Automated Discourse Generation Using Discourse Structure Relations

This paper summarizes work over the past five years on the automated planning and generation of multisentence texts using discourse structure relations, placing it in context of ongoing efforts by Computational Linguists and Linguists to understand the structure of discourse. Based on a series of studies by the author and others, the paper describes how the orientation of generation toward communicative intentions illuminates the central structural role played by intersegment discourse relations. It outlines several facets of discourse structure relations as they are required by and used in text planners - their nature, number and extension to associated tasks such as sentence planning and text formatting. Computational linguistics, Text generation, Text planning, Discourse, Discourse structure relations, Rhetorical structure theory, Intention in communication, Text plans, Focus, Schemas, Text formatting.