Rhetorical Structure Theory: A Theory of Text Organization.

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Abstract:

Rhetorical Structure Theory is a descriptive theory of a major aspect of the organization of natural text. It is a linguistically useful method for describing natural texts, characterizing their structure primarily in terms of relations that hold between parts of the text. This paper establishes a new definitional foundation for RST. Definitions are made more systematic and explicit, they introduce a new functional element, and incidentally reflect more experience in text analysis. Along with the definitions, the paper examines three claims and findings of RST the predominance of nucleussatellite structural patterns, the functional basis of hierarchy, and the communicative role of text structure. Author Keywords Artificial intelligence Coherence Computational linguistics Discourse Grammar Knowledge delivery Natural language processing Pragmatics.

Author(s):
Mann, William C. ; Thompson, Sandra A.
Author Organization(s):
UNIVERSITY OF SOUTHERN CALIFORNIA MARINA DEL REY INFORMATION SCIENCES INST
Descriptive Note:
Research rept.,
Supplementary Note:
Sponsored in part by Grant NSF-IST84-08726.
Pagination:
0091

Security Markings

DOCUMENT & CONTEXTUAL SUMMARY

Distribution:
Approved For Public Release

RECORD

Collection: TR
Identifying Numbers
Report Number(s):
ISI/RS-87-190
Contract/Grant Number(s):
MDA903-81-C-0335, F49620-87-C-0005
 Subject Terms
Modernization Areas:
Space
Communities of Interest:
Space
Descriptor(s):
*ARTIFICIAL INTELLIGENCE, *NATURAL LANGUAGE, *COMPUTATIONAL LINGUISTICS, *INFORMATION THEORY, THEORY, PROCESSING, HIERARCHIES
Field(s)/Group(s):
Linguistics, Information Science
Keyword(s):
*Retorical structure theory, Knowledge representation
Report Date:
1987 Jun 01