A computational theory of goal-directed style in syntax. DiMarco, C. & Hirst, G. Computational Linguistics, 19(3):451–499, September, 1993.
abstract   bibtex   

The problem of style is highly relevant to computational linguistics, but current systems deal only superficially, if at all, with subtle but significant nuances of language. Expressive effects, together with their associated meaning, contained in the style of a text are lost to analysis and absent from generation.

We have developed an approach to the computational treatment of style that is intended to eventually incorporate three selected components—lexical, syntactic, and semantic. In this paper, we concentrate on certain aspects of syntactic style. We have designed and implemented a computational theory of goal-directed stylistics that can be used in various applications, including machine translation, second-language instruction, and natural language generation.

We have constructed a vocabulary of style that contains both primitive and abstract elements of style. The primitive elements describe the stylistic effects of individual sentence components. These elements are combined into patterns that are described by a stylistic meta-language, the abstract elements, that define the concordant and discordant stylistic effects common to a group of sentences. Higher-level patterns are built from the abstract elements and associated with specific stylistic goals, such as clarity or concreteness. Thus, we have defined rules for a syntactic stylistic grammar at three interrelated levels of description: primitive elements, abstract elements, and stylistic goals. Grammars for both English and French have been constructed, using the same vocabulary and the same development methodology. Parsers that implement these grammars have also been built.

The stylistic grammars codify aspects of language that were previously defined only descriptively. The theory is being applied to various problems in which the form of an utterance conveys an essential part of meaning and so must be precisely represented and understood.

@Article{	  dimarco4,
  author	= {Chrysanne DiMarco and Graeme Hirst},
  title		= {A computational theory of goal-directed style in syntax},
  journal	= {Computational Linguistics},
  volume	= {19},
  number	= {3},
  month		= {September},
  year		= {1993},
  pages		= {451--499},
  abstract	= {<P> The problem of style is highly relevant to
		  computational linguistics, but current systems deal only
		  superficially, if at all, with subtle but significant
		  nuances of language. Expressive effects, together with
		  their associated meaning, contained in the style of a text
		  are lost to analysis and absent from generation.</p> <P> We
		  have developed an approach to the computational treatment
		  of style that is intended to eventually incorporate three
		  selected components---lexical, syntactic, and semantic. In
		  this paper, we concentrate on certain aspects of syntactic
		  style. We have designed and implemented a computational
		  theory of goal-directed stylistics that can be used in
		  various applications, including machine translation,
		  second-language instruction, and natural language
		  generation.</p> <P> We have constructed a vocabulary of
		  style that contains both primitive and abstract elements of
		  style. The primitive elements describe the stylistic
		  effects of individual sentence components. These elements
		  are combined into patterns that are described by a
		  stylistic meta-language, the abstract elements, that define
		  the concordant and discordant stylistic effects common to a
		  group of sentences. Higher-level patterns are built from
		  the abstract elements and associated with specific
		  stylistic goals, such as clarity or concreteness. Thus, we
		  have defined rules for a syntactic stylistic grammar at
		  three interrelated levels of description: primitive
		  elements, abstract elements, and stylistic goals. Grammars
		  for both English and French have been constructed, using
		  the same vocabulary and the same development methodology.
		  Parsers that implement these grammars have also been
		  built.</p> <P> The stylistic grammars codify aspects of
		  language that were previously defined only descriptively.
		  The theory is being applied to various problems in which
		  the form of an utterance conveys an essential part of
		  meaning and so must be precisely represented and
		  understood.</p>},
  download	= {http://ftp.cs.toronto.edu/pub/gh/DiMarco+Hirst-CL-93.pdf}
}

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