[Mova](https://md.mova.elamur.ai/free/en/) · [this page in HTML](https://mova.elamur.ai/free/en/docs/papers/prasad-2018-discourse-annotation-pdtb-next-generation/)

[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/) / Discourse Annotation in the PDTB: The Next Generation

# Discourse Annotation in the PDTB: The Next Generation

**Authors:** [Rashmi Prasad](https://md.mova.elamur.ai/free/en/docs/papers/authors/rashmi-prasad/), [Bonnie Webber](https://md.mova.elamur.ai/free/en/docs/papers/authors/bonnie-webber/), [Alan Lee](https://md.mova.elamur.ai/free/en/docs/papers/authors/alan-lee/) · **Year:** 2018 · **Venue:** ISA-14 (Joint ACL-ISO Workshop on Interoperable Semantic Annotation) **Link:** [aclanthology.org/W18-4710](https://aclanthology.org/W18-4710/) · **Licence:** [CC BY 4.0](https://creativecommons.org/licenses/by/4.0/) (paper); PDTB-3 itself is LDC data

[**31** citations in our library](https://md.mova.elamur.ai/free/en/docs/papers/cited-by/prasad-2018-discourse-annotation-pdtb-next-generation/) of the 140673 papers whose bibliographies we read[Proceedings of the 14th Joint ACL-ISO Workshop on Interoperable Semantic Annotation](https://aclanthology.org/volumes/W18-47/)[licence](https://creativecommons.org/licenses/by/4.0/)

- [Publisher's page](https://aclanthology.org/W18-4710/)
- [PDF](https://aclanthology.org/W18-4710.pdf)

**Authors (3)**

1. Rashmi Prasad
2. Bonnie Webber
3. Alan Lee

Citations and author metrics from OpenAlex (); authors with the same name are not always told apart.

## What it is about

The paper presents what PDTB-3 adds to PDTB-2: about 13,000 new relations (≈40K → ≈53K), mostly inside sentences. Newly annotated contexts: free adjuncts (≈2,200; «Treasuries opened lower, reacting to …» = reason), free *to*-infinitives (≈1,500; purpose or condition), clauses introduced by prepositions (≈1,600; *with, by, for, in, instead of*), conjoined verb phrases (≈5,800), and extra implicit senses on top of an explicit *and*/*but* (≈1,800; «She became an abortionist accidentally, and continued because …» = Conjunction plus implicit Precedence; such extra senses hold for 32% of sentence conjunctions). The sense hierarchy is simplified (level 3 now only encodes direction: arg1-as-condition vs arg2-as-condition, arg1/arg2-as-denier, arg1/arg2-as-detail) and extended with Purpose, Manner, Negative condition (*unless*, *or face*), Negative result, Similarity. Pragmatic senses become features: +belief (the argument is an inferred belief) and +speech-act. A new relation type, Hypophora, links a question to the text that answers it («If not now, when? When the fruit is ripe …»).

## Ideas

- I1. Extend Mova's link table (`set_cause`/`set_next` in `prag/src/frames.rs`, chapter 36 §11.1) with the PDTB-3 intra-sentential contexts that tales are full of: a free participial adjunct without a subordinator («feeling very hungry, he called out») → `cause` when its verb is a state or feeling, `next` when it is an action before the main one; *for V-ing* after verbs of punishing/thanking/blaming → `cause`; *instead of V-ing* → a substitution (the other frame negated); *with* + absolute clause → `cause`. Each rule gets a `PRAG_OFF` switch and is measured on frame bench cause/next F1 and the course *why* questions.
- I2. Allow two relations on one *and*: keep `next` and add `cause` when the second conjunct is a typical consequence of the first (*fell and broke his leg*, *ate the poison and died*). Start with a closed list of result verbs (*die, break, fall, cry, run away*) after a change-of-state first verb; the paper's 32% shows how often *and* carries more than conjunction. Measure on *why* questions whose answer is the first conjunct.
- I3. Link conditions to their consequences, which §11.6 lists as missing: *if/when*-clause → `cond` link to the main frame; *unless* and imperative + *or* («Pay me, or I will eat you») → a negative condition (the consequent happens if the condition does not). Then «What will happen if the kid does not hide?» can be answered. Measure on course questions with *if*.
- I4. Add Hypophora to the QUD stack: a question asked by the narrator or a character and answered in the next sentence(s) pairs the two frames; `world/src/qud.rs` should accept the answer even without a shared lemma when it directly follows (the *because*-fragment failure in chapter 36 example 7 is this case). Measure the share of questions popped in `world qud` runs on lessons.

