PROXIMAL AND DISTAL DEMONSTRATIVES IN

DUTCH SPOKEN DIALOGUES

Robbert-Jan Beun and Paul Piwek

1

DENK: BASIC MODEL

Agent 2

Domain

Agent 1

Physical interaction

Symbolic interaction

Computer systemUser

2

SEARCH SPACES IN DENK

User:

private

beliefs

shared

beliefs

goals

discourse

‘Referring

expression’

C

o

m

p

u

t

e

r

pending

3

SEARCH SPACE FOR REFERENTS

Driven by ‘accessibility markers’

def articles, demonstratives, pronouns, …

A: bla bla bla bla bla bla

The driver drinks. The policeman observes him/himself.

cognitive state

(beliefs, goals, …)

4

PRIORITY SPACE FOR REFERENTS

A: Is this block heavy?

B: Yes

A1: Remove it/?that/?this!

A2: Remove that/?this one!

A3: Remove the/that/?this block!

search

space

accessibility marker

non-refl.

pronouns

refl.

pronouns

demon-

stratives

def.

article

sentence 2 1 3 4

dialogue 1 - 2 2

private - - - -

shared - - - 3

domain 3 - 1 1

5

Would we be able to refine the rules that guide

the search and the generation process for

demonstrative noun phrases, in particular the

difference between proximals and distals?

6

DEMONSTRATIVES

TRADITIONAL VIEWPOINTS

Demonstratives indicate relative distance of a referent in the

speech situation

Deictic center (origo): usually the speaker

Reference to nearby-faraway distance:

proximal: ‘dit/deze’ (‘this/these’)

distal: ‘dat/die’ (‘that/those’) faraway

54% of the languages express a two-way contrast

Distance- and person-oriented systems

Anaphoric use is derived from situational use

7

LANGUAGE AND PERCEPTION (KEMMERER, 1999)

Visual brain representation peripersonal space (within arm reach)

proximal?

extrapersonal space (beyond arm reach)

distal?

Conflicts three-way (or more) contrast languages

many other uses: This block is smaller than that block

non-situational use?

Essential difference between perceptual representations and abstract linguistic notions, however …

8

OTHER PROPOSALS

Based on notions such as:

importance, focus, given/new,

background/foreground, force to seek the

antecedent, intensity of indicating, accessibility,

prominence, distance, (degree of) attention,

familiarity, shared knowledge, contrast,

presupposed vs. predicted, ...

Hard to quantify!

9

Let’s take an example

10

TWO NOTIONS IN HUMAN INFORMATION

PROCESSING

Accessibility

‘the ease with which particular mental content comes to mind’ (Kahneman, 2003)

attention, perception, beliefs, environment, task, …

Importance

‘perceived relevance of actions, events, facts and objects for the attainment of goals/desires’

tasks, goals, preconditions, priority, intentions, …

11

If accessibility is low, then give more

force

If importance is high, then give more

force

Applied to demonstratives (Kirsner,

1979)

proximals strong indicating

distals neutral indicating12

INTENSITY OF INDICATING

FINDINGS BY KIRSNER (1979)

Accessibility

proximals used over longer distances

proximals are related with low accessibility

Importance

proximals more often used:

to refer to humans, (named) individuals

to refer to individual referents (as opposed to plural)

in subject position

proximals are related with high importance

13

CORPUS 1 (PIWEK, BEUN AND CREMERS, 2008, JOP 40)

Dutch dialogue

Nr. of words: ~5000

Domain of discourse: blocks world

Channel: spoken

Goal: make building like example

Builder: B, Instructor: I

14

BASIC SETTING

Agent 2Agent 1

Domain

15

EXAMPLE (ORIGINAL IN DUTCH)

I: Well J.

B: Yes

I: Let’s see …uh, do you have a red square?

B: Yes

I: Well, for a start, you have to … put that on the horizontal … beam v- uh, the bleu one, two by six

B: yes

I: in the front

B: over here?

I: yes, a little more to the front side

B: like this?

