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<Paper uid="J94-2003">
  <Title>Japanese Discourse and the Process of Centering</Title>
  <Section position="11" start_page="223" end_page="226" type="concl">
    <SectionTitle>
EXPECTED CENTER ORDER RULE: In a sentence that contains a center-
</SectionTitle>
    <Paragraph position="0"> establishing zero, if it is to have a full NP as its antecedent, the default preference order among its potential antecedent NPs is: Topic &gt; Ident</Paragraph>
    <Paragraph position="2"> As noted earlier, we use a modified version of Kameyama's EXPECTED CENTER ORDER as the ordering of the Cf, but Kameyama's treatment differs from ours in a number of respects.</Paragraph>
    <Paragraph position="3"> First, Kameyama used the property IDENT to describe something similar to Kuno's notion of EMPATHY, and has an added assumption of a SUBJECT IDENT default, i.e. subjects are considered to be EMPATHY loci by default. This means that her theory also includes a neutralization device for cases where this default is not in effect (Kameyama 1988). In contrast, our theory explains examples covered by the SUBJECT IDENT default by including EMPATHY in the ranking of the Cf list and by the distinction between CONTINUE and RETAIN, as illustrated in example 24.</Paragraph>
    <Paragraph position="4"> We have also expanded Kameyama's treatment of TOPIC. We have elucidated the interaction of topic with subject and empathy markers and supported our claim that the topic marker wa functions similarly to pronominalization in instantiating the Cb. In addition, ZTA and the distinction that we make between grammatical and zero topic is new to our account.</Paragraph>
    <Paragraph position="5"> Furthermore, since Center Instantiation is a side effect of the application of the centering algorithm, we treat 40c and 41c with the same mechanism. In Kameyama's analysis, the PS constraint applies to example 40, while the ECO applies in example 41.  Taroo did her a flavor of reading a book.</Paragraph>
    <Paragraph position="6"> Note that we annotate example 40b with Kameyama's IDENT property, which corresponds to EMPATHY. Kameyama's account predicts that there are different processes going on in the resolution of zeros depending on the environments where the zero appears. PS applies in the case of example 40c because the previous utterance has a zero, but it doesn't apply in the case of example 41b. PS would seem to predict that the zero pronoun in 40c should not be interpreted as Hanako, since the zero carries the properties \[SuBJ, IDENT\] in 40b and \[NONSUBJ, NONIDENT\] in 40c. In other words, none of the required properties of SUBJ, IDENT, NONSUBJ, NONIDENT, which 'should' be shared according to the PS constraint, are shared. But in fact 40c is perfectly acceptable under the intended reading of Taroo severely criticized Hanako, and 41b is likewise acceptable under the reading Taroo did Hanako a favor of reading a book.</Paragraph>
    <Paragraph position="7"> Also, as pointed out in Kuno (1989), Kameyama's theory makes no predictions about the interpretation of some of the zeros in examples such as 5, repeated here for convenience as example 42.</Paragraph>
    <Paragraph position="8">  Computational Linguistics Volume 20, Number 2 The PS Constraint applies only to two zeros in adjacent sentences, and the ECO applies only when a Cb is to be established. Example 42c is not a Cb-establishing utterance since the Cb ha s already been established in 42b, so the ECO should not apply. The PS constraint does apply and predicts that the subject zero must have the subject of 42b as its antecedent, but the theory makes no predictions about the possible interpretations for the zero object.</Paragraph>
    <Paragraph position="9"> Many of the examples that are explained in Kameyama's theory by the PS constraint are handled on our account by the distinction between CONTINUE and RETAIN. However, there are a number of cases where PS makes different predictions than our account. In particular, note that for examples 32 and 35, Kameyama's SUBJECT IDENT default makes exactly the opposite prediction. Example 35 is repeated below as example 43 and annotated with the SUBJECT IDENT default feature.</Paragraph>
    <Paragraph position="10">  d. 0 0 ikutuka no kuitigai o setumeisite-KURE-masita.</Paragraph>
    <Paragraph position="11"> SUBJ OBJ2/IDENT several of differences OBJ explained-gave (Ziroo) did (Taroo) a favor of explaining several di~erences.</Paragraph>
    <Paragraph position="12"> According to PS, the interpretation in which the property IDENT is shared is preferred to the one with SUBJECT shared, and hence, the interpretation Taroo did Ziroo a favor in explaining several d~ferences is preferred. However our survey shows that native speakers prefer the Ziroo did Taroo a favor reading; this is explained by our discourse rule of ZTA and by including empathy in the ranking of the Cf list.</Paragraph>
    <Paragraph position="13"> 7. Conclusion and Future Work In this paper, we have attempted to elucidate the interaction of syntactic realization and discourse salience in Japanese using the discourse-processing framework of CEN-TERING. In our theory discourse salience is operationalized by the ranking of the forward centers for an utterance. We explored speakers' options for indicating salience in Japanese discourse, especially the interaction of discourse markers for TOPIC and EMPATHY. We then posited a ranking and used it to explain some facts about the interpretation of zeros in Japanese.</Paragraph>
    <Paragraph position="14"> While there is clearly a correlation between syntax and discourse function, we show that discourse context plays an important role. We proposed a discourse rule of ZERO TOPIC ASSIGNMENT (ZTA), which distinguishes grammatical and zero topic. We showed that centering allows us to formalize constraints on when ZTA can apply. However, future work must determine additional constraints on when ZTA applies, and which language families support ZTA.</Paragraph>
    <Paragraph position="15">  Marilyn Walker et al. Japanese Discourse The preferred interpretation of zeros and the discourse factors that are responsible for each interpretation are summarized below. Remember that in each case the zero in the third utterance was established as the Cb by the previous two utterances: Third Utterance Fourth Utterance Discourse Factor Example</Paragraph>
    <Paragraph position="17"> This analysis suggests that centering may be a universal of context-dependent processing of language, although so far this theory has only been applied to English, German, Turkish, Japanese, and Italian (Brennan, Friedman, and Pollard 1987; Walker 1989; Walker, Iida, and Cote 1990; Di Eugenio 1990; Cote 1992; Rambow 1993; Nakatani 1993; Hofhnan 1995; Turan 1995). We proposed that the centering component of a theory of discourse interpretation can be constructed in a language-independent fashion, up to the declaration of a language-specific value for one parameter of the theory, i.e., Cf ranking (as in Section 2). This parameter is language-dependent because different languages offer different means of expressing discourse function. We conjecture that ZTA may apply in any free-word order language with zeros.</Paragraph>
    <Paragraph position="18"> Future work must examine the interaction between centering and discourse segmentation in both monologue and dialogue (Whittaker and Stenton 1988; Walker and Whittaker 1990; Walker 1993b), and the role of deictics, lexical semantics, one anaphora, and propositional discourse entities in centering (Webber 1978; Sidner 1979; Walker 1992, 1993a; Cote 1995). It is also important to examine the interaction of zeros with overt pronouns and with deictics and the interaction of pronominalization with accenting (Terken 1995). In addition, the semantic theory underlying centering must be further developed (Roberts 1995). Finally, centering transitions are currently defined by an equality relation between discourse entities, but POSET relations and functional dependencies often link entities in discourse (Prince 1978b, 1981a; Ward 1985; Grosz, Joshi, and Weinstein unpublished). The predictions made here should also be tested on a large corpus of naturally occurring Japanese discourse (Hurewitz and Linson 1995).</Paragraph>
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