Alistair Knott: Publications

Publications, papers and talks

The book I'm working on

I'm currently writing a book about the interface between language and the sensorimotor system. Here's the most recent draft. (This file is likely to change quite regularly for a little while.) The book's going to be published by MIT Press later this year - any comments much appreciated.

A Knott: Sensorimotor cognition and natural language syntax DRAFT: September 2010
You can also download the abstract separately.

I have taught a course based on this book; you can find presentations covering most topics on the course website.

Thesis

A Knott: A Data-Driven Methodology for Motivating a Set of Coherence Relations. PhD thesis, Department of Artificial Intelligence, University of Edinburgh (1996).
(For an uncompressed postscript version of the thesis, see here.)
(For an uncompressed PDF version of the thesis, see here.)
(To download the thesis a chapter at a time, see here.)

Edited collections

J Alexandersson and A Knott (eds): Proceedings of the 7th SigDIAL Workshop on Discourse and Dialogue, Sydney (2006).
A Knott and D Estival (eds): Proceedings of the Australasian Language Technology Workshop 2003. University of Melbourne (2003).
A Knott, T Sanders and J Oberlander (eds): special edition of Cognitive Linguistics on Coherence Relations and Connectives: Cognitive Linguistics 12(3) (2001).
R Schwitter, D Estival, C Paris and A Knott (eds): Proceedings of the 2001 Australasian Natural Language Processing Workshop. Macquarie University, Sydney (2001).
Knott, A, Oberlander, J, Moore, S and Sanders, T (eds) Levels of Representation in Discourse: International Workshop on Text Representation. University of Edinburgh, UK (1999).

Journal papers

G Caza and A Knott. Pragmatic bootstrapping: A neural network model of vocabulary acquisition. Language Learning and Development (in press).
A Webb, A Knott and M MacAskill. Eye movements during transitive action observation have sequential structure. Acta Psychologica 133:51-56 (2010).
P Vlugter, A Knott, J McDonald, C Hall: Dialogue-based CALL: a case study on teaching pronouns. Computer-Assisted Language Learning 22(2):115-131 (2009).
H Walles, A Knott and A Robins: A model of cardinality blindness in inferotemporal cortex. Biological Cybernetics 98(5):427-437 (2008).
A Knott and P Vlugter: Multi-agent human-machine dialogue: issues in dialogue management and referring expression semantics. Artificial Intelligence 172:69-102 (2008).
A Knott: Review of 'Coherence in natural language: Data structures and applications', by Florian Wolf and Edward Gibson. Computational Linguistics 33:591--595 (2007).
L Earnshaw, S Fleming, V Weatherall and A Knott: Analysis of errors made by learners of Mäori in an introductory university course. Journal of Mäori and Pacific Development 5(2):31-47 (2004)
B Webber, M Stone, A Joshi and A Knott: Anaphora and discourse structure. Computational Linguistics 29(4):589-637 (2003).
A Knott: Do sensorimotor processes have reflexes in sentence syntax as well as sentence semantics? Behavioral and Brain Sciences 26(3), (2003), pp294--295. Commentary on Jim Hurford's target article The neural basis of predicate-argument structure"
A Knott, T Sanders and J Oberlander: Levels of representation in discourse relations. Cognitive Linguistics 12(3): 197--209 (2001).
M O'Donnell, C Mellish, J Oberlander and A Knott: ILEX: an architecture for a dynamic hypertext generation system. Natural Language Engineering 7:225--250 (2001).
A Knott: An Algorithmic Framework for Specifying the Semantics of Discourse Relations. Computational Intelligence 16(4) (2000). (PDF version)
R Stevenson, A Knott, J Oberlander and S McDonald: Interpreting pronouns and connectives: Interactions among focusing, thematic roles and coherence relations. Language and Cognitive Processes 15(3): 225-262 (2000).
J Oberlander, M O'Donnell, C Mellish and A Knott: Conversation in the museum: experiments in dynamic hypermedia with the Intelligent Labelling Explorer. New Review of Hypermedia and Multimedia 4: 11-32 (1998).
R Dale, J Oberlander, M Milosavljevic and A Knott: Integrating Natural Language Generation and Hypertext to Produce Dynamic Documents. Interacting with Computers 11(2): 109-135 (1998). (PDF version)
A Knott and T Sanders, The Classification of Coherence Relations and their Linguistic Markers: An Exploration of Two Languages. Journal of Pragmatics 30:135-175 (1998). (PDF version)
A Knott and C Mellish, A Feature-Based Account of the Relations Signalled by Sentence and Clause Connectives. Journal of Language and Speech vol 39 (1996). (PDF version) (Note: the online version of this paper is a draft of the published version; please write to me for offprints if you need the final version.)
A Knott and R Dale, Using Linguistic Phenomena to Motivate a Set of Coherence Relations. Discourse Processes 18(1): 35-62 (1994). Also available as Technical Report RP-34, Human Communication Research Centre, University of Edinburgh, 1992.

