---
title: "Abstracting a Dialog Act Tagset for Meeting Processing (2004)"
description: "The paper targets meeting processing and retrieval (MPR), where finding things like unanswered… 17 references, cited by 1 paper here."
authors: ["Andrei Popescu-Belis"]
year: 2004
venue: "Proceedings of the Fourth International Conference on Language Resources and Evaluation (LREC'04)"
source: "https://aclanthology.org/L04-1139/"
licence: "CC BY-NC-SA 3.0 (ACL Anthology, before 2016)"
licence_url: "https://creativecommons.org/licenses/by-nc-sa/3.0/"
summary_licence: "Elamur Cosmic License"
canonical: "https://research.elamur.ai/free/en/papers/belis-2004-abstracting-dialog-act-tagset-meeting/"
---
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# Abstracting a Dialog Act Tagset for Meeting Processing

**Authors:** [Andrei Popescu-Belis](https://md.research.elamur.ai/free/en/authors/andrei-popescu-belis/) · **Year:** 2004 · **Venue:** [Proceedings of the Fourth International Conference on Language Resources and Evaluation (LREC'04)](https://md.research.elamur.ai/free/en/venues/lrec/) ([LREC 2004](https://md.research.elamur.ai/free/en/venues/lrec/2004/)) · **Publisher:** [European Language Resources Association (ELRA)](https://md.research.elamur.ai/free/en/publishers/european-language-resources-association-elra/) · **Licence:** [CC BY-NC-SA 3.0 (ACL Anthology, before 2016)](https://creativecommons.org/licenses/by-nc-sa/3.0/)

**Links:** [Publisher's page](https://aclanthology.org/L04-1139/) · [PDF](https://aclanthology.org/L04-1139.pdf) · [OpenAlex](https://openalex.org/W2396183639)

**Citations:** 4 citations (OpenAlex, 2026-10-14) · 1 in our library, of the 149,439 papers whose bibliographies we read

## Summary
The paper targets meeting processing and retrieval (MPR), where finding things like unanswered questions requires labelling each utterance with its dialogue function. Popescu-Belis first sets out six requirements for a dialogue act tagset: a theoretical grounding, fit with real data, reliable human annotation, feasibility of automatic tagging, relevance to the application, and compatibility with earlier schemes. He then formalises DAMSL, SWBD-DAMSL and ICSI-MR with rewriting rules. DAMSL and ICSI-MR allow millions of tag combinations, which makes automatic tagging very hard. SWBD-DAMSL is tractable but too coarse for multiparty meetings.

From this analysis he derives MALTUS, a layered and abstract tagset. Each label has one primary tag and optional secondary tags, and explicit exclusiveness constraints limit the inventory to 770 possible labels. ICSI-MR meeting annotations were converted to MALTUS, and the conversion also served as a consistency check of the source corpus. The work matters because it shows how to keep a functionally rich annotation scheme that is still learnable, while reusing existing corpora.

## Key points
- **Size of the tag spaces:**
  - DAMSL allows over 4 million tag combinations.
  - SWBD-DAMSL grouped the 220 combinations observed in about 200,000 Switchboard utterances into 42 mutually exclusive tags.
  - ICSI-MR also allows millions of combinations; about 400 distinct labels appeared in roughly 6 hours (about 7,000 utterances).
- **MALTUS structure:**
  - An utterance is either U (undecipherable) or carries one level-1 tag: S, Q, B or H.
  - It can then take optional level-2 tags: answer polarity (RP/RN/RU), AT, DO, RIC/RIR and PO.
  - A disruption mark D can be added independently.
  - The result is 770 possible labels.
- **ICSI-MR data analysed:**
  - The analysis covers 50 of the 75 hours.
  - After splitting prosodic units and setting aside disruption marks, 65,188 utterances remained, with 685 observed label types.
  - At most six tags occurred in a single label.
- **Annotator agreement:** on ICSI-MR, agreement became acceptable (kappa 0.8) only when labels were collapsed into five classes.
- **Automatic tagging:**
  - With 42 SWBD-DAMSL tags, earlier statistical work reached about 70%.
  - A small ICSI-MR tag subset reached about 78%, against a 61% baseline of always predicting "statement".
  - Preliminary MALTUS experiments reached 70%.
  - About 500 elicited user queries show that questions, requests and offers matter for MPR.

