We describe an experiment in using Transformation-Based Learning to improve the output of a VP ellipsis resolution system. In this preliminary study, we address system errors in which the correct VP antecedent was chosen, but in which right-peripheral material should either be added or removed. The system was trained on 256 examples of VP ellipsis from the Brown Corpus, and was tested on 128 ex...

The paper discusses a method for resolving referential ambiguity related with contextual ellipsis in human-machine dialogue. Necessary conditions for reconstructing elliptical phrases of a special kind—short answers or clarifications— are formulated. The first (most reliable) condition characterizes the lexical combinability; it is tested using a dictionary of collocations. The second one uses ...

This paper argues that gapping in Japanese is best analyzed as the product of the interaction of Coordinate Ellipsis with Dependence Ellipsis originally proposed by Williams (1997) and further extended by Ackema and Szendröi (2002). The proposed analysis correctly derives several core properties of verb gapping in Japanese such as contrastive focus associated with overt remnants, and the role o...

We sketch the basis of a categorical compositional distributional semantic approach to the analysis of verb phrase ellipsis.

This paper reads the use of ellipsis as a narrative technique in Yvonne Owuor’s Dust. The interrogates deployment novel strategy for contesting notions homogeneity at different levels. Through ellipsis, constantly ruptures its own form, but which inherently calls continuity. These gaps invite reader to be co-creator and, therefore, participate imagining community, nation, and history novel. I a...

We present a default-unification-based approach to ellipsis resolution that is based on experience in long running multimodal dialog projects, where it played an essential role in discourse processing. We extend default unification to non-parallel structures, which is important for speech and multimodal dialog systems. We introduce new control mechanisms for ellipsis resolution by considering d...