Book chapters

A Knott: Neurocomputational models of natural language. In N Kasabov (ed) Springer Handbook of Bio- and Neuroinformatics, Springer (to appear).
B Webber, A Knott and A Joshi, Multiple Discourse Connectives in a Lexicalized Grammar for Discourse. In H Bunt, R Muskens and E Thijsse (eds) Computing Meaning, Volume 2, Kluwer Academic Publishers (Studies in Lingusitics and Philosophy Series), 2001, pp229--245.
A Knott, Semantic and Pragmatic relations and their intended effects. In T Sanders, J Schilperoord and W Spooren (eds) Text representation: linguistic and psycholinguistic aspects, Benjamins, 2001, pp127--151. (PDF version)
A Knott, J Oberlander, M O'Donnell and C Mellish, Beyond Elaboration: The interaction of relations and focus in coherent text . In T Sanders, J Schilperoord and W Spooren (eds) Text representation: linguistic and psycholinguistic aspects, Benjamins, 2001, pp181--196. (PDF version)
A Knott and R Dale, Choosing a Set of Rhetorical Relations for Text Generation: A Data-Driven Approach. In M Zock (ed) Trends in Natural Language Generation: an Artificial Intelligence Perspective, Springer Verlag (1996). This paper is an extended version of one presented at the Fourth European Workshop on Natural Language Generation. (PDF version)