## Interesting ideas
- Writing each tagset's label syntax as rewriting rules makes it possible to count the space of legal labels exactly and to compare schemes formally.
- Use a layered label: one mandatory exclusive primary function (statement, question, backchannel, hold) plus a few independent optional modifiers (answer polarity, politeness, attention). This keeps expressiveness while shrinking the search space.
- Mapping between tagsets only works from the finer scheme to the coarser one, and it also needs the coarser scheme's exclusiveness rules stated explicitly.
- The conversion procedure doubled as a validator, catching incoherent source labels such as two general tags in one label, which were reported back to the corpus maintainers.
- Tagging accuracy is reported against both a uniform baseline and a majority-class baseline (61% for "statement"), and tagset design is checked against real user queries.

## For Mova

How these ideas could serve Mova, our small open language model — its files, stages and tests:

- **I1** (frames): the speech-act label grammar in prag could be specified the same way, so its combinatorial size and exclusiveness constraints become explicit and checkable.
- **I2** (frames): speech-act output could carry one core act plus orthogonal flags such as politeness or restatement, instead of free combinations.
- **I3** (tree): when converting UD dialects or treebanks, record which direction is lossless and which constraints the target imposes, rather than assuming symmetric mappings.
- **I4** (learn): every silver-data or treebank conversion step could log constraint violations as a cheap error detector for the input data.
- **I5** (learn): speech-act and frame classifiers should always be scored against a majority-label control, and label inventories should be pruned using what the answer stage actually needs.

*Our summary of the paper, in our own words — not its text. The work belongs to its authors; read it at the links above.*

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## Cite

Cite as: Andrei Popescu-Belis. 2004. Abstracting a Dialog Act Tagset for Meeting Processing. Proceedings of the Fourth International Conference on Language Resources and Evaluation (LREC'04).

The paper itself, not this page. BibTeX from the library's record of the work.

```bibtex
@inproceedings{popescubelis2004abstracting,
  title = {{Abstracting a Dialog Act Tagset for Meeting Processing}},
  author = {Andrei Popescu-Belis},
  booktitle = {Proceedings of the Fourth International Conference on Language Resources and Evaluation (LREC'04)},
  year = {2004},
  doi = {10.63317/4bmqrpfaffmp},
  url = {https://doi.org/10.63317/4bmqrpfaffmp}
}
```

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## References

17 references, 3 of them with a card of ours. ↗ leads to the work, «find» searches for one we have no id for yet.

