Discourse Relations: A Structural and Presuppositional Account Using 
Lexicalised TAG* 
Bonnie Webber 
Univ of Edinburgh 
bonnie@dai.ed.ac.uk 
Alistair Knott 
Univ of Otago 
alik@cs.otago.ac.nz 
Matthew Stone 
Rutgers Univ 
mdstone@cs.rutgers.edu 
Aravind Joshi 
Univ of Pennsylvania 
joshi @cis.upenn.edu 
Abstract 
We show that discourse structure need not bear 
the full burden of conveying discourse relations by 
showing that many of them can be explained non- 
structurally in terms of the grounding of anaphoric 
presuppositions (Van der Sandt, 1992). This simpli- 
fies discourse structure, while still allowing the real- 
isation of a full range of discourse relations. This is 
achieved using the same semantic machinery used 
in deriving clause-level semantics. 
1 Introduction 
Research on discourse structure has, by and large, 
attempted to associate all meaningful relations 
between propositions with structural connections 
between discourse clauses (syntactic clauses or 
structures composed of them). Recognising that this 
could mean multiple structural connections between 
clauses, Rhetorical Structure Theory (Mann and 
Thompson, 1988) simply stipulates that only a 
single relation may hold. Moore and Pollack (1992) 
argue that both informational (semantic) and inten- 
tional relations can hold between clauses simultan- 
eously and independently. This suggests that factor- 
ing the two kinds of relations might lead to a pair 
of structures, each still with no more than a single 
structural connection between any two clauses. 
But examples of multiple semantic relations are 
easy to find (Webber et al., 1999). Having struc- 
ture account for all of them leads to the complex- 
ities shown in Figure 1, including the crossing de- 
pendencies shown in Fig. l c. These structures are 
no longer trees, making it difficult to define a com- 
positional semantics. 
This problem would not arise if one recognised 
additional, non-structural means of conveying se- 
mantic relations between propositions and modal 
* Our thanks to Mark Steedman, Katja Markert, Gann Bierner 
and three ACL'99 reviewers for all their useful comments. 
operators on propositions. This is what we do here: 
Structurally, we assume a "bare bones" dis- 
course structure built up from more complex 
elements (LTAG trees) than those used in many 
other approaches. These structures and the op- 
erations used in assembling them are the basis 
for compositional semantics. 
Stimulated by structural operations, inference 
based on world knowledge, usage conventions, 
etc., can then make defeasible contributions to 
discourse interpretation that elaborate the non- 
defeasible propositions contributed by com- 
positional semantics. 
Non-structurally, we take additional semantic 
relations and modal operators to be conveyed 
through anaphoric presuppositions (Van der 
Sandt, 1992) licensed by information that 
speaker and hearer are taken to share. A main 
source of shared knowledge is the interpreta- 
tion of the on-going discourse. Because the 
entity that licences (or "discharges") a given 
presupposition usually has a source within the 
discourse, the presupposition seems to link the 
clause containing the presupposition-bearing 
(p-bearing) element to that source. However, 
as with pronominal and definite NP anaphora, 
while attentional constraints on their interpret- 
ation may be influenced by structure, the links 
themselves are not structural. 
The idea of combining compositional semantics 
with defeasible inference is not new. Neither is the 
idea of taking certain lexical items as anaphorically 
presupposing an eventuality or a set of eventualities: 
It is implicit in all work on the anaphoric nature of 
tense (cf. Partee (1984), Webber (1988), inter alia) 
and modality (Stone, 1999). What is new is the way 
we enable anaphoric presupposition to contribute to 
semantic relations and modal operators, in a way 
41 
Ci Ci 
(a) 
R1 R 2 
C I Ci C k Ci C i C k C m 
(b) (c) 
Figure 1: Multiple semantic links (R j) between discourse clauses (Ci): (a) back to the same discourse clause; 
(b) back to different discourse clauses; (c) back to different discourse clauses, with crossing dependencies. 
that does not lead to the violations of tree structure 
mentioned earlier.t 
We discuss these differences in more detail in 
Section 2, after describing the lexicalised frame- 
work that facilitates the derivation of discourse se- 
mantics from structure, inference and anaphoric 
presuppositions. Sections 3 and 4 then present more 
detailed semantic analyses of the connectives for ex- 
ample and otherwise. Finally, in Section 5, we sum- 
marize our arguments for the approach and suggest 
a program of future work. 