## For Mova

[36. Discourse relations and coherence](https://md.mova.elamur.ai/free/en/docs/languages/en/36-discourse-relations/) §4 (the PDTB), §11.1 (links between frames), §11.5–11.6 (QUD, not yet). Code: `prag/src/frames.rs` (`set_cause`, `set_next`, `cond`), `prag/src/infer.rs` (`maxims`), `world/src/qud.rs`. Measures: frame bench cause/next F1, course questions on why / what if / what next. PDTB-3 is LDC — never a source of lexicons or training data.

Topics: [Discourse analysis](https://md.mova.elamur.ai/free/en/docs/papers/topics/discourse-analysis/)

## Cite

The paper itself, not this card. BibTeX from the library's record of the work.

```
@inproceedings{prasad2018discourse,
  title = {{Discourse Annotation in the PDTB: The Next Generation}},
  author = {Prasad, Rashmi and Webber, Bonnie and Lee, Alan},
  booktitle = {Proceedings of the 14th Joint ACL-ISO Workshop on Interoperable Semantic Annotation},
  year = {2018},
  url = {https://aclanthology.org/W18-4710/}
}
```

- [← previous Reflections on the Penn Discourse TreeBank, Comparable Corpora, and Complementary Annotation](https://md.mova.elamur.ai/free/en/docs/papers/prasad-2014-reflections-penn-discourse-treebank-comparable/)
- [next → Human Temporal Inferences Go Beyond Aspectual Class](https://md.mova.elamur.ai/free/en/docs/papers/prus-2024-human-temporal-inferences-go-beyond/)
- [↑ back to English](https://md.mova.elamur.ai/free/en/docs/papers/en/)

## References

28 references, 8 of them with a card of ours. ↗ leads to the work, «find» searches for one we have no id for yet.