1. Allen, J. F., and Core, M. G. (1997). “DAMSL: Dialogue act markup in several layers (draft 2.1)”. Technical report, Multiparty Discourse Group, Discourse Research Initiative, September/October, 1997. [find](https://scholar.google.com/scholar?q=Allen%2C+J%2E+F%2E%2C+and+Core%2C+M%2E+G%2E+%281997%29%2E+%E2%80%9CDAMSL%3A+Dialogue+act+markup+in+several+layers+%28draft+2%2E1%29%E2%80%9D%2E+Technical+report%2C+Multiparty+Discourse+Group%2C+Discourse+Research+Initiative%2C+September%2FOctober%2C+1997%2E)
2. Armstrong, S., Clark, A., Coray, G., Georgescul, M., Pallotta, V., Popescu-Belis, A., Portabella, D., Rajman, M. and Starlander, M. (2003). “Natural Language Queries on Natural Language Data: a Database of Meeting Dialogues”. Proceedings of NLDB’03, Burg/Cottbus, Germany. [find](https://scholar.google.com/scholar?q=Armstrong%2C+S%2E%2C+Clark%2C+A%2E%2C+Coray%2C+G%2E%2C+Georgescul%2C+M%2E%2C+Pallotta%2C+V%2E%2C+Popescu%2DBelis%2C+A%2E%2C+Portabella%2C+D%2E%2C+Rajman%2C+M%2E+and+Starlander%2C+M%2E+%282003%29%2E+%E2%80%9CNatural+Language+Queries+on+Natural+Language+Data%3A+a+Databa)
3. Brown, P., and Levinson, S. C. (1983). Politeness. Cambridge University Press, Cambridge, UK. [find](https://scholar.google.com/scholar?q=Brown%2C+P%2E%2C+and+Levinson%2C+S%2E+C%2E+%281983%29%2E+Politeness%2E+Cambridge+University+Press%2C+Cambridge%2C+UK%2E)
4. Clark, A. and Popescu-Belis, A. (2004) - [Multi-level Dialogue Act Tags](https://md.research.elamur.ai/free/en/papers/clark-2004-multi-level-dialogue-act-tags/). Proceedings of SIGDIAL’04, Cambridge, MA, USA.
5. Dhillon, R., Bhagat, S., Carvey, H., and Shriberg, E. (2004). Meeting Recorder Project: Dialogue Act Labeling Guide. ICSI Technical Report TR-04-002, Berkeley, CA, February 9, 2004. [find](https://scholar.google.com/scholar?q=Dhillon%2C+R%2E%2C+Bhagat%2C+S%2E%2C+Carvey%2C+H%2E%2C+and+Shriberg%2C+E%2E+%282004%29%2E+Meeting+Recorder+Project%3A+Dialogue+Act+Labeling+Guide%2E+ICSI+Technical+Report+TR%2D04%2D002%2C+Berkeley%2C+CA%2C+February+9%2C+2004%2E)
6. Jurafsky, D., Shriberg, E., and Biasca, D. (1997). “Switchboard SWBD-DAMSL shallow discourse-function annotation (coders manual, draft 13)”. Technical Report 97-02, University of Colorado, Institute of Cognitive Science. [find](https://scholar.google.com/scholar?q=Jurafsky%2C+D%2E%2C+Shriberg%2C+E%2E%2C+and+Biasca%2C+D%2E+%281997%29%2E+%E2%80%9CSwitchboard+SWBD%2DDAMSL+shallow+discourse%2Dfunction+annotation+%28coders+manual%2C+draft+13%29%E2%80%9D%2E+Technical+Report+97%2D02%2C+University+of+Colorado%2C+Institute+o)
7. Jurafsky, D., Shriberg, E., Fox, B., and Curl, T. (1998). “Lexical, prosodic, and syntactic cues for dialogue acts”. In Proceedings of ACL/COLING-98 Workshop on Discourse Relations and Discourse Markers, p. 114-120. [find](https://scholar.google.com/scholar?q=Jurafsky%2C+D%2E%2C+Shriberg%2C+E%2E%2C+Fox%2C+B%2E%2C+and+Curl%2C+T%2E+%281998%29%2E+%E2%80%9CLexical%2C+prosodic%2C+and+syntactic+cues+for+dialogue+acts%E2%80%9D%2E+In+Proceedings+of+ACL%2FCOLING%2D98+Workshop+on+Discourse+Relations+and+Discourse+Marke)