2 Framework 
In previous papers (Cristea and Webber, 1997; 
Webber and Joshi, 1998; Webber et al., 1999), we 
have argued for using the more complex structures 
(elementary trees) of a Lexicalized Tree-Adjoining 
Grammar (LTAG) and its operations (adjoining and 
substitution) to associate structure and semantics 
with a sequence of discourse clauses. 2 Here we 
briefly review how it works. 
In a lexicalized TAG, each elementary tree has at 
least one anchor. In the case of discourse, the an- 
chor for an elementary tree may be a lexical item, 
punctuation or a feature structure that is lexically 
null. The semantic contribution of a lexical anchor 
includes both what it presupposes and what it as- 
serts (Stone and Doran, 1997; Stone, 1998; Stone 
and Webber, 1998). A feature structure anchor will 
either unify with a lexical item with compatible fea- 
tures (Knott and Mellish, 1996), yielding the previ- 
ous case, or have an empty realisation, though one 
1One may still need to admit structures having both a link 
back and a link forward to different clauses (Gardent, 1997). 
But a similar situation can occur within the clause, with rel- 
ative clause dependencies - from the verb back to the relative 
pronoun and forward to a trace - so the possibility is not unmo- 
tivated from the perspective of syntax. 
2We take this to be only the most basic level of discourse 
structure, producing what are essentially extended descriptions 
of situations/events. Discourse may be further structured with 
respect to speaker intentions, genre-specific presentations, etc. 
that maintains its semantic features. 
The initial elementary trees used here corres- 
pond, by and large, to second-order predicate- 
argument structures - i.e., usually binary predicates 
on propositions or eventualities - while the auxil- 
iary elementary trees provide further information 
(constraints) added through adjoining. 
Importantly, we bar crossing structural connec- 
tions. Thus one diagnostic for taking a predicate 
argument to be anaphoric rather than structural is 
whether it can derive from across a structural link. 
The relation in a subordinate clause is clearly struc- 
tural: Given two relations, one realisable as "Al- 
though o¢ \[3, the other realisable as "Because y ~5", 
they cannot together be realised as "Although ~ be- 
cause y \[3 &" with the same meaning as "Although 
o¢ \[3. Because y 8". The same is true of certain re- 
lations whose realisation spans multiple sentences, 
such as ones realisable as "On the one hand oz. On 
the other hand 13." and "Not only T- But also &" To- 
gether, they cannot be realised as "On the one hand 
o¢. Not only T. On the other hand 13. But also &" 
with the same meaning as in strict sequence. Thus 
we take such constructions to be structural as well 
(Webber and Joshi, 1998; Webber et al., 1999). 
On the other hand, the p-bearing adverb "then", 
which asserts that one eventuality starts after the 
culmination of another, has only one of its argu- 
ments coming structurally. The other argument is 
presupposed and thus able to come from across a 
structural boundary, as in 
(1) a. On the one hand, John loves Barolo. 
b. So he ordered three cases of the '97. 
c. On the other hand, because he's broke, 
d. he then had to cancel the order. 
Here, "then" asserts that the "cancelling" event in 
(d) follows the ordering event in (b). Because the 
link to (b) crosses the structural link in the parallel 
construction, we take this argument to come non- 
42 
structurally through anaphoric presupposition. 3 
Now we illustrate briefly how short discourses 
built from LTAG constituents get their semantics. 
For more detail, see (Webber and Joshi, 1998; 
Webber et al., 1999). For more information on com- 
positional semantic operations on LTAG derivation 
trees, see (Joshi and Vijay-Shanker, 1999). 
(2) a. You shouldn't trust John because he never 
returns what he borrows. 
b. You shouldn't trust John. He never returns 
what he borrows. 
C. You shouldn't trust John because, for ex- 
ample, he never returns what he borrows. 
d. You shouldn't trust John. For example, he 
never retums what he borrows. 
Here A will stand for the LTAG parse tree for "you 
shouldn't trust John" and a, its derivation tree, and 
B will stand for the LTAG parse tree for "he never 
returns what he borrows" and 13, its derivation tree. 
The explanation of Example 2a is primarily struc- 
tural. It involves an initial tree (y) anchored by "be- 
cause" (Figure 2). Its derived tree comes from A 
substituting at the left-hand substitution site of y (in- 
dex 1) and B at the right-hand substitution site (in- 
dex 3). Semantically, the anchor of y ("because") 
asserts that the situation associated with the argu- 
ment indexed 3 (B) is the cause of that associated 
with the argument indexed 1 (A). 
