Semantic Analyses and Representations - Man-Machine Dialogue: Design and Challenges - page 88

5.3. Enriching meaning representation
Once we have a representation of the explicit semantic content of the
utterance, we can go further in the analysis and integrate a few
semantico-pragmatic aspects which fall within the field of connotation, of
highlighting or of inferring such as explicitations of the relevance theory, that
is the hypotheses explicitly communicated through the utterance that
indicates, for example, the propositional attitude such as intent or belief
[SPE 95]. We can also enrich the logical form achieved through semantic
analysis by integrating a calculation of the implicitations, that is the
hypotheses that are not communicated explicitly, such as implicit
assumptions. These can be derived from the utterance itself, if it is linguistic
or multimodal, or from the context. In this section, we are only focusing on
those which can be derived only from the utterance.
5.3.1. At the level of linguistic utterance
The enrichment of the analyses described in the previous sections consists
of adding indications and propositional content to the semantic representation
which was obtained. According to the theories, these indications and this
content can vary widely, and for our purposes we will consider the following:
connotations, modalities, irony, salience, focus, presuppositions and allusions.
Adding connotations, i.e. elements of meaning which are added to the
literal meaning, happens by following the links of hyponymy, synonymy, etc.,
and by identifying the semantic aspects which are linked in a relevant manner
to the elements in the utterance, in the cases when such aspects provide useful
settings for automatic understanding. For MMD, the challenge is not to
automatically generate too many connotations at any random moment, but to
generate information that allows us to fill in the blanks in the understanding
process, for example to correctly interpret metaphors and comparisons.
The modalities are ways of modifying the semantic content by expressing
the user's attitude with regard to the content of his/her utterance. Thus, the
term has nothing to do with the multimodality of communication. Depending
on the type of modality, we refer to epistemic modality (level of belief in what
is said, like in “this itinerary seems shorter”), alethic modality (truth or
possibility that what is being said might happen), deontic modality
(obligation, ban and permission), intersubjective modality (advice, reproach)
or appreciation modality. In MMD, the presence of verbs such as “to seem”,