8. Klein, M., and Soria, C. (1998). “Dialogue acts”. In Klein, M., Bernsen, N. O., Davies, S., Dybkjær, L., Garrido, J., Kasch, H., Mengel, A., Pirrelli, V., Poesio, M., Quazza, S., and Soria, C. MATE Supported Coding Schemes. MATE Project LE4-8370, Deliverable D1.1. [find](https://scholar.google.com/scholar?q=Klein%2C+M%2E%2C+and+Soria%2C+C%2E+%281998%29%2E+%E2%80%9CDialogue+acts%E2%80%9D%2E+In+Klein%2C+M%2E%2C+Bernsen%2C+N%2E+O%2E%2C+Davies%2C+S%2E%2C+Dybkj%C3%A6r%2C+L%2E%2C+Garrido%2C+J%2E%2C+Kasch%2C+H%2E%2C+Mengel%2C+A%2E%2C+Pirrelli%2C+V%2E%2C+Poesio%2C+M%2E%2C+Quazza%2C+S%2E%2C+and+Soria%2C+C%2E+MATE+Su)
9. Levinson, S. C., (1983). Pragmatics. Cambridge University Press, Cambridge, UK. [find](https://scholar.google.com/scholar?q=Levinson%2C+S%2E+C%2E%2C+%281983%29%2E+Pragmatics%2E+Cambridge+University+Press%2C+Cambridge%2C+UK%2E)
10. Lisowska, A., Popescu-Belis, A., Armstrong, S. (2004). “User Query Analysis for the Specification and Evaluation of a Dialogue Processing and Retrieval System”. Proceedings of LREC 2004, Lisbon, Portugal. [find](https://scholar.google.com/scholar?q=Lisowska%2C+A%2E%2C+Popescu%2DBelis%2C+A%2E%2C+Armstrong%2C+S%2E+%282004%29%2E+%E2%80%9CUser+Query+Analysis+for+the+Specification+and+Evaluation+of+a+Dialogue+Processing+and+Retrieval+System%E2%80%9D%2E+Proceedings+of+LREC+2004%2C+Lisbon%2C+Portu)
11. Morgan, N., Baron, D. Bhagat, S., Carvey, H., Dhillon, R., Edwards, J. A., Gelbart, D., Janin, A., Krupski, A., Peskin, B., Pfau, T., Shriberg, E., Stolcke, A, and Wooters, C. (2003). “Meetings about meetings: research at ICSI on speech in multiparty conversations”. In Proceedings of ICASSP’03, Hong Kong, China. [find](https://scholar.google.com/scholar?q=Morgan%2C+N%2E%2C+Baron%2C+D%2E+Bhagat%2C+S%2E%2C+Carvey%2C+H%2E%2C+Dhillon%2C+R%2E%2C+Edwards%2C+J%2E+A%2E%2C+Gelbart%2C+D%2E%2C+Janin%2C+A%2E%2C+Krupski%2C+A%2E%2C+Peskin%2C+B%2E%2C+Pfau%2C+T%2E%2C+Shriberg%2C+E%2E%2C+Stolcke%2C+A%2C+and+Wooters%2C+C%2E+%282003%29%2E+%E2%80%9CMeetings+about+)
12. Popescu-Belis, A. (2003). Dialogue act tagsets for meeting understanding: an abstraction based on the DAMSL, Switchboard and ICSI-MR tagsets. Technical report, IM2.MDM-09, v1.1. [find](https://scholar.google.com/scholar?q=Popescu%2DBelis%2C+A%2E+%282003%29%2E+Dialogue+act+tagsets+for+meeting+understanding%3A+an+abstraction+based+on+the+DAMSL%2C+Switchboard+and+ICSI%2DMR+tagsets%2E+Technical+report%2C+IM2%2EMDM%2D09%2C+v1%2E1%2E)
13. Searle, J. R. (1969). [Speech Acts](https://md.research.elamur.ai/free/en/papers/searle-1969-speech-acts/). Cambridge University Press, Cambridge, UK.
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15. Stolcke, A., Ries, K., Coccaro, N., Shriberg, E., Bates, R., Jurafsky, D., Taylor, P., Martin, R., Meteer, M., and Van Ess-Dykema, C. (2000). “[Dialogue Act Modeling for Automatic Tagging and Recognition of Conversational Speech](https://md.research.elamur.ai/free/en/papers/stolcke-2000-dialogue-act-modeling-automatic-tagging/)”, Computational Linguistics, 26(3), p. 339–371.
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*Updated 2 November 2026*