The explanation of Example 2b is primarily struc- 
tural as well. It employs an auxiliary tree (y) 
anchored by "." (Figure 3). Its derived tree comes 
from B substituting at the right-hand substitution 
site (index 3) of ),, and "f adjoining at the root of 
A (index 0). Semantically, adjoining B to A via y 
simply implies that B continues the description of 
the situation associated with A. The general infer- 
ence that this stimulates leads to a defeasible con- 
tribution of causality between them, which can be 
denied without a contradiction - e.g. 
(3) You shouldn't trust John. He never returns 
what he borrows. But that's not why you 
shouldn't trust him. 
Presupposition comes into play in Example 2c. 
This example adds to the elements used in Ex- 
3The fact that the events deriving from (b) and (d) appear 
to have the same temporal relation in the absence of "then" 
just shows that tense is indeed anaphoric and has no trouble 
crossing structural boundaries either. 
ample 2a, an auxiliary tree anchored by "for ex- 
ample" (8), which adjoins at the root of B (Fig- 
ure 4). "For example" contributes both a presup- 
position and an assertion, as described in more de- 
tail in Section 3. Informally, "for example" presup- 
poses a shared set of eventualities, and asserts that 
the eventuality associated with the clause it adjoins 
to, is a member of that set. In Example 2c, the set is 
licensed by "because" as the set of causes/reasons 
for the situation associated with its first argument. 
Thus, associated with the derivation of (2c) are the 
assertions that the situation associated with B is a 
cause for that associated with A and that the situ- 
ation associated with B is one of a set of such 
causes. 
Finally, Example 2d adds to the elements used in 
Example 2b, the same auxiliary tree anchored by 
"for example" (~5). As in Example 2b, the causal- 
ity relation between the interpretations of B and A 
comes defeasibly from general inference. Of in- 
terest then is how the presupposition of "for ex- 
ample" is licenced - that is, what provides the 
shared set or generalisation that the interpretation 
of B is asserted to exemplify. It appears to be li- 
cenced by the causal relation that has been inferred 
to hold between the eventualities denoted by B and 
A, yielding a set of causes/reasons for A. 
Thus, while we do not yet have a complete char- 
acterisation of how compositional semantics, de- 
feasible inference and anaphoric presupposition in- 
teract, Examples 2c and 2d illustrate one signific- 
ant feature: Both the interpretive contribution of a 
structural connective like "because" and the defeas- 
ible inference stimulated by adjoining can license 
the anaphoric presupposition of a p-bearing element 
like "for example". 
Recently, Asher and Lascarides (1999) have de- 
scribed a version of Structured Discourse Repres- 
entation Theory (SDRT) that also incorporates the 
semantic contributions of both presuppositions and 
assertions. In this enriched version of SDRT, a pro- 
position can be linked to the previous discourse via 
multiple rhetorical relations such as background and 
defeasible consequence. While there are similarities 
between their approach and the one presented here, 
the two differ in significant ways: 
• Unlike in the current approach, Asher and Las- 
carides (1999) take all connections (of both as- 
serted and presupposed material) to be struc- 
tural attachments through rhetorical relations. 
The relevant rhetorical relation may be inher- 
43 
~/(because) 
~ \[ \] ~ ~ A because because 
Figure 2: Derivation of Example 2a. The derivation tree is shown below the arrow, and the derived tree, to 
its right. 
0,," 
s 
B 
Figure 3: Derivation of Example 2b 
ent in the p-bearing element (as with "too") or 
it may have to be inferred. 
• Again unlike the current approach, all such at- 
tachments (of either asserted or presupposed 
material) are limited to the right frontier of the 
evolving SDRT structure. 
We illustrate these differences through Example 1 
(repeated below), with the p-bearing element 
"then", and Example 5, with the p-bearing ele- 
ment "too". Both examples call into question the 
claim that material licensing presuppositions is con- 
strained to the right frontier of the evolving dis- 
course structure. 
(4) a. On the one hand, John loves Barolo. 
b. So he ordered three cases of the '97. 
c. On the other hand, because he's broke, 
d. he then had to cancel the order. 