1. Stergos Afantenos, Nicholas Asher, Farah Benamara, Myriam Bras, Cécile Fabre, Lydia-Mai Ho-Dac, Anne Le Draoulec, Philippe Muller, Marie-Paule Péry-Woodley, Laurent Prévot, et al. 2012. An empirical resource for discovering cognitive principles of discourse organisation: the annodis corpus. In Proceedings of the Eight International Conference on Language Resources and Evaluation (LREC’12). European Language Resources Association (ELRA). [find](https://scholar.google.com/scholar?q=Stergos+Afantenos%2C+Nicholas+Asher%2C+Farah+Benamara%2C+Myriam+Bras%2C+Ce%CC%81cile+Fabre%2C+Lydia%2DMai+Ho%2DDac%2C+Anne+Le+Draoulec%2C+Philippe+Muller%2C+Marie%2DPaule+Pe%CC%81ry%2DWoodley%2C+Laurent+Pre%CC%81vot%2C+et+al%2E+2012%2E+An+empirica)
2. Amal Al-Saif and Katja Markert. 2010. The Leeds Arabic discourse treebank: Annotating discourse connectives for Arabic. In Proceedings of the 7th International Conference on Language Resources and Evaluation (LREC-2010), Valletta, Malta. [https://www.iso.org/standard/60780.html?browse=tc](https://www.iso.org/standard/60780.html?browse=tc) [↗](https://www.iso.org/standard/60780.html?browse=tc)
3. Harry Bunt and Rashmi Prasad. 2016. ISO DR-Core (ISO 24617-8): Core concepts for the annotation of discourse relations. In Proceedings 12th Joint ACL-ISO Workshop on Interoperable Semantic Annotation (ISA-12), pages 45–54. [find](https://scholar.google.com/scholar?q=Harry+Bunt+and+Rashmi+Prasad%2E+2016%2E+ISO+DR%2DCore+%28ISO+24617%2D8%29%3A+Core+concepts+for+the+annotation+of+discourse+relations%2E+In+Proceedings+12th+Joint+ACL%2DISO+Workshop+on+Interoperable+Semantic+Annotation+)
4. Harry Bunt, Volha Petukhova, David Traum, and Jan Alexandersson. 2017. Dialogue act annotation with the iso 24617-2 standard. In Multimodal Interaction with W3C Standards, pages 109–135. Springer. [find](https://scholar.google.com/scholar?q=Harry+Bunt%2C+Volha+Petukhova%2C+David+Traum%2C+and+Jan+Alexandersson%2E+2017%2E+Dialogue+act+annotation+with+the+iso+24617%2D2+standard%2E+In+Multimodal+Interaction+with+W3C+Standards%2C+pages+109%E2%80%93135%2E+Springer%2E)
5. Lynn Carlson, Daniel Marcu, and Mary Ellen Okurowski. 2003. Building a discourse-tagged corpus in the framework of rhetorical structure theory. In Current and new directions in discourse and dialogue, pages 85– 112. Springer. [find](https://scholar.google.com/scholar?q=Lynn+Carlson%2C+Daniel+Marcu%2C+and+Mary+Ellen+Okurowski%2E+2003%2E+Building+a+discourse%2Dtagged+corpus+in+the+framework+of+rhetorical+structure+theory%2E+In+Current+and+new+directions+in+discourse+and+dialogue%2C) [our card](https://md.mova.elamur.ai/free/en/docs/papers/carlson-2001-building-discourse-tagged-corpus-framework/)
6. Laurence Danlos, Diégo Antolinos-Basso, Chloé Braud, and Charlotte Roze. 2012. Vers le fdtb: French discourse tree bank. In TALN 2012: 19ème conférence sur le Traitement Automatique des Langues Naturelles, volume 2, pages 471–478. ATALA/AFCP. [find](https://scholar.google.com/scholar?q=Laurence+Danlos%2C+Die%CC%81go+Antolinos%2DBasso%2C+Chloe%CC%81+Braud%2C+and+Charlotte+Roze%2E+2012%2E+Vers+le+fdtb%3A+French+discourse+tree+bank%2E+In+TALN+2012%3A+19e%CC%80me+confe%CC%81rence+sur+le+Traitement+Automatique+des+Langues+Na)
7. Nora Hollenstein, Nathan Schneider, and Bonnie Webber. 2016. Inconsistency detection in semantic annotation. In Proceedings of the 10th International Conference on Language Resources and Evaluation (LREC 2016). [find](https://scholar.google.com/scholar?q=Nora+Hollenstein%2C+Nathan+Schneider%2C+and+Bonnie+Webber%2E+2016%2E+Inconsistency+detection+in+semantic+annotation%2E+In+Proceedings+of+the+10th+International+Conference+on+Language+Resources+and+Evaluation+%28L)
