An Empirical Approach to Temporal Reference Resolution

This paper presents the results of an empirical investigation of temporal reference resolution in scheduling dialogs. The algorithm adopted is primarily a linear-recency based approach that does not include a model of global focus. A fully automatic system has been developed and evaluated on unseen test data with good results. This paper presents the results of an intercoder reliability study, a model of temporal reference resolution that supports linear recency and has very good coverage, the results of the system evaluated on unseen test data, and a detailed analysis of the dialogs assessing the viability of the approach.

Instructions for Temporal Annotation of Scheduling Dialogs

Human annotation of natural language facilitates standardized evaluation of natural language processing systems and supports automated feature extraction. This document consists of instructions for annotating the temporal information in scheduling dialogs, dialogs in which the participants schedule a meeting with one another. Task-oriented dialogs, such as these are, would arise in many useful applications, for instance, automated information providers and automated phone operators. Explicit instructions support good inter-rater reliability and serve as documentation for the classes being annotated.