Study guide for speech acts , dialogue, and information state updates Revised version 2013-05-31

Key concepts See Huang, Chapter 4. Note: Sections 4.6.3 and 4.7 will not be included in the exam. Correspondingly, “face”, “positive face”, “negative face”, “FTA” and “interlanguage” may be stricken from the list of “Key concepts”. Additional key concepts (Schlangen, Allen & Core):

• utterance • dialogue act • forward-looking and backward-looking function • information level • dialogue initiative and task initiative • grounding • feedback • structured dialogue models • plan-based dialogue models • Information State Update models

Exercises See Huang, Chapter 4. Notes:

• The suggested solution to Exercise 6 (ii) formulates the perlocutionary effect as an action by the hearer (“The professor accepted the coffee…”), whereas in most other examples it is formulated as an action by the speaker (“The mother persuaded her son…”).

• Exercise 7 can be completed in many other ways. For example, one may well argue that the preparatory conditions for questioning should include “S believes that H has an answer”.

• Exercises 10,11,16,17 may be skipped. Additional exercises:

1. The utterance is the basic unit of analysis in dialogue modelling. Describe two ways in which utterances in dialogue may be non-sentential (i.e. not correspond to grammatical sentences). Give examples.

2. The DAMSL taxonomy of dialogue acts differs from Searle's speech act taxonomy in at least three ways. Which are they?

3. What is the point of the distinction between forward-looking and backward-looking acts in DAMSL? How are they distinguished, i.e., what are their respective characteristics?

4. In DAMSL, utterances are analysed with respect to information level. Name at least two of the three information levels distinguished by DAMSL.

5. What is dialogue initiative and task initiative? 6. What is grounding in dialogue? 7. What is the role of feedback utterances in dialogue? 8. What are the advantage and disadvantages of “structured dialogue models”? 9. How are the states in “structured dialogue models” and the states in the “information

state update'' approach different? 10. Name three different ways of modelling dialogue (models of what to say next), and

describe them briefly. 11. What are the advantage and disadvantages of Plan-based dialogue models? 12. What are the advantage and disadvantages of Information state based dialogue

models? 13. How is dialogue different from (written) text? 14. Use the DAMSL-schema to annotate the transcribed dialogue below. The dialogue has

been pre-segmented and the segments are numbered (1) to (21). J and P are the dialogue participants. Square brackets indicate overlapping speech. (You may also try to find examples for presuppositions and implicatures, and explain how these come about.)

P: (1) hup J: (2) a P: (3) öm... (4) flyg till paris J: (5) mm... (6) ska [ du ha ] en returbiljett P: (7)[ ö ] P: (8) vad sa du J: (9) ska du ha en tur och retur P: (10) ja... (11) ö J: (12) vilken månad ska du åka P: (13) ja typ den ä tredje fjärde april... [ nån gång ] där... (14) så billigt som [ möjligt ] J: (15)[ mm ] J: (16) [ ja just ] det jo... (17) det har jag aldrig hört förr... (18) de billigaste vi har är air france ettusenåttahundratie... (18) [ plus ] flygplatsskatter så du hamnar på (19) ja du kan få exakt (20) vänta ska du se här vi gör såhär... (21) ö... P: (22) [ a ]

Answers to selected exercises 2. The DAMSL taxonomy of dialogue acts differs from Searle's speech act taxonomy in at least three ways. Which are they? - A single utterance can be analysed as constituting more than two acts (i.e. not just direct and indirect speech act, but several different functions including communication management functions) - Acts are divided into forward-looking and backward-looking functions - Apart from acts, utterances are also analysed with respect to information level (including task level and communication management level) 3. What is the point of the distinction between forward-looking and backward-looking acts in DAMSL? How are they distinguished, i.e., what are their respective characteristics? - Forward-looking function (FF) describes the way an utterance constrains future discourse; how they change the context (e.g., a promise commits the promiser to intend the promised action) - The backward-looking function (BF) describes how the utterance relates to previous discourse; how they are interpreted with reference to the context in which they occur 4. In DAMSL, utterances are analysed w r t information level. Name two of the information levels distinguished? Task level, communication management level 8. What are the advantage and disadvantages of ``structured dialogue models''? +: robust, simple; good for pre-structured tasks; imposed structure reduces search space for interpretation -: Disadvantages: inflexible; less appropriate for less structured tasks 9. How are the states in ``structured dialogue models'' and the states in the ``information state update'' approach different? (2p) In the former, they are atomic and contain no information; in the latter, they contain information 11. What are the advantage and disadvantages of Plan-based dialogue models? +: flexible, reasonably robust -: resource-intensive to build; not yet evaluated 12. What are the advantages and disadvantages of Information state based dialogue models? +: declarative formulation of information states and transitions; integrates grounding behaviour; domain-independent dialogue rules -: not much more powerful than frame-based model 13: How is dialogue different from (written) text? - dialogue unfolds in time, and timing matters - a dialogue is an interaction, and is shaped by the interests and capabilities of all dialogue participants, while it unfolds.