Coding book:
sls-ftp.Lcs.mit.edu/pub/multiparty/coding_schemes/traum
Author: David Traum
Title: Coding Schemes for Spoken Dialogue Structure 

Number of annotators:
2 for the inter-turn coherence coding
1 (the author) for the grounding coding
 

Number of annotated dialogues:
26 from the TRAINS-93 corpus for the inter-turn coherence coding. (English)
10 from the TRAINS-91 corpus for the grounding coding. (English)

Evaluation of scheme:
Done but no results published.

Underlying task:
The scheme is designed for application to any kind of dialogue; actual application is for task-oriented dialogues.

List of phenomena annotated:

• Relatedness

• e    Explicit Acknowledgment

• Related

• 0 related to the most recent utterance by the previous speaker

• 1 related to the utterance one previous to the most recent but not related to the most recent

• 2 related to utterance two previous to the last one (and not to anything more recent)

• etc. higher numbers for related utterances further back

• ,     related to previous material by the other speaker, but it is unclear to the coder whether they are related to the immediately previous utterance unit or to an utterance further back.

• u    Unrelated to previous speech by the old speaker

• ?    Uncertain whether these utterances relate to previous speech by the other   speaker

• u-e Unrelated following an explicit acknowledgement

• 1-e Related to the penultimate utterance unit by the other speaker, when last  utterance contained just an explicit acknowledgement

• Grounding Acts

• Initiate:     begins a new DU (Discourse Unit), content separate from previous uncompleted DUs

• Continue:   continuation of previous material by the same speaker

• Acknowledge: demonstrates or claims understanding of previous material by other speaker

• Repair: correct (potential) misunderstanding of DU content

• Request Repair: signal of lack of understanding

• Request Ack: signal for other to acknowledge

• Cancel: top work on DU, leaving it ungrounded and ungroundable

• Surface Form

• Declarative

• Interrogative

• Imperative

• Fragment

• Cue Word

• Non-linguistic

• Illocutionary Function

• INFORM: The speaker provides new information (including providing requested information when answering a question)

• YNQ: The speaker asks a yes-no question, trying to determine the polarity of a proposition

• CHECK: The speaker is attempting to verify that a certain (suspected) proposition is true

• WHQ: The speaker asks a wh-question, trying to determine the value of some term in a proposition

• SUGGEST: The speaker proposes a new item (action, proposition, plan constraint)

• REQUEST: The speaker aims to get the hearer to perform some action

• ACCEPT: The speaker agrees to a prior proposal by the hearer

• REJECT: The speaker rejects a prior proposal by the hearer

• SUPP-INF: The speaker provides additional information (perhaps already known) that augments, or help the hearer interpret some other accompanying speech act. this is usually performed by a subordinate clause or appositive phrase.

• SUPP-SUG: The speaker makes a supplementary suggestion of content, which is presupposed to be part of the plan by other accompanying suggestion or request. This is often performed by a purpose clause.

• EVAL: The speaker provides an evaluation of some item. This includes    both factual evaluations, (e.g. of the likelihood of success of an action), and personal evaluations, describing how the speaker    feels about something

• GREET: The speaker seeks to establish connection, e.g. by saying "hello", or naming the hearer at the beginning of a dialogue.

• APOLOGIZE: The speaker apologizes for some action (e.g., speaking out of turn) or mistaken interpretation.

• Argumentation Structure

• (: so  act1 act2): act1 is relevant to the interpretation of act2. If act2 is an informational act, then the truth of its content should be partially supported by act1. If act2 is a suggestion, then the suggestion should be about (a part of) the plan dominated by act1.
• (: and  act1 act2): the interpretation of act2 is connected to act1 in some way to form a coherent whole. If act2 is a suggestion, then it should be part of the same plan as act1.
• (: and-then act1 act2): the interpretation of act2 is connected to act1 in some way to form a coherent whole. If act2 is a suggestion, then it should be part of the same plan as act1. In addition, act2 should temporally follow act1.
• (: purpose act form): act is to be done for the purpose of achieving form
• (: background act1 act2): act1 is performed for the purpose of making act2 more clear to the hearer.

Existence of annotation tools:
N.b. Tcl/Tk interface by G. Flammia.

Usability:
TRAINS-93 system

Contact person:
David Traum (traum@cs.umd.edu)

Last Modification: 27.8.1998 by Marion Klein