Conference and workshop proceedings

J McDonald, A Knott, R Zeng and A Cohen: Learning from student responses: A domain-independent natural language tutor. Proceedings of the Australasian Language Technology Association Conference (ALTA) 2011 (to appear).
A Knott. Chomsky and embodied cognition: A sensorimotor interpretation of Minimalist Logical Form. Proceedings of CogSci2011 (the 33rd Meeting of the Annual Conference of the Cognitive Science Society), Boston MA 2011 pp2621-2626.
M Takac, L Benuskova and A Knott. Meanings as sensorimotor sequences: A sentence generation model. Proceedings of ICANN 2011 (the 21st International Conference on Artificial Neural Networks), Springer Lecture Notes in Computer Science 6792 (2011) pp341-348.
A Knott. A sensorimotor characterisation of syntax, and its implications for models of language evolution. Proceedings of the 8th International conference on the Evolution of Language (EVOLANG8), World Scientific 2010, pp214-221.
M Takac, A Knott, and L Benuskova, L. The production of idiomatic language in a simple recurrent network. Proceedings of the 4th Computational Cognitive Neuroscience Conference (CCNC-09), Boston, MA, 2009.
M Takac, L Benuskova and A Knott. Sure as eggs is eggs: Low entropy as predictor of idiomaticity in language production by a simple recurrent network. Proceedings of the 17th Australian Language and Speech Conference, Sydney, 2009.
P Vlugter, E Van der Ham and A Knott: Error correction using utterance disambiguation techniques. Proceedings of the Australasian Language Technology Workshop (ALTW), University of Sydney (2006) pp123-130.
P Vlugter and A Knott: A multi-speaker dialogue system for computer-aided language learning. Proceedings of the 10th Workshop on the Semantics and Pragmatics of Dialogue (BRANDIAL), Potsdam (2006) pp18-25.
N Slabbers and A Knott: A system for generating teaching initiatives in a computer-aided language learning dialogue. Proceedings of the Ninth Workshop on the Semantics and Pragmatics of Dialogue (DIALOR), Nancy, France (2005).
M van Schagen and A Knott: Tauira: A tool for acquiring unknown words in a dialogue context. Proceedings of the 2004 Australasian Language Technology Workshop (ALTW2004), Macquarie University (2004).
C Lakeland and A Knott: Implementing a lexicalised statistical parser. Proceedings of the 2004 Australasian Language Technology Workshop (ALTW2004), Macquarie University (2004).
P Lurcock, P Vlugter and A Knott: A framework for utterance disambiguation in dialogue. Proceedings of the 2004 Australasian Language Technology Workshop (ALTW2004), Macquarie University (2004, to appear).
A Knott, I Bayard and P Vlugter: Multi-agent human-machine dialogue: issues in dialogue management and referring expression semantics. In Zhang, C, Guesgen, H and Yeap, W (eds) PRICAI 2004: Trends in Artificial Intelligence. Proceedings of the 8th Pacific Rim Conference on Artificial Intelligence. Springer Verlag, Lecture Notes in AI (pp872--881). A longer version of this paper is available as a technical report (OUCS-2004-05, Dept of Computer Science, University of Otago).
A Knott: Syntactic representations as side-effects of a sensorimotor mechanism. Proceedings of the Fifth International Conference on the Evolution of Language (EVOLANG-5), Leipzig 2004, pp144--145.
A Webb, S McCallum and A Knott: Modelling type-denoting concepts and words in a simulation of vocabulary development. Proceedings of the Fifth International Conference on the Evolution of Language (EVOLANG-5), Leipzig 2004, pp113--114.
P Vlugter, A Knott and V Weatherall: A human-machine dialogue system for CALL. Proceedings of InSTIL/ICALL 2004: NLP and speech technologies in Advanced Language Learning Systems, Venice 2004, pp215--218.
A Knott and P Vlugter: Syntactic disambiguation using presupposition resolution. Proceedings of the 2003 Australasian Language Technology Workshop (ALTW2003), pp98--104.
S de Jager, N Wright and A Knott: Speaker-independent context update rules for dialogue management. Proceedings of the 4th SIGdial workshop on Discourse and Dialogue, Sapporo, Japan, July 2003.
A Knott, J Moorfield, T Meaney, and L Ng: A human-computer dialogue system for Mäori language learning. Proceedings of the World Conference on Educational Multimedia, Hypermedia and Telecommunications (ED-MEDIA), June 2003. (PDF version)
S King, A Knott and B McCane: Language-driven nonverbal communication in a bilingual conversational agent. Proceedings of the 16th International Conference on Computer Animation and Social Agents (CASA), May 2003. (PDF version)
A Knott and N Wright: A dialogue-based knowledge authoring system for text generation. Proceedings of the AAAI Spring Symposium on Natural Language Generation in Spoken and Written Dialogue, March 2003, pp71--78. (PDF version)
A Knott, I Bayard, S de Jager and N Wright: An architecture for bilingual and bidirectional NLP. Proceedings of the 2nd Australasian Natural Language Processing Workshop, Canberra Australia pp63--70, December 2002. (PDF version)
I Bayard, A Knott and J Moorfield: Syntax and semantics for sentence processing in English and Mäori. Proceedings of the 2nd Australasian Natural Language Processing Workshop, Canberra Australia pp33-40, December 2002. (PDF version)
S de Jager, A Knott and I Bayard: A DRT-based framework for presuppositions in dialogue management. Proceedings of the 6th Workshop on the Semantics and Pragmatics of Dialogue (EDILOG 2002), University of Edinburgh, pp61--68 September 2002. (PDF version)
A Knott, I Bayard, S de Jager, L Smith, J Moorfield and R O'Keefe: A question-answering system for English and Mäori. Proceedings of the Fifth Biannual Conference on Artificial Neural Networks and Expert Systems (ANNES), University of Otago, November 2001, pp223--228.
A Knott: Argument linking and spatial cognition. Proceedings of SEMPRO 2001: Cognitively Plausible Models of Semantic Processing. University of Edinburgh, July 2001.
C Lakeland and A Knott: POS tagging in statistical parsing. Proceedings of the 2001 Australasian Natural Language Processing Workshop, Macquarie University, Sydney, April 2001.
B Webber, Aravind Joshi and Alistair Knott: The Anaphoric Nature of Certain Discourse Connectives. Proceedings of `Making Sense: From Lexeme to Discourse', Groningen, The Netherlands, 2000 (to appear).
M O'Donnell, A Knott, J Oberlander and C Mellish Optimising text quality in generation from relational databases. Proceedings of the First International Natural Language Generation Conference, Mitzpe Ramon, Israel, June 2000, pp133-140.
A Knott. Discourse relations as descriptions of an algorithm for perception, action and theorem-proving. Proceedings of the International Workshop on Levels of Representation in Discourse (LORID'99), Edinburgh, Scotland, July 1999, pp150-156. (PDF version)
B Webber, A Knott, M Stone and A Joshi. What are Little Texts Made of? A Structural and Presuppositional Account using Lexicalised TAG. Proceedings of the International Workshop on Levels of Representation in Discourse (LORID'99), Edinburgh, Scotland, July 1999, pp143-159.
A Knott: An Algorithmic Framework for Specifying the Semantics of Discourse Relations. Proceedings of PACLING'99, the Pacific Association for Computational Linguistics, Waterloo, Canada, August 1999, pp29-39. (Note: this is a draft of the paper published in Computational Intelligence; see above.)
B Webber, A Knott, M Stone and A Joshi. Discourse Relations: A Structural and Presuppositional Account using Lexicalised TAG. Proceedings of the 1999 Meeting of the Association for Computational Linguistics, College Park, Maryland, June 1999, pp41-48
B Webber, A Knott and A Joshi Multiple Discourse Connectives in a Lexicalized Grammar for Discourse. Third International Workshop on Computational Semantics, Tilburg, The Netherlands, January 1999, pp309-325. (Note: this is a draft of the paper in Bunt (ed) Computing Meaning vol II; see above.)
A Knott, Similarity and Contrast Relations and Inductive Rules. Proceedings of the ACL Workshop on Discourse Relations and Discourse Markers, Montreal, Canada (August 1998). (PDF version)
C Mellish, A Knott, J Oberlander and M O'Donnell, Experiments using stochastic search for text planning. Proceedings of the Ninth International Workshop on Natural Language Generation, Niagra-on-the-Lake, Ontario, Canada (August 1998).
C Mellish, M O'Donnell, J Oberlander and A Knott, An architecture for opportunistic text generation. Proceedings of the Ninth International Workshop on Natural Language Generation, Niagra-on-the-Lake, Ontario, Canada (August 1998).
A Knott, M O'Donnell, J Oberlander and C Mellish, Defeasible Rules in Content Selection and Text Structuring. Proceedings of the sixth European Workshop on Natural Language Generation, Duisburg, Germany (1997). (PDF version)
J Oberlander, C Mellish, M O'Donnell and A Knott, Exploring a Gallery with Intelligent Labels. In Proceedings of the Fourth International Conference on Hypermedia and Interactivity in Museums, pp153-161. Paris (September 1997).
A Knott, C Mellish, J Oberlander and M O'Donnell, Sources of Flexibility in Dynamic Hypertext Generation. Proceedings of the eighth international natural language generation workshop, Brighton, UK (1996). (PDF version)
J Oberlander and A Knott, Issues in Cue Phrase Implicature. Proceedings of the AAAI Spring Symposium on Computational Implicature, Stanford, CA (1996). (PDF version)
A Knott, An Empirical Methodology for Determining a Set of Coherence Relations.Proceedings of the AAAI Spring Symposium on Empirical Methods in Discourse Interpretation and Generation, Stanford, CA (1995). (PDF version)
A Knott, Using Cue Phrases to Determine a Set of Rhetorical Relations. In O Rambow (ed) Intentionality and Structure in Discourse Relations: Proceedings of the ACL SIGGEN Workshop (1993). (PDF version)

