Syntax and lexical statistics in anaphora resolution

Abstract

We describe a syntactically based salience algorithm for pronominal anaphora resolution and a procedure for reevaluating the decisions of the algorithm on the basis of statistically modeled lexical semantic/pragmaric preferences. We report the results of an extensive blind test of both systems on computer manual text. We discuss the implications of these results for the comparative roles of syntactically defined salience and statistically measured lexical preference in determining the references of pronouns in text. © 1995 Taylor & Francis Group, LLC.