Generating the structure of argument

Abstract

This paper demonstrates that generating arguments in natural language requires planning at an abstract level, and that the appropriate abstraction cannot be captured by approaches based solely upon coherence relations. An abstraction based planning system is presented which employs operators motivated by empirical study and rhetorical maxims. These operators include a subset of traditional deductive rules of inference, argumentation theoretic rules of refutation, and inductive reasoning patterns. The paper presents a unified system in which the various argument forms are employed in generating rich, complex structures for persuasive text.