8. Mitchell Marcus, Beatrice Santorini, and Mary Ann Marcinkiewicz. 1993. Building a large annotated corpus of English: The Penn TreeBank. Computational Linguistics, 19(2):313–330. [find](https://scholar.google.com/scholar?q=Mitchell+Marcus%2C+Beatrice+Santorini%2C+and+Mary+Ann+Marcinkiewicz%2E+1993%2E+Building+a+large+annotated+corpus+of+English%3A+The+Penn+TreeBank%2E+Computational+Linguistics%2C+19%282%29%3A313%E2%80%93330%2E) [our card](https://md.mova.elamur.ai/free/en/docs/papers/bank-1993-marcus-building-large-annotated-corpus-english/)
9. Umangi Oza, Rashmi Prasad, Sudheer Kolachina, Dipti Mishra Sharma, and Aravind Joshi. 2009. The Hindi Discourse Relation Bank. In Proceedings of the ACL 2009 Linguistic Annotation Workshop III (LAW-III), Singapore. [find](https://scholar.google.com/scholar?q=Umangi+Oza%2C+Rashmi+Prasad%2C+Sudheer+Kolachina%2C+Dipti+Mishra+Sharma%2C+and+Aravind+Joshi%2E+2009%2E+The+Hindi+Discourse+Relation+Bank%2E+In+Proceedings+of+the+ACL+2009+Linguistic+Annotation+Workshop+III+%28LAW%2DII)
10. Martha Palmer, Daniel Gildea, and Paul Kingsbury. 2005. The proposition bank: An annotated corpus of semantic roles. Computational linguistics, 31(1):71–106. [↗](https://doi.org/10.1162/0891201053630264) [our card](https://md.mova.elamur.ai/free/en/docs/papers/palmer-2005-proposition-bank-annotated-corpus-semantic/)
11. Lucie Poláková, Jiřı́ Mı́rovský, Anna Nedoluzhko, Pavlı́na Jı́nová, Šárka Zikánová, and Eva Hajičová. 2013. Introducing the Prague discourse treebank 1.0. In Proceedings of the Sixth International Joint Conference on Natural Language Processing (IJCNLP), pages 91–99. [find](https://scholar.google.com/scholar?q=Lucie+Pola%CC%81kova%CC%81%2C+Jir%CC%8C%C4%B1%CC%81+M%C4%B1%CC%81rovsky%CC%81%2C+Anna+Nedoluzhko%2C+Pavl%C4%B1%CC%81na+J%C4%B1%CC%81nova%CC%81%2C+S%CC%8Ca%CC%81rka+Zika%CC%81nova%CC%81%2C+and+Eva+Hajic%CC%8Cova%CC%81%2E+2013%2E+Introducing+the+Prague+discourse+treebank+1%2E0%2E+In+Proceedings+of+the+Sixth+Intern)
12. Rashmi Prasad, Nikhil Dinesh, Alan Lee, Eleni Miltsakaki, Livio Robaldo, Aravind Joshi, and Bonnie Webber. 2008. The Penn Discourse TreeBank 2.0. In Proceedings of the 6th International Conference on Language Resources and Evaluation, pages 2961–2968, Marrakech, Morocco. [find](https://scholar.google.com/scholar?q=Rashmi+Prasad%2C+Nikhil+Dinesh%2C+Alan+Lee%2C+Eleni+Miltsakaki%2C+Livio+Robaldo%2C+Aravind+Joshi%2C+and+Bonnie+Webber%2E+2008%2E+The+Penn+Discourse+TreeBank+2%2E0%2E+In+Proceedings+of+the+6th+International+Conference+on+) [our card](https://md.mova.elamur.ai/free/en/docs/papers/disc-2008-prasad-penn-discourse-treebank-2-0/)
13. Rashmi Prasad, Aravind Joshi, and Bonnie Webber. 2010. Realization of discourse relations by other means: alternative lexicalizations. In Proceedings of the 23rd International Conference on Computational Linguistics: Posters, pages 1023–1031. Association for Computational Linguistics. [find](https://scholar.google.com/scholar?q=Rashmi+Prasad%2C+Aravind+Joshi%2C+and+Bonnie+Webber%2E+2010%2E+Realization+of+discourse+relations+by+other+means%3A+alternative+lexicalizations%2E+In+Proceedings+of+the+23rd+International+Conference+on+Computatio)
14. Rashmi Prasad, Susan McRoy, Nadya Frid, Aravind Joshi, and Hong Yu. 2011. The biomedical discourse relation bank. BMC bioinformatics, 12(1):188. [find](https://scholar.google.com/scholar?q=Rashmi+Prasad%2C+Susan+McRoy%2C+Nadya+Frid%2C+Aravind+Joshi%2C+and+Hong+Yu%2E+2011%2E+The+biomedical+discourse+relation+bank%2E+BMC+bioinformatics%2C+12%281%29%3A188%2E)
