Segmented Discourse Representation Theory: Dynamic Semantics With Discourse Structure

Abstract

This paper motivates and describes a dynamic semantic theory of discourse interpretation called SDRT, which uses rhetorical relations to model the semantics/pragmatics interface. We describe the syntax and dynamic semantics of the language in which logical forms are represented, a separate but related language in which semantic underspecification is expressed as partial descriptions of logical forms, and a glue logic which uses commonsense reasoning to construct logical forms, relating the semantically underspecified forms that are generated by the grammar to their pragmatically preferred interpre- tations. We apply the framework to some examples involving anaphora and other kinds of semantic ambiguities.