[Mova](https://md.mova.elamur.ai/free/en/) · [this page in HTML](https://mova.elamur.ai/free/en/docs/papers/knott-2003-syntactic-disambiguation-presupposition-resolution/) [home](https://md.mova.elamur.ai/free/en/) / [docs](https://md.mova.elamur.ai/free/en/docs/) / [papers](https://md.mova.elamur.ai/free/en/docs/papers/) / [English](https://md.mova.elamur.ai/free/en/docs/papers/en/) / Syntactic disambiguation using presupposition resolution # Syntactic disambiguation using presupposition resolution **Authors:** [Alistair Knott](https://md.mova.elamur.ai/free/en/docs/papers/authors/alistair-knott/), Peter Vlugter · **Year:** 2003 · **Venue:** Proceedings of the Australasian Language Technology Workshop 2003 **Link:** [aclanthology.org/U03-1006](https://aclanthology.org/U03-1006/) · **Licence:** [CC BY-NC-SA 3.0](https://creativecommons.org/licenses/by-nc-sa/3.0/) (ACL Anthology, before 2016) — summary only [**7** citations](https://openalex.org/works?filter=cites:W2251477712) openalex-snapshot · 2026-10-14[**2** citations in our library](https://md.mova.elamur.ai/free/en/docs/papers/cited-by/knott-2003-syntactic-disambiguation-presupposition-resolution/) of the 140673 papers whose bibliographies we read[Proceedings of the Australasian Language Technology Workshop 2003](https://aclanthology.org/volumes/U03-1/)[licence](https://creativecommons.org/licenses/by-nc-sa/3.0/) - [Publisher's page](https://aclanthology.org/U03-1006/) - [PDF](https://aclanthology.org/U03-1006.pdf) - [OpenAlex](https://openalex.org/W2251477712) **Authors (2)** 1. [Alistair Knott](https://openalex.org/A5042878102) [ORCID](https://orcid.org/0000-0003-3036-4668) · [Semantic Scholar](https://www.semanticscholar.org/author/1980629) · h 26 · 3407 citations · 148 works 2. [Peter Vlugter](https://openalex.org/A5058050940) [Semantic Scholar](https://www.semanticscholar.org/author/2750977) · h 6 · 123 citations · 17 works Citations and author metrics from openalex-snapshot (2026-10-14); authors with the same name are not always told apart. ## What it is about Statistical parsers struggle with ambiguities where two readings are both common in training data, such as "The man saw the girl with the telescope". The authors propose choosing among the readings of an ambiguous sentence by how well each one fits the current discourse. Each reading becomes a DRS, and its presuppositions are resolved against the context. Two principles decide. The accommodation principle prefers the reading that needs the fewest added conditions. The presuppositional-weight principle, applied when two readings are both fully resolved, prefers the one with more presupposed conditions (for example, 4 conditions against 2 for the information-structure reading of "The cat chased the dog" in an answer to "What chased the dog?"). The method is used in the bilingual Te Kaitito dialogue system. The paper gives no accuracy numbers. ## Ideas - I1. `world/src/qud.rs` and `world/src/qa.rs`: when the parser returns several analyses, score each analysis by how many of its presupposed conditions the current world already satisfies, and keep the highest. Use integer counts and BTreeMap ordering so ties are deterministic. - I2. Add the accommodation count as a penalty: an analysis that needs a new entity in the world costs one unit per entity. Report both scores, so the choice is explained. - I3. Test on a list of ambiguous school sentences with a short context each, comparing the chosen reading with the one a teacher would give; run twice. ## For Mova The chapter is [29. Ellipsis, word order and information structure](https://md.mova.elamur.ai/free/en/docs/languages/en/29-ellipsis-word-order-information-structure/) (answers and focus) and [33. Implicature and presupposition](https://md.mova.elamur.ai/free/en/docs/languages/en/33-implicature-and-presupposition/). The code is `world/src/qud.rs` and `world/src/qa.rs` for the question context, and the parse candidates from `en/src/parse.rs` (or gparse). Measure: agreement with the intended reading on a written list of ambiguous sentences with contexts, both scores reported, run twice. ## Cite The paper itself, not this card. BibTeX from the library's record of the work. ``` @inproceedings{knott2003syntactic, title = {{Syntactic disambiguation using presupposition resolution}}, author = {Knott, Alistair and Vlugter, Peter}, booktitle = {Proceedings of the Australasian Language Technology Workshop 2003}, year = {2003}, url = {https://aclanthology.org/U03-1006/} } ``` - [← previous QANom: Question-Answer driven SRL for Nominalizations](https://md.mova.elamur.ai/free/en/docs/papers/klein-2020-qanom-question-answer-driven-srl/) - [next → Inquisitive Question Generation for High Level Text Comprehension](https://md.mova.elamur.ai/free/en/docs/papers/ko-2020-inquisitive-question-generation-high-level/) - [↑ back to English](https://md.mova.elamur.ai/free/en/docs/papers/en/) ## References 14 references, 0 of them with a card of ours. ↗ leads to the work, «find» searches for one we have no id for yet. 1. J Bos. 2001. DORIS 2001: Underspecification, resolution and inference for discourse representation structures. 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