Technical reports

A Knott: Grounding syntactic representations in an architecture for sensorimotor control. Otago University technical report OUCS-2003-04, 2003.

Unpublished manuscripts, talks etc

A Knott: A sensorimotor characterisation of syntax, and its implications for models of language evolution. Slides for a talk given at EVOLANG 2010.
P Vlugter, E van der Ham and A Knott: Error correction using utterance disambiguation techniques. Slides for a talk given at ALTW, Sydney, December 2006.
A Knott: Syntactic structures as traces of sensorimotor event representations. Slides for a talk given at SISSA, Trieste, September 2006.
A Knott, P Vlugter, I Bayard and V Weatherall: Kaitito: a system for sentence translation and dialogue-based language-learning. Slides for a talk given at the University of Cambridge Computer Lab, January 2006.
N Slabbers and A Knott: A system for generating teaching initiatives in a computer-aided language learning dialogue. Slides for a talk given at DIALOR, LORIA Nancy, June 2005.
M van Schagen and A Knott: Tauira: A tool for acquiring unknown words in a dialogue context. Slides for a talk given at ALTW, Macquarie University, December 2004.
A Knott: Syntactic structures as traces of sensorimotor event representations. Slides for a talk given at the Center for Language Technology, Macquarie University, September 2004.
A Knott: Introduction to Discourse Representation Theory. Slides for a talk given at the Australasian Language Technology Summer School, Melbourne, December 2003.
A Knott, I Bayard, S de Jager, L Smith, R O'Keefe and J Moorfield: Maori/English machine translation using HPSG. Paper presented at the 2001 Conference of the New Zealand Linguistics Society, University of Canterbury.
C Lakeland and A Knott: Statistical parsing. Poster presented at the 2001 Conference of the New Zealand Linguistics Society, University of Canterbury.
A Knott, New Strategies and Constraints in RST-Based Text Planning. Master's thesis, Department of Artificial Intelligence, University of Edinburgh (1991).