Anaphora resolution using linguisitic cues, dialogue context, and general knowledge

摘要

An automatic conversational system has multiple computer-implemented dialogue components for conducting an automated dialogue process with a human user. A user client delivers dialogue output prompts to the human user and receives dialogue input responses from the human user including speech inputs. An automatic speech recognition engine processes the speech inputs to determine corresponding sequences of representative text words. A natural language understanding (NLU) processing arrangement processes the dialogue input responses and the text words to determine corresponding semantic interpretations. The NLU processing arrangement includes an anaphora processor that accesses different information sources characterizing dialogue context, linguistic features, and NLU features to identify unresolved anaphora in the text words needing resolution in order to determine a semantic interpretation. A dialogue manager manages the dialogue process with the human user based on the semantic interpretations.

主权项

1. A computer-implemented method comprising:
receiving, by a computing system, data generated based on spoken user responses to prompts associated with a dialogue, the data comprising a portion corresponding to one or more of the spoken user responses spoken before a subsequently spoken response of the spoken user responses; generating, by the computing system, a list of natural language understanding (NLU)-ranked semantic interpretations for the subsequently spoken response; and re-ranking, by the computing system and based on their relative similarity and a context of the dialogue determined from the one or more of the spoken user responses, the list of NLU-ranked semantic interpretations to identify a semantic interpretation that resolves an unresolved anaphora in the subsequently spoken response.