Abstract
In this chapter we present a fragment of our computational theory of the paragraph (for a fuller explanation, see Zadrozny and Jensen 1991). We concentrate on the relationship between the content of the paragraph and the background knowledge needed for its understanding. We define the concept of coherence, that is, links between words/concepts appearing in the paragraphs, and of the topic of a paragraph. To do this precisely, we use a new type of logical theory consisting of an object level, corresponding to the content of the paragraph, a referential level, which is a new logical level encoding background knowledge, and a metalevel containing constraints on models of discourse (e.g., a formal version of the Gricean maxims; see Grice 1975). We suggest specific mechanisms of interaction between these levels, resembling both classical provability and abduction. Paragraphs are then represented by a class of structures called p-models.KeywordsBackground KnowledgeObject TheoryLogical TheorySemantic RolePartial TheoryThese keywords were added by machine and not by the authors. This process is experimental and the keywords may be updated as the learning algorithm improves.
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