I: yes, like that, that is the first change, and then, uh, let’s see, what is the old one … (2.0) yes, then you have to put that block, in the middle, that one with yellow, that one has to be removed

B: this?

I: take it away

16

HYPOTHESIS

The use of a proximal vs. distal is related to the

intensity of indicating:

If accessibility is low use proximal

If importance is high use proximal

Else use distal

Accessibility

low high

Importanc

e

low proxima

l

distal

high proxima

l

proxima

l17

RESULTS

Accessibility and importance in terms of focus of

attention and task at hand (manipulation)

If low accessibility then proximal

yes (χ²=6.76, p<0.01)

If high importance then proximal

no significant result

18

SOME REMARKS

We investigated only situational reference

i.e. first reference to physical objects

Proximals were always (except one) accompanied

by pointing

Operational criteria of accessibility and importance

are disputable (also in Kirsner’s proposal)

19

SO, …

Intuitively a proximal refers to nearby, more

accessible information, but …

Observations showed that proximals refer to less

accessible information

reference over longer distances (Kirsner)

reference to objects that were not directly in the focus of

the speaker’s attention (Piwek, et al)

20

CORPUS 2

Dutch dialogue

Domain of discourse: computer, telephone, internet

Channel: spoken, phone

Goal: solving problems with computer

Client: C, Helpdesk agent: A

Nr. of words: ~30000

21

EXAMPLE (ORIGINAL IN DUTCH)

A: I understand from a colleague that you have a problem with

your phone

C: yes, I am now on the phone for almost one hour and I want …

A: hmmh

C: and I am phoning that one on the phone, a P. or a P. …

A: hmmh

C: from the helpdesk, that one was helping me, I had to reset …

that is what I did, and then, the phone, well, it

disappeared, the signal,…

A: ok

C: then I tried again, but couldn’t get him, I phoned several

times …

A: yes

C: and that didn’t work and now, I did, uhh, well, uhh …

A: ok, so you are phoning with a mobile phone now?

C: yes, …

22

BASIC SETTING

Agent 2Agent 1

Domain 2Domain 1

23

SOME NUMBERS

dialogue

lengt

h

(sec)

proximal distal

total

length

/

totalA K A K

1 442 - 1 19 27 47 9.4

2 559 4 1 24 15 44 12.7

3 219 1 - 11 3 15 14.6

4 451 1 4 35 13 53 8.5

5 169 1 - 9 8 18 9.4

6 1503 9 6 55 40 110 13.6

7 662 4 2 31 17 54 12.3

8 737 1 - 18 17 36 20.5

9 555 - - 18 14 32 17.3

10 802 3 - 38 24 65 12.3

6099 24 14 258 178 474 12.9

a demonstrative

every 13 seconds

24

REFERENCE TYPE

proximal distal total

exophoric (new) 6 (16%) 4 (1%) 10

cataphoric 2 (5%) 1 (0.2%) 3

anaphoric

left-dislocation - 21 (5%) 21

associative

(new)3 (8%) 18 (4%) 21

other 27 (71%) 392 (90%) 419

total 38 (100%) 436 (100%) 474

020406080

100

proximal

distal% o

f occurr

ence

25

EXOPHORIC (NEW)

7.84

K: Ik kan even geen ‘servers’ vinden, eh … , dan moet ik even

dit aanklikken

K: I cannot find ‘servers’, uh … , then I have to click this.

10.108

K: Dus, sluiten met die x in de rechterbovenhoek?

K: So, closing with that x in the upper right corner?

26

ASSOCIATIVE ANAPHOR (NEW)

1.36

A: Telefoneren is wel goedkoop, maar ik telefoneer zo dikwijls

dat ik dat weer kwijt ben aan mijn mobiele telefoon.

A: Phoning may be cheap, but I am phoning so often that I am

loosing that with my mobile phone.

4.17

A: U zult merken dat uw verbinding weer werkt als dat rode

lampje uitgaat.

A: You will notice that your connection works again if that

red light is off.

