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<Paper uid="W94-0321">
  <Title>Recognizing Digressive Questions During Interactive Generation *</Title>
  <Section position="3" start_page="0" end_page="0" type="intro">
    <SectionTitle>
1 Characterizing Digressions
</SectionTitle>
    <Paragraph position="0"> Grosz and Sidner define a digression as a type of :interruption \[4\]. An interruption is a discourse segment with a purpose that does not contribute to the achievement of the current discourse purpose. They describe three kinds.</Paragraph>
    <Paragraph position="1"> A true interruption has a discourse purpose that is unrelated to the interrupted discourse segment. For example, if a speaker says &amp;quot;John came by and dropped off the groceries Stop that you kids. and I put them away after he left.&amp;quot; the italized portion of text is a true interruption.</Paragraph>
    <Paragraph position="2"> Speakers use a second type of interruption, the flashback or filling ~n missing places to bring objects and propositions into the discussion that aid in comprehension of the current discourse segment. This type of interruption provides background knowledge. However, it does not contribute directly to the current discourse purpose. For example in *I would like to thank my advisor, Stuart C. Shapiro, and the members of the SNePS Research Group in the Computer Science Department at the State University of New York at Buffalo.</Paragraph>
    <Paragraph position="3"> Their advice and comments are reflected in the research that this paper describes.</Paragraph>
    <Paragraph position="4"> &amp;quot;OK. Now how do I say that Bill is Whoops I forgot about ABC. I need an individual concept for the company ABC... Now back to Bill. How do I say that Bill is an employee of ABC?&amp;quot; the speaker sets aside her current purpose to discuss a pre*. requisite that should have been introduced earlier.</Paragraph>
    <Paragraph position="5"> We are concerned with a third type of interruption that Grosz and Sidner describe as a digression. A digression con* tams a reference to some entity that is salient in both the interruption and the interrupted segment. The digression's PUrpose is not unrelated to the purpose of the interrupted segment (as in a true interruption), but neither is it a pre-requisite (as in a flashback). As an example of a digression, Grosz and Sidner note that if while discussing Bill's role in company ABC, a conversational participant interrupts with Speaking of Bill, that reminds me, he came to dinner last week, Bill remains salient, but the discourse purpose changes.</Paragraph>
    <Paragraph position="6"> In the IDP model, the system's purpose (or intent) is expressed by its discourse goal and the text plan that the system formulates and executes to try to achieve it. IDP detects a digression when the user asks a question about a discourse entity or a proposition that is part of the system's text plan, and the answer to the question cannot be ir/corporated into the text plan.</Paragraph>
    <Paragraph position="7"> IDP Operates in a cooperative interactive mode in which the System is the primary speaker and the user is the primary listener. Henceforth, I refer to the user as the listener. In this interactive mode, IDP controls the discussion to make its own intentions clear and to try to achieve them.</Paragraph>
  </Section>
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