15. Rashmi Prasad, Bonnie Webber, and Aravind Joshi. 2014. Reflections on the Penn Discourse TreeBank, comparable corpora and complementary annotation. Computational Linguistics, 40(4):921–950. [find](https://scholar.google.com/scholar?q=Rashmi+Prasad%2C+Bonnie+Webber%2C+and+Aravind+Joshi%2E+2014%2E+Reflections+on+the+Penn+Discourse+TreeBank%2C+comparable+corpora+and+complementary+annotation%2E+Computational+Linguistics%2C+40%284%29%3A921%E2%80%93950%2E) [our card](https://md.mova.elamur.ai/free/en/docs/papers/prasad-2014-reflections-penn-discourse-treebank-comparable/)
16. Rashmi Prasad, Bonnie Webber, Alan Lee, Sameer Pradhan, and Aravind Joshi. 2015. Bridging sentential and discourse-level semantics through clausal adjuncts. In Proceedings of the First Workshop on Linking Computational Models of Lexical, Sentential and Discourse-level Semantics, pages 64–69. [find](https://scholar.google.com/scholar?q=Rashmi+Prasad%2C+Bonnie+Webber%2C+Alan+Lee%2C+Sameer+Pradhan%2C+and+Aravind+Joshi%2E+2015%2E+Bridging+sentential+and+discourse%2Dlevel+semantics+through+clausal+adjuncts%2E+In+Proceedings+of+the+First+Workshop+on+Lin)
17. Rashmi Prasad, Katherine Forbes-Riley, and Alan Lee. 2017. Towards full text shallow discourse relation annotation: Experiments with cross-paragraph implicit relations in the PDTB. In Proceedings of the 18th Annual SIGdial Meeting on Discourse and Dialogue, pages 7–16. [find](https://scholar.google.com/scholar?q=Rashmi+Prasad%2C+Katherine+Forbes%2DRiley%2C+and+Alan+Lee%2E+2017%2E+Towards+full+text+shallow+discourse+relation+annotation%3A+Experiments+with+cross%2Dparagraph+implicit+relations+in+the+PDTB%2E+In+Proceedings+of+t)
18. Brian Reese, Julie Hunter, Nicholas Asher, Pascal Denis, and Jason Baldridge, 2007. Reference Manual for the Analysis and Annotation of Rhetorical Structure. University of Texas at Austin. [find](https://scholar.google.com/scholar?q=Brian+Reese%2C+Julie+Hunter%2C+Nicholas+Asher%2C+Pascal+Denis%2C+and+Jason+Baldridge%2C+2007%2E+Reference+Manual+for+the+Analysis+and+Annotation+of+Rhetorical+Structure%2E+University+of+Texas+at+Austin%2E)
19. Ted J. Sanders and Merel Scholman. 2012. Categories of coherence relations in discourse annotation. Presented at the International Workshop on Discourse Annotation. Utrecht Institute of Linguistics, Universiteit Utrecht. [find](https://scholar.google.com/scholar?q=Ted+J%2E+Sanders+and+Merel+Scholman%2E+2012%2E+Categories+of+coherence+relations+in+discourse+annotation%2E+Presented+at+the+International+Workshop+on+Discourse+Annotation%2E+Utrecht+Institute+of+Linguistics%2C+U) [our card](https://md.mova.elamur.ai/free/en/docs/papers/scholman-2016-categories-coherence-relations-discourse-annotation/)
20. PDTB-Group. 2008. The Penn Discourse TreeBank 2.0 Annotation Manual. Technical Report IRCS-08-01, Institute for Research in Cognitive Science, University of Pennsylvania. [find](https://scholar.google.com/scholar?q=PDTB%2DGroup%2E+2008%2E+The+Penn+Discourse+TreeBank+2%2E0+Annotation+Manual%2E+Technical+Report+IRCS%2D08%2D01%2C+Institute+for+Research+in+Cognitive+Science%2C+University+of+Pennsylvania%2E) [our card](https://md.mova.elamur.ai/free/en/docs/papers/miltsakaki-2004-penn-discourse-treebank/)
21. Sara Tonelli, Giuseppe Riccardi, Rashmi Prasad, and Aravind Joshi. 2010. Annotation of discourse relations for conversational spoken dialogs. In Proceedings of the Seventh International Conference on Language Resources and Evaluation (LREC 2010), Valletta, Malta. [find](https://scholar.google.com/scholar?q=Sara+Tonelli%2C+Giuseppe+Riccardi%2C+Rashmi+Prasad%2C+and+Aravind+Joshi%2E+2010%2E+Annotation+of+discourse+relations+for+conversational+spoken+dialogs%2E+In+Proceedings+of+the+Seventh+International+Conference+on+)
