---
title: "An Integrated Approach to Reference and Presupposition"
description: "The paper argues that resolving pronouns and definite descriptions should not be a standalone task. 13 references, cited by 1 paper here."
authors: ["Robert T. Kasper", "Paul C. Davis", "Craige Roberts"]
year: 1999
venue: "The Relation of Discourse/Dialogue Structure and Reference"
source: "https://aclanthology.org/W99-0101/"
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/kasper-1999-integrated-approach-reference-presupposition-resolution/"
---
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# An Integrated Approach to Reference and Presupposition Resolution

**Authors:** Robert T. Kasper, Paul C. Davis and [Craige Roberts](https://md.research.elamur.ai/free/en/authors/craige-roberts/) · **Year:** 1999 · **Venue:** The Relation of Discourse/Dialogue Structure and Reference · **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/W99-0101/) · [PDF](https://aclanthology.org/W99-0101.pdf) · [OpenAlex](https://openalex.org/W2802477503)

**Citations:** 4 citations (OpenAlex, 2026-10-14) · [1](https://md.research.elamur.ai/free/en/papers/kasper-1999-integrated-approach-reference-presupposition-resolution/cited-by/) in our library, of the 149,439 papers whose bibliographies we read

## Summary
The paper argues that resolving pronouns and definite descriptions should not be a standalone task. Instead, both are special cases of a single process: satisfying presuppositions against a structured discourse context. Building on Roberts' framework of discourse as cooperative inquiry, the authors model context as an Information Structure. It holds the moves so far, the common ground (CG), a Domain of familiar discourse referents, and a stack of questions under discussion (QUD). The QUD stack mirrors the intentional hierarchy of a dialogue and narrows the search for antecedents and other presupposed material. The authors give algorithms for updating this structure and retrieving presupposed content, inside a partially implemented hotel-booking dialogue system. Four sample dialogues cover long-distance pronoun reference, a definite resolved via an indefinite in an earlier question, contextual domain restriction of "every," and an elliptical "How about X?" question. There is no quantitative evaluation. The contribution is a unified, explainable treatment of several context-dependent phenomena under one strategy.

## Key points
- Definites (pronouns, demonstratives, "the"-NPs) presuppose two things. Weak familiarity means the CG entails that a matching entity exists, with no explicit antecedent required. Informational uniqueness means only one familiar referent fits the description, which is weaker than Russell's semantic uniqueness.
- Pronouns add a conventional requirement of maximal salience, implemented through the QUD stack. This explains why pronouns and definite descriptions are distributed differently.
- Relevance is defined formally. An assertion must give at least a partial answer to the top question. A sub-question's full answer must contextually entail a partial answer to the question beneath it.
- Several algorithms are presented, including resolve_WH_Ellipsis, a match-and-substitute step, add_domain_restriction, and a priority union of discourse representations. Logical forms are processed inside-out, so embedded presupposition problems are solved first.
- The authors list open problems:
  - coercing requests and need/desire statements into questions;
  - inferring the user's domain goals;
  - running a corpus evaluation, which is still pending and hard because of domain knowledge.

## Interesting ideas
- Treat every context-dependent construction as a presupposition to satisfy, with one shared search procedure; this replaces a separate module per phenomenon.
- Keep a stack of open questions where only the top is writable but every entry is readable, and pop a question when it is answered or shown unanswerable. This gives a cheap, explicit model of topic hierarchy for long-distance reference.
- Familiarity is licensed by what the common ground entails, not by a literal NP antecedent, so bridged or implied entities can still be referred to definitely.
- Use descriptions already present in the open questions as an approximate domain restriction, instead of running costly full plan inference.
- Resolve "How about X?" ellipsis by substituting X into the matching typed slot of the top open question; if the wh-slot is filled by a definite, the result becomes a yes/no question.

## For Mova

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

- **I1** (frames): coreference, ellipsis and quantifier domain restriction in prag could share one "find it in context" routine, which makes each resolution step traceable to the same rule.
- **I2** (world): the world of a text could track open questions or goals alongside entities, so a pronoun many sentences later can be tied back to the still-open super-topic.
- **I3** (world): entities inferred from states and knowledge (e.g. a hotel implied by a booking) should be registered as referable, letting "the hotel" resolve without a prior mention.
- **I4** (answer): when a test question says "every morning" or "the box", the reader can restrict the domain using the content of the current question or task statement.
- **I5** (frames): fragment answers and follow-ups in QA on fables could be rebuilt by slot substitution into the prior question's frame, with a fallback that pops to older questions when no slot fits.

*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: Robert T. Kasper, Paul C. Davis and Craige Roberts. 1999. An Integrated Approach to Reference and Presupposition Resolution. The Relation of Discourse/Dialogue Structure and Reference.

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

```bibtex
@inproceedings{kasper1999integrated,
  title = {{An Integrated Approach to Reference and Presupposition Resolution}},
  author = {Robert T. Kasper, Paul C. Davis and Craige Roberts},
  booktitle = {The Relation of Discourse/Dialogue Structure and Reference},
  year = {1999},
  url = {https://aclanthology.org/W99-0101/}
}
```

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## References

13 references, 2 of them with a card of ours. ↗ leads to the work, «find» searches for one we have no id for yet.

