Dialogue-based intelligent tutoring systems use speech act classifiers to categorize student input into answers, questions, and other speech acts. Previous work has primarily focused on question classification. In this paper, we present a complimentary speech act classifier that focuses primarily on non-questions, which was developed using machine learning techniques. Our results show that an e...

the pragmalinguistic and sociopragmatic aspects of language use vary across different situations, languages, and cultures. the separation of these two facets of language use can help to map out the socio-cultural norms and conventions as well as the linguistic forms and strategies that underlie the pragmatic performance of different language speakers in a variety of target language use situatio...

When we speak we can do all sorts of things, from aspirating a consonant, to constructing a relative clause, to insulting a guest, to starting a war. These are all, pre-theoretically, speech acts—acts done in the process of speaking. The theory of speech acts, however, is especially concerned with those acts that are not completely covered under one or more of the major divisions of grammar—pho...

Conditionals can implicitly convey a range of speech acts including promises, tips, threats and warnings. These are traditionally divided into the broader categories of advice (tips and warnings) and inducements (promises and threats). One consequence of this distinction is that speech acts from within the same category should be harder to differentiate than those from different categories. We ...