Interpersonal Constraints

PAULINE [Hovy 88] is the definitive work on interpersonal constraints as applied to text generation. Hovy argues that the features shown below have an enormous effect on the slant a discourse takes on.

• Conversational atmosphere:

  time - much, some, little

  tone - formal, informal, festive

  conditions - good, noisy

• Speaker:

  topic knowledge - expert, student, novice

  topic interest - high, low

  topic opinion - good, neutral, bad

  emotional state - happy, angry, calm

• Hearer:

  topic knowledge - expert, student, novice

  topic interest - high, low

  topic opinion - good, neutral, bad

  emotional state - happy, angry, calm

  language ability - high, normal, low

• Speaker-Hearer Relationship:

  depth of acq. - friends, acquaintance, strangers

  relative social status - dominant, equal, subordinate

  emotion - like, neutral, dislike

Hovy convincingly showed how varying a number of pragmatic parameters produced over one hundred different texts describing the same event.

In DIOGENES, interpersonal constraints primarily influence lexical choices. The following pragmatic factors are identified in [Nirenburg and Defrise 92]:

• formality
• simplicity (simple, short sentences, easy words vs. more complex)
• force
• color (unusual words, idiomatic expressions)
• directness
• respect (relative status of participants)

In the DIOGENES example domain (an advertisement for Dunkin Donuts), the lexical selection ``drop-by'' was chosen over ``visit'' because its lower formality fit the communication situation better.