discourse representation theory (DAT)

A SEMANTIC theory which seeks to extend MODEL-THEORETIC SEMANTICS to accommodate sequences of SENTENCES, and in particular to accommodate ANAPHORIC dependencies across sentence boundaries. Central to the theory is an intermediate level of semantic REPRESENTATION called a discourse representation structure (DRS). An initial DRS is derived by an ALGORITHM from the SYNTACTIC STRUCTURE of sentences. Further RULES then determine how an initial DRS can be enriched to identify various anaphoric dependencies. Segmented discourse representation theory is an extension of DRT: it is a semantically based theory of discourse structure which represents the rhetorical relations that hold between the propositions introduced in a text.