzed. The analysis is
<br>> > needed to provide both the necessary content and, often,
format for the content
<br>> specification (see, for example, Dale 1995, Robin 1994,
Kukich 1988, McKeown
<br>> et al. 1994, Bateman and Teich 1995). This problem becomes
especially important in
<br>> those applications (including multilingual ones) in which at
least some input to
<br>> generation is in textual form (e.g., Sheremetyeva and
Nirenburg 1996).
<br>> Many NLG systems often use a variety of analysis techniques.
The question arises
<br>> whether it is possible to develop criteria to better
choose and integrate analysis
<br>> techniques which could be efficiently applied at different
stages of generation.
<br>>
<br>> Reusability and adaptability of analysis techniques and
tools for generation. While
<br>> it is not uncommon to believe that generation and analysis
are not reversible, a
<br>> number of contributions over the years have discussed
reversibility of analysis
<br>> and generation resources, especially the grammars. Appelt
1987, Barnett and Mani
<br>> 1990 and van Noord 1993, among others, demonstrate how
the use of reversible
<br>> grammars may lead to efficient and flexible natural language
parsing and
<br>> generation systems. It is worth discussing constraints
on reversibility.
<br>>
<br>> Reusability of analysis knowledge and methodology of
its acquisition for
<br>> generation. Generation and analysis are closely related
in that both processes use
<br>> many similar resources, and often it is less expensive
to reorganize an existing
<br>> "analysis" resource (e.g., an analysis lexicon) than
to acquire one for generation
<br>> from scratch. (Allgayer et al. 1989, Viegas and Beale
1996, Sheremetyeva and
<br>> Nirenburg 1999a, 1999b). It is worth discussing how to
establish whether a resource
<br>> built for analysis can be used for generation and at
what price.
<br>>
<br>>
<br>> THE PROGRAM:
<br>> June,12, 00
<br>>
<br>> 13.00 - 13.15 S. Sheremetyeva.
Introduction
<br>>
<br>> 13.15-13.50 H. Manuelian.
Reusability of Mental Representation Theory in
<br>>
Automatic Generation: Generating Expressions Referring to
<br>>
Objects with G-TAG and RMs
<br>>
<br>> 13.50-14.25 D. Lonsdale.
Leveraging Analysis Operators in Incremental
<br>>
Generation
<br>>
<br>> 14.25-15.00 S. Busemann.
Interfacing Constraint-Based Grammars and
<br>>
Generation Algorithms
<br>>
<br>> 15.00-15.20
Break
<br>>
<br>> 15.20-17.00 Panel
: R. Kempson, S. Nirenburg, M.Zock, S.Sheremetyeva.
<br>>
<br>> PLEASE FIND DETAILS ABOUT REGISTRATION AND ACCOMMODATION
at the main conference
<br>> homepage at
<br>>
<br>>
<a href="http://www.cs.bgu.il/~nlg2000">http://www.cs.bgu.ac.il/~nlg2000</a>
<br>> Organizing Committee
<br>>
<br>> Svetlana Sheremetyeva, Chair and contact person
<br>> Computing Research Laboratory, New Mexico State University,
USA
<br>> lana@crl.nmsu.edu
<br>>
<br>> Sergei Nirenburg
<br>> Computing Research Laboratory, New Mexico State University,
USA
<br>>
<br>> Richard Kittredge
<br>> Department of Linguistics and Translation, University
of Montreal
<br>> kittredge@IRO.UMontreal.CA
<br>>
<br>> Anna Sagvall Hein
<br>> Department of linguistics, Uppsala University
<br>> Anna@ling.uu.se
<br>>
<br>> Evelyne Viegas
<br>> Microsoft Corporation
<br>> evelynev@microsoft.com
<br>>
<br>> Michael Zock
<br>> Language & Cognition LIMSI - CNRS
<br>> zock@limsi.fr</blockquote>
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