Extrasentential Resolution of Japanese Zero Pronouns using Semantic and Pragmatic Constraints

Abstract

This paper proposes a method to resolve Japanese zero pronouns with extrasentential reference which can be realized in a practical machine translation system. This method focuses on semantic and pragmatic constraints such as modal expressions, verbal semantic attributes and conjunctions to determine the extrasentential referents of Japanese zero pronouns. According to a window test, 100% of zero pronouns with extrasentential referents could be resolved correctly with the consistency.