Structuring knowledge for reference generation : a clustering algorithm

Abstract

This paper discusses two problems that arise in the Generation of Referring Expressions: (a) numeric-valued attributes, such as size or location; (b) perspective-taking in reference. Both problems, it is argued, can be resolved if some structure is imposed on the available knowledge prior to content determination. We describe a clustering algorithm which is sufficiently general to be applied to these diverse problems, discuss its application, and evaluate its performance.