22. Bonnie Webber, Rashmi Prasad, Alan Lee, and Aravind K. Joshi. 2016. A discourse-annotated corpus of conjoined VPs. In Proceedings of the 10th Linguistic Annotation Workshop, Berlin, Germany. [find](https://scholar.google.com/scholar?q=Bonnie+Webber%2C+Rashmi+Prasad%2C+Alan+Lee%2C+and+Aravind+K%2E+Joshi%2E+2016%2E+A+discourse%2Dannotated+corpus+of+conjoined+VPs%2E+In+Proceedings+of+the+10th+Linguistic+Annotation+Workshop%2C+Berlin%2C+Germany%2E)
23. Florian Wolf and Edward Gibson. 2005. Representing discourse coherence: A corpus-based study. Computational linguistics, 31(2):249–287. [find](https://scholar.google.com/scholar?q=Florian+Wolf+and+Edward+Gibson%2E+2005%2E+Representing+discourse+coherence%3A+A+corpus%2Dbased+study%2E+Computational+linguistics%2C+31%282%29%3A249%E2%80%93287%2E)
24. Nianwen Xue, Hwee Tou Ng, Sameer Pradhan, Rashmi Prasad, Christopher Bryant, and Attapol Rutherford. 2015. The CoNLL-2015 shared task on shallow discourse parsing. In Proceedings of the CoNLL-15 shared task, pages 1–16, Beijing, China. [find](https://scholar.google.com/scholar?q=Nianwen+Xue%2C+Hwee+Tou+Ng%2C+Sameer+Pradhan%2C+Rashmi+Prasad%2C+Christopher+Bryant%2C+and+Attapol+Rutherford%2E+2015%2E+The+CoNLL%2D2015+shared+task+on+shallow+discourse+parsing%2E+In+Proceedings+of+the+CoNLL%2D15+share)
25. Nianwen Xue, Hwee Tou Ng, Attapol Rutherford, Bonnie Webber, Chuan Wang, and Hongmin Wang. 2016. The CoNLL-2016 shared task on multilingual shallow discourse parsing. In Proceedings of the CoNLL-16 shared task, pages 1–19, Berlin, Germany. [find](https://scholar.google.com/scholar?q=Nianwen+Xue%2C+Hwee+Tou+Ng%2C+Attapol+Rutherford%2C+Bonnie+Webber%2C+Chuan+Wang%2C+and+Hongmin+Wang%2E+2016%2E+The+CoNLL%2D2016+shared+task+on+multilingual+shallow+discourse+parsing%2E+In+Proceedings+of+the+CoNLL%2D16+sh) [our card](https://md.mova.elamur.ai/free/en/docs/papers/xue-2016-conll-2016-shared-task-multilingual/)
26. Deniz Zeyrek and Bonnie Webber. 2008. A discourse resource for Turkish: Annotating discourse connectives in the METU corpus. In Proceedings of the 6th Workshop on Asian Language Resources, The Third International Joint Conference on Natural Language Processing, (IJCNLP-2008), pages 65–71, Hyderabad, India. [find](https://scholar.google.com/scholar?q=Deniz+Zeyrek+and+Bonnie+Webber%2E+2008%2E+A+discourse+resource+for+Turkish%3A+Annotating+discourse+connectives+in+the+METU+corpus%2E+In+Proceedings+of+the+6th+Workshop+on+Asian+Language+Resources%2C+The+Third+I)
27. Deniz Zeyrek, Amalia Mendes, and Murathan Kurfali. 2018. Multi-lingual extension of PDTB-style annotation: The case of TED multi-lingual discourse bank. In Proceedings of the 11th International Conference on Language Resources and Evaluation, LREC-18, Miyazaki, Japan. [find](https://scholar.google.com/scholar?q=Deniz+Zeyrek%2C+Amalia+Mendes%2C+and+Murathan+Kurfali%2E+2018%2E+Multi%2Dlingual+extension+of+PDTB%2Dstyle+annotation%3A+The+case+of+TED+multi%2Dlingual+discourse+bank%2E+In+Proceedings+of+the+11th+International+Confer)
28. Yuping Zhou and Nianwen Xue. 2015. The chinese discourse treebank: a chinese corpus annotated with discourse relations. In Proceedings of Language Resources and Evaluation (LREC), pages 397–431. [find](https://scholar.google.com/scholar?q=Yuping+Zhou+and+Nianwen+Xue%2E+2015%2E+The+chinese+discourse+treebank%3A+a+chinese+corpus+annotated+with+discourse+relations%2E+In+Proceedings+of+Language+Resources+and+Evaluation+%28LREC%29%2C+pages+397%E2%80%93431%2E)