Automatic detection of causal relations in German multilogs

This paper introduces a linguisticallymotivated, rule-based annotation system for causal discourse relations in transcripts of spoken multilogs in German. The overall aim is an automatic means of determining the degree of justification provided by a speaker in the delivery of an argument in a multiparty discussion. The system comprises of two parts: A disambiguation module which differentiates causal connectors from their other senses, and a discourse relation annotation system which marks the spans of text that constitute the reason and the result/conclusion expressed by the causal relation. The system is evaluated against a gold standard of German transcribed spoken dialogue. The results show that our system performs reliably well with respect to both tasks.