27

DISTANCE TO ANTECEDENT

proximal distal

distance

(in #turns)

rang

e0-30 0-212

mean 3.0 5.2

sd. 9.2 19.6

new 9 (24%) 20 (5%)

28

DISTANCE TO ANTECEDENT

proximal distal

distance

(in #turns)

rang

e0-30 0-212

mean 3.0 5.2

sd. 9.2 19.6

new 9 (24%) 20 (5%)

Difference of means is not significant!

29

DISTRIBUTION OF DISTANCE

distance

(in #turns)proximal distal total

0 10 (33%) 165 (40%) 175 (40%)

1 10 (33%) 119 (29%) 129 (29%)

2-10 7 (24%) 97 (23%) 104 (23%)

11-20 2 (6%) 13 (3%) 15 (3%)

21-80 1 (3%) 12 (3%) 13 (3%)

>80 - 8 (2%) 8 (2%)

total 30 (100%) 414 (100%) 444 (100%)

(‘new’ excluded from counting)

30

DISTRIBUTION OF DISTANCE

0%

5%

10%

15%

20%

25%

30%

35%

40%

45%

0 1 2-10 11-20 21-80 >80

proximal

distal

31

% o

f occurr

ence

No difference in distance distribution between proximal

and distal reference

32

No difference in distance distribution between proximal

and distal reference

But how then could we measure a difference in

accessibility in the first corpus?

33

No difference in distance distribution between proximal

and distal reference

But how then could we measure a difference in

accessibility in the first corpus?

Because people pointed to important and faraway

objects.

Pointing brings the object in focus and therefore nearby

use a proximal

Distinguish between the act of reference and the act of

focusing.

34

CATAPHORIC PROXIMALS

Exophoric (separated)

(7.84)

K: … dan moet ik even dit aanklikken, denk ik

K: … then I have to click this, I think

Discourse (6.120)

A: Laten we deze afspraak maken dat …

A: Let’s make this appointment that …

speaker activated

35

But suppose proximals are more near or in

focus, then why didn’t we measure a difference in

the distance distribution?

36

SUBSTRUCTURES IN DISCOURSE

6.15 K: I want to remove my email address

6.19 A: You cannot remove this email address

6.20 K: That is a problem

6.29 A: Do you use this email address?

37

substructure

substructure

SUBSTRUCTURES IN DISCOURSE

• tasks and subtasks

• interruptions

• rhetorical structures

• sub-questions

• …

38

K: Do x

Bla bla this x bla bla

K: Yes, but then … .

A: Well, …

…

PRONOMINAL VS. ADNOMINAL

proximal distal total

pronominal 15 (39%) 321 (73%) 336

adnominal 23 (61%) 115 (27%) 138

total 38 (100%) 436 (100%) 474

0

20

40

60

80

100

Pronominal Adnominal

Proximal

Distal

χ² = 20.1, p<.001

% o

f occurr

ence

39

If proximal would be near, focus or easy

accessible, then we would expect less description.

What happens?

40

DISTAL, DISTANCE AND FORM

0

10

20

30

40

50

60

70

80

90

100

0-3 4-10 >10

pronominal

adnominal

0-3/4-10:

χ²=50.3, p<.001

4-10/>10:

χ²=3.82, p≤.05

41

%

PROXIMAL, DISTANCE AND FORM

0

10

20

30

40

50

60

70

80

90

100

0-3 4-10 >10

pronominal

adnominal

0-3/>4:

χ²=2.48, p>.05

42

%

Proximals are relatively more ‘new’

proximals: 24%

distals: 5%

New introductions ‘receive’ more information

Relatively more proximals are in adnominal form

Other cases could be explained by discourse deixis

or contrast

43

CONCLUSION

The traditional classification of near and faraway could be

restored

We found no difference in distance (distribution) between

proximal and distal use in number of turns

Distance in turns or words is not (always) an adequate

measure for accessibility or nearness

degree of focus in perceivable world (situation)

related to structure in discourse (domain model, task)

A clear distinction should be made between the act of

bringing an object into focus and the act of reference

Conversational setting should be described very carefully

44