(5) (a) I have two brothers. (b) John is a history 
major. (c) He likes water polo, (d) and he plays 
the drums. (e) Bill is in high school. (f) His 
main interest is drama. (g) He too studies his- 
tory, (h) but he doesn't like it much. 
In Example 1, the presupposition of "then" in (d) 
is licensed by the eventuality evoked by (b), which 
would not be on the right frontier of any structural 
analysis. If "too" is taken to presuppose shared 
knowledge of a similar eventuality, then the "too" 
in Example 5(g) finds that eventuality in (b), which 
is also unlikely to be on the right frontier of any 
structural analysis. 4 
4The proposal in (Asher and Lascarides, 1999) to alter an 
44 
With respect to the interpretation of "too", Asher 
and Lascarides take it to presuppose a parallel rhet- 
orical relation between the current clause and some- 
thing on the right frontier. From this instantiated 
rhetorical relation, one then infers that the related 
eventualities are similar. But if the right frontier 
constraint is incorrect and the purpose of positing 
a rhetorical relation like parallel is to produce an 
assertion of similarity, then one might as well take 
"too" as directly presupposing shared knowledge of 
a similar eventuality, as we have done here. Thus, 
we suggest that the insights presented in (Asher and 
Lascarides, 1999) have a simpler explanation. 
Now, before embarking on more detailed ana- 
lyses of two quite different p-bearing adverbs, we 
should clarify the scope of the current approach in 
terms of the range of p-bearing elements that can 
create non-structural discourse links. 
We believe that systematic study, perhaps starting 
with the 350 "cue phrases" given in (Knott, 1996, 
Appendix A), will show which of them use presup- 
position in realising discourse relations. It is likely 
that these might include: 
• temporal conjunctions and adverbial connect- 
ives presupposing an eventuality that stands in 
a particular temporal relation to the one cur- 
rently in hand, such as "then", "later", "mean- 
while", "afterwards", "beforehand"'; 
• adverbial connectives presupposing shared 
knowledge of a generalisation or set, such 
existing SDRT analysis in response to a p-bearing element, 
would seem superfluous if its only role is to re-structure the 
right frontier to support the claimed RF constraint. 
T 
B A ~, \[\] ~, because 
for example . y (because) 
o/I 3 B 
% 
% 
Figure 4: Derivation of Example 2c 
T 
for example . 
C~ 
OJ 
o,,I 3 
I 5 
for example B 
Figure 5: Derivation of Example 2d 
as "for example", "first...second...", "for in- 
stance"; 
• adverbial connectives presupposing shared 
knowledge of an abstraction, such as "more 
specifically", "in particular"; 
• adverbial connectives presupposing a comple- 
mentary modal context, such as "otherwise"; 
• adverbial connectives presupposing an altern- 
ative to the current eventuality, such as "in- 
stead" and "rather". 5 
For this study, one might be able to use the 
structure-crossing test given in Section 2 to distin- 
guish a relation whose arguments are both given 
structurally from a relation which has one of its 
arguments presupposed. (Since such a test won't 
distinguish p-bearing connectives such as "mean- 
while" from non-relational adverbials such as "at 
dawn" and "tonight", the latter will have to be ex- 
cluded by other means, such as the (pre-theoretical) 
test for relational phrases given in (Knott, 1996).) 
• 3 For example 
We take "For example, P" to presuppose a quanti- 
fied proposition G, and to assert that this proposition 
is a generalisation of the proposition rc expressed by 
the sentence P. (We will write generalisation(rt, G.) 
A precise definition of generalisation is not neces- 
sary for the purposes of this paper, and we will as- 
sume the following simple definition: 
5Gann Bierner, personal communication 
• generalisation(rc, G) iff (i) G is a quantified 
proposition of the form Q I (x, a(x), b(x)); (ii) it 
allows the inference of a proposition G r of the 
form Q2 (x, a(x), b(x) ); and (iii) G' is inferrable 
from G (through having a weaker quantifier). 
The presupposed proposition G can be licensed 
in different ways, as the following examples show: 
(6) a. John likes many kinds of wine. For ex- 
ample, he likes Chianti. 
b. John must be feeling sick, because, for ex- 
ample, he hardly ate a thing at lunch. 
c. Because John was feeling sick, he did not 
for example go to work. 
d. Why don't we go to the National Gallery. 
Then, for example, we can go to the White 
House. 
