A METHOD OF ANAPHORA RESOLUTION BASED ON THE CONCEPT OF OBSERVATION

The meaning of a sentence depends on the context in which it is used w ith other sentences. This results from the fact that several sentences are usually integrated to form a context. To date, the study of conte xt structure has been concerned mostly with the semantic relation betw een the verbs (predicates) of the two sentences. It should be noted, h owever, that even if the verbs are semantically related, the relation may be felt to be unnatural and cannot be considered to form a context when the relation called discourse factor, such as the relationship b etween viewpoint, is not established. This study considers the context construction problem from the viewpoint of the natural relation betwe en sentences. For this purpose, the concept of observation is introduc ed, this is an extension of viewpoint. Using that concept, it is shown how the interpretation of the sentence is helped by the preceding sen tence. Then, the application to the resolution of anaphora is discusse d. In other words, the anaphora is resolved by establishing the natura l relation between sentences. It is shown that the anaphora problem wh ich has not been resolved by the past method can now be resolved. The effectiveness of the anaphora resolution considered in this study is v erified by examining actual examples.