Pronoun Resolution in Japanese Sentences Using Surface Expressions and Examples

TL;DR

This paper introduces a novel approach for pronoun resolution in Japanese by leveraging surface expressions and examples, achieving high precision rates comparable to semantic marker-based methods.

Contribution

The paper proposes new methods utilizing examples and surface expressions for pronoun referent estimation, demonstrating their effectiveness alongside conventional techniques.

Findings

87% precision on training sentences

78% precision on test sentences

Examples are as useful as semantic markers

Abstract

In this paper, we present a method of estimating referents of demonstrative pronouns, personal pronouns, and zero pronouns in Japanese sentences using examples, surface expressions, topics and foci. Unlike conventional work which was semantic markers for semantic constraints, we used examples for semantic constraints and showed in our experiments that examples are as useful as semantic markers. We also propose many new methods for estimating referents of pronouns. For example, we use the form ``X of Y'' for estimating referents of demonstrative adjectives. In addition to our new methods, we used many conventional methods. As a result, experiments using these methods obtained a precision rate of 87% in estimating referents of demonstrative pronouns, personal pronouns, and zero pronouns for training sentences, and obtained a precision rate of 78% for test sentences.