1998 Presentations (Communicative Events)

Linear segmentation and segment relevence

McKeown, Kathleen; Kan, Min-Yen; Klanvas, Judith L.

We present a new method for discovering a segmental discourse structure of a document while categorizing each segment's function and importance. Segments are determined by a zero-sum weighting scheme, used on occurrences of noun phrases and pronominal forms retrieved from the document. Segment roles are then calculated from the distribution of the terms in the segment. Finally, we present results of evaluation in terms of precision and recall which surpass earlier approaches.