Discourse markers ('cue words') are lexical items that signal the kind of coherence relation holding between adjacent text spans; for example, because, since, and for this reason are different markers for causal relations. Discourse markers are a syntactically quite heterogeneous group of words, many of which are traditionally treated as function words belonging to the realm of grammar rather than to the lexicon. But for a single discourse relation there is often a set of similar markers, allowing for a range of paraphrases for expressing the relation. To capture the similarities and differences between these, and to represent them adequately, we are developing DiMLex, a lexicon of discourse markers. After describing our methodology and the kind of information to be represented in DiMLex, we briefly discuss its potential applications in both text generation and understanding.
For German, a lexicon of discourse connectives exists since the 1990s, namely DiMLex for lexicon of discourse markers REF ).
DiMLex: A Lexicon of Discourse Markers for Text Generation and Understanding
COLING-ACL
Computer Science