Example 6a is straightforward, in that the pre- 
supposed generalisation "John likes many kinds of 
wine" is presented explicitly in the text. 6 In the re- 
maining cases, the generalisation must be inferred. 
In Example 6b, "because" licenses the generalisa- 
tion that many propositions support the proposi- 
6Our definition of generalisation works as follows for 
this example: the proposition n introduced by "for ex- 
ample" is likes(john, chianti), the presupposed proposition 
G is many(x, wine(x),likes(john,x), and the weakened pro- 
position G I is some(x, wine(x),likes(john,x). ~ allows G I 
to be inferred, and G also allows G ~ to be inferred, hence 
generalisation(rc, G) is true. 
45 
tion that John must be feeling sick, while in Ex- 
ample 6c, it licences the generalisation that many 
propositions follow from his feeling sick. We can 
represent both generalisations using the meta-level 
predicate, evidence(rt, C), which holds iff a premise 
rc is evidence for a conclusion C. 
In Example 6d, the relevant generalisation in- 
volves possible worlds associated jointly with the 
modality of the first clause and "then" (Webber et 
al., 1999). For consistency, the semantic interpreta- 
tion of the clause introduced by "for example" must 
make reference to the same modal base identified by 
the generalisation. There is more on modal bases in 
the next section. 
4 Otherwise 
Our analysis of "otherwise" assumes a modal se- 
mantics broadly following Kratzer (1991 ) and Stone 
(1999), where a sentence is asserted with respect to 
a set of possible worlds. The semantics of "other- 
wise ct" appeals to two sets of possible worlds. One 
is W0, the set of possible worlds consistent with our 
knowledge of the real world. The other, Wp, is that 
set of possible worlds consistent with the condition 
C that is presupposed, t~ is then asserted with re- 
spect to the complement set Wo - Wp. Of interest 
then is C - what it is that can serve as the source 
licensing this presupposition. 7 
There are many sources for such a presupposi- 
tion, including if-then constructions (Example 7a- 
7b), modal expressions (Examples 7c- 7d) and in- 
finitival clauses (Example 7e) 
(7) a. If the light is red, stop. Otherwise, go 
straight on. 
b. If the light is red, stop. Otherwise, you 
might get run over 
c. Bob \[could, may, might\] be in the kitchen. 
Otherwise, try in the living room. 
d. You \[must, should\] take a coat with you. 
Otherwise you'll get cold. 
e. It's useful to have a fall-back position. Oth- 
erwise you're stuck. 
7There is another sense of "otherwise" corresponding to "in 
other respects", which appears either as an adjective phrase 
modifier (e.g. "He's an otherwise happy boy.") or a clausal 
modifier (e.g., "The physical layer is different, but otherwise 
it's identical to metropolitan networks."). What is presupposed 
here are one or more actual properties of the situation under 
discussion. 
each of which introduces new possibilities that are 
consistent with our knowledge of the real world 
(W0), that may then be further described through 
modal subordination (Roberts, 1989; Stone and 
Hardt, 1999). 
That such possibilities must be consistent with 
Wo (i.e., why the semantics of "otherwise" is not 
simply defined in terms of W r) can be seen by con- 
sidering the counterfactual variants of 7a-7d, with 
"had been", "could have been" or "should have 
taken". (Epistemic "must" can never be counterfac- 
tual.) Because counterfactuals provide an alternat- 
ive to reality, W e is not a subset of W0 - and we 
correctly predict a presupposition failure for "other- 
wise". For example, corresponding to 7a we have: 
(8) If the light had been red, John would have 
stopped. #Otherwise, he went straight on. 
The appropriate connective here - allowing for what 
actually happened - is "as it is" or "as it was". 8 
As with "for example", "otherwise" is compat- 
ible with a range of additional relations linking dis- 
course together as a product of discourse structure 
and defeasible inference. Here, the clauses in 7a and 
7c provide a more complete description of what to 
do in different circumstances, while those in 7b, 7d 
and 7e involve an unmarked "because", as did Ex- 
ample 2d. Specifically, in 7d, the "otherwise" clause 
asserts that the hearer is cold across all currently 
possible worlds where a coat is not taken. With 
the proposition understood that the hearer must not 
get cold (i.e., that only worlds where the hearer is 
not cold are compatible with what is required), this 
allows the inference (modus tollens) that only the 
worlds where the hearer takes a coat are compat- 
ible with what is required. As this is the proposi- 
tion presented explicitly in the first clause, the text is 
compatible with an inferential connective like "be- 
cause". (Similar examples occur with "epistemic" 
because.) 
