In this paper, we discuss dependencies between rhetorical discourse structure and relevance implicatures. We follow [3] and infer relevance implicatures from the assumption that an answer provides optimal information for solving an explicitly or implicitly given decision problem of the inquirer. Such a decision problem can be identified with a question raised in the conversation. Background que...

In the current study we aim at exploiting discourse structure of Arabic text to automatically finding answers to non-factoid questions ("Why" and "How to"). Our method is based on Rhetorical Structure Theory (RST) that many studies have shown to be a very effective approach for many computational linguistics applications such as (text generation, text summarization and machine translation). For...

Both rhetorical structure and punctuation have been helpful in discourse processing. Based on a corpus annotation project, this paper reports the discursive usage of 6 Chinese punctuation marks in news commentary texts: Colon, Dash, Ellipsis, Exclamation Mark, Question Mark, and Semicolon. The rhetorical patterns of these marks are compared against patterns around cue phrases in general. Result...

This paper investigates the usefulness of prosodic features in classifying rhetorical relations between utterances in meeting recordings. Five rhetorical relations of contrast, elaboration, summary, question and cause are explored. Three training methods supervised, unsupervised, and combined are compared, and classification is carried out using support vector machines. The results of this pilo...

This comparative study aimed at finding out the types of grammatical shifts which have occurred in two English translations of the Quranic rhetorical questions, and the impact of such shifts on the said rhetorical questions. For these purposes, the study firstly analyzed the Arabic and English texts syntactically using the x-bar theory for Haegeman (2006) and then classified the grammatical shi...

This paper investigates the usefulness of prosodic features in classifying rhetorical relations between utterances in meeting recordings. Five rhetorical relations of contrast, elaboration, summary, question and cause are explored. Three training methods supervised, unsupervised, and combined are compared, and classification is carried out using support vector machines. The results of this pilo...

We introduce a novel approach for automatically generating a virtual instructor from textual input only. Our fully implemented system first analyzes the rhetorical structure of the input text and then creates various questionanswer pairs using patterns. These patterns have been derived from correlations found between rhetorical structure of monologue texts and question-answer pairs in the corre...

Gunkel challenges Mowinckel's contention that Psalm 15 is connected with the annual festival of the enthronement of Yahweh. While Gunkel disputes Mowinckel's assertion that this psalm's usage can be pin-pointed to a specific event on the Israelite calendar, I question the "presupposed worship service" that causes this psalm to be read as a liturgical entrance psalm. Gunkel himself says, "The re...