Encoding Discourse Structure: Comparison of RST and QUD

Sara Shahmohammadi, Hannah Seemann, Manfred Stede, Tatjana Scheffler

4th Workshop on Computational Approaches to Discourse Regular long Paper

TLDR: We present a quantitative and qualitative comparison of the discourse trees defined by the Rhetorical Structure Theory and Questions under Discussion models. Based on an empirical analysis of parallel annotations for 28 texts (blog posts and podcast transcripts), we conclude that both discourse fram
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Abstract: We present a quantitative and qualitative comparison of the discourse trees defined by the Rhetorical Structure Theory and Questions under Discussion models. Based on an empirical analysis of parallel annotations for 28 texts (blog posts and podcast transcripts), we conclude that both discourse frameworks capture similar structural information. The qualitative analysis shows that while complex discourse units often match between analyses, QUD structures do not indicate the centrality of segments.