1. Lauri Carlson. 1983. Dialogue Games: An Approach to Discourse Analysis. Reidel, Dordrecht. [find](https://scholar.google.com/scholar?q=Lauri+Carlson%2E+1983%2E+Dialogue+Games%3A+An+Approach+to+Discourse+Analysis%2E+Reidel%2C+Dordrecht%2E)
2. Barbara Grosz and Candace Sidner. 1986. [Attention, intentions, and the structure of discourse](https://md.research.elamur.ai/free/en/papers/grosz-1986-attention-intentions-structure-discourse/). Computational Linguistics, 12(3):175-204. [↗](https://doi.org/10.5555/12457.12458)
3. Barbara J. Grosz, Aravind K. Joshi, and Scott Weinstein. 1995. [Centering: A framework for modeling • the local coherence of discourse](https://md.research.elamur.ai/free/en/papers/grosz-1995-centering-framework-modeling-local-coherence/). Computational Linguistics, 21(2):203-225. [↗](https://doi.org/10.21236/ada324949)
4. B.J. Grosz. 1981. Focusing and description in natural language dialogues. In B. Webber A. Joshi and I. Sag, editors, Elements ol Discourse Understanding, pages 84-105. Cambridge University Press, New York. [find](https://scholar.google.com/scholar?q=B%2EJ%2E+Grosz%2E+1981%2E+Focusing+and+description+in+natural+language+dialogues%2E+In+B%2E+Webber+A%2E+Joshi+and+I%2E+Sag%2C+editors%2C+Elements+ol+Discourse+Understanding%2C+pages+84%2D105%2E+Cambridge+University+Press%2C+New+)
5. Irene Heim. 1982. On the Semantics of Definite and Indefinfle Noun Phrases. Ph.D. thesis, University of Massachusetts at Amherst. [find](https://scholar.google.com/scholar?q=Irene+Heim%2E+1982%2E+On+the+Semantics+of+Definite+and+Indefinfle+Noun+Phrases%2E+Ph%2ED%2E+thesis%2C+University+of+Massachusetts+at+Amherst%2E)
6. Robert M. MacGregor. 1991. Using a description classifier to enhance deductive inference. In Proceedings of the Seventh IEEE Conference on AI Applications, pages 141-147. [find](https://scholar.google.com/scholar?q=Robert+M%2E+MacGregor%2E+1991%2E+Using+a+description+classifier+to+enhance+deductive+inference%2E+In+Proceedings+of+the+Seventh+IEEE+Conference+on+AI+Applications%2C+pages+141%2D147%2E)
7. Craige Roberts. 1995. Domain restriction in dynamic semantics. In A. Kratzer E. Bach, E. Jelinek and B.H. Partee, editors, Quantification in Natural Languages. Kluwer Academic Publishers. [↗](https://doi.org/10.1007/978-94-017-2817-1_20)
8. Craige Roberts. 1996. Information structure in discourse: Towards an integrated formal theory of pragmaties. In Jae-Hak Yoon and Andreas Kathol, editors, OSU Working Papers in Linguistics, Vol 4g: Paper8 in S e - mantics. (also available vis the Internet at ftp://Zing, ohio-atal~e, edu/pub/rober~a/ infostructure, ps). [find](https://scholar.google.com/scholar?q=Craige+Roberts%2E+1996%2E+Information+structure+in+discourse%3A+Towards+an+integrated+formal+theory+of+pragmaties%2E+In+Jae%2DHak+Yoon+and+Andreas+Kathol%2C+editors%2C+OSU+Working+Papers+in+Linguistics%2C+Vol+4g%3A+Pap)
9. Craige Roberts. 1998. The place of centering in a general theory of anaphora resolution. In A.K. Joshi M.A. Walker and E.F. Prince, editors, Centering Theory in Discourse.. Clarendon Press, Oxford. [↗](https://doi.org/10.1093/oso/9780198236870.003.0018)
10. Cralge Roberts. 1999 (to appear). Uniqueness in definite noun phrasm. I, in~isti~ and Philosophy. (also available via the Internet at f~P://ling, ohio-~a~e, edu/pub/rober~ s/ uniquenees.ps). [find](https://scholar.google.com/scholar?q=Cralge+Roberts%2E+1999+%28to+appear%29%2E+Uniqueness+in+definite+noun+phrasm%2E+I%2C+in%7Eisti%7E+and+Philosophy%2E+%28also+available+via+the+Internet+at+f%7EP%3A%2F%2Fling%2C+ohio%2D%7Ea%7Ee%2C+edu%2Fpub%2Frober%7E+s%2F+uniquenees%2Eps%29%2E)
11. Bertrand Russell. 1905. On denotlug. Mind, 66:479-493. [find](https://scholar.google.com/scholar?q=Bertrand+Russell%2E+1905%2E+On+denotlug%2E+Mind%2C+66%3A479%2D493%2E)
12. Robert Stalnaker. 1979. Assertion. In Peter Cole, editor, Syntaz and 8ema~i~, Volume 9. [find](https://scholar.google.com/scholar?q=Robert+Stalnaker%2E+1979%2E+Assertion%2E+In+Peter+Cole%2C+editor%2C+Syntaz+and+8ema%7Ei%7E%2C+Volume+9%2E)
13. Linda Z. Suri and Kathleen F. McCoy. 1994. Raft/rapt and centering: A comparison and dis-" cussion of problems related to processing complex sentences. Computational Linguistics, 20(2):301-317. 0 0 0 0 0 0 0 0 0 @ 0 0 O 0 0 O 0 0 0 0 0 0 0 0 0 0 0 0 0 0 0 0 0 0 0 0 0 0 0 0 0 0 0 0 [find](https://scholar.google.com/scholar?q=Linda+Z%2E+Suri+and+Kathleen+F%2E+McCoy%2E+1994%2E+Raft%2Frapt+and+centering%3A+A+comparison+and+dis%2D%22+cussion+of+problems+related+to+processing+complex+sentences%2E+Computational+Linguistics%2C+20%282%29%3A301%2D317%2E+0+0+0+)

*Updated 1 November 2026*