Our theory correctly predicts that such discourse 
relations need not be left implicit, but can instead be 
explicitly signalled by additional connectives, as in 
8There is a reading of the conditional which is not coun- 
terfactual, but rather a piece of free indirect speech report- 
ing on John's train of thought prior to encountering the light. 
This reading allows the use of "otherwise" with John's thought 
providing the base set of worlds W0, and "otherwise" then in- 
troducing a complementary condition in that same context: 
If the light had been red, John would have stopped. 
Otherwise, he would have carded straight on. But 
as it turned out, he never got to the light. 
46 
(9) You should take a coat with you because oth- 
erwise you'll get cold. 
and earlier examples. 
(Note that "Otherwise P" may yield an im- 
plicature, as well as having a presupposition, as in 
(10) John must be in his room. Otherwise, his light 
would be off. 
Here, compositional semantics says that the second 
clause continues the description of the situation par- 
tially described by the first clause. General infer- 
ence enriches this with the stronger, but defeasible 
conclusion that the second clause provides evidence 
for the first. Based on the presupposition of "oth- 
erwise", the "otherwise" clause asserts that John's 
light would be off across all possible worlds where 
he was not in his room. In addition, however, im- 
plicature related to the evidence relation between 
the clauses, contributes the conclusion that the light 
in John's room is on. The point here is only that 
presupposition and implicature are distinct mechan- 
isms, and it is only presupposition that we are fo- 
cussing on in this work. 
5 Conclusion 
In this paper, we have shown that discourse struc- 
ture need not bear the full burden of discourse se- 
mantics: Part of it can be borne by other means. 
This keeps discourse structure simple and able to 
support a straight-forward compositional semantics. 
Specifically, we have argued that the notion of ana- 
phoric presupposition that was introduced by van 
der Sandt (1992) to explain the interpretation of 
various definite noun phrases could also be seen as 
underlying the semantics of various discourse con- 
nectives. Since these presuppositions are licensed 
by eventualities taken to be shared knowledge, a 
good source of which is the interpretation of the 
discourse so far, anaphoric presupposition can be 
seen as carrying some of the burden of discourse 
connectivity and discourse semantics in a way that 
avoids crossing dependencies. 
There is, potentially, another benefit to factor- 
ing the sources of discourse semantics in this way: 
while cross-linguistically, inference and anaphoric 
presupposition are likely to behave similarly, struc- 
ture (as in syntax) is likely to be more language spe- 
cific. Thus a factored approach has a better chance 
of providing a cross-linguistic account of discourse 
than one that relies on a single premise. 
Clearly, more remains to be done. First, the ap- 
proach demands a precise semantics for connect- 
ives, as in the work of Grote (1998), Grote et al. 
(1997), Jayez and Rossari (1998) and Lagerwerf 
(1998). 
Secondly, the approach demands an understand- 
ing of the attentional characteristics of presupposi- 
tions. In particular, preliminary study seems to sug- 
gest that p-bearing elements differ in what source 
can license them, where this source can be located, 
and what can act as distractors for this source. In 
fact, these differences seem to resemble the range of 
differences in the information status (Prince, 1981; 
Prince, 1992) or familiarity (Gundel et al., 1993) of 
referential NPs. Consider, for example: 
(11 ) I got in my old Volvo and set off to drive cross- 
country and see as many different mountain 
ranges as possible. When I got to Arkansas, for 
example, I stopped in the Ozarks, although I 
had to borrow another car to see them because 
Volvos handle badly on steep grades. 
Here, the definite NP-like presupposition of the 
"when" clause (that getting to Arkansas is shared 
knowledge) is licensed by driving cross-country; the 
presupposition of "for example" (that stopping in 
the Ozarks exemplifies some shared generalisation) 
is licensed by seeing many mountain ranges, and the 
presupposition of "another" (that an alternative car 
to this one is shared knowledge) is licensed by my 
Volvo. This suggests a corpus annotation effort for 
anaphoric presuppositions, similar to ones already 
in progress on co-reference. 
Finally, we should show that the approach has 
practical benefit for NL understanding and/or gener- 
ation. But the work to date surely shows the benefit 
of an approach that narrows the gap between dis- 
course syntax and semantics and that of the clause. 

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