Identifying Prosodic Indicators of Dialogue Structure: Some Methodological and Theoretical Considerations

Abstract

This paper presents an empirical analysis of prosodic phenomena (intonation and timing) in 'common ground units' (Nakatani & Traum 1999). The analysis is used to address questions of the role of prosody in dialogue while taking into account the complexities of multispeaker discourse. We address some methodological concerns of how best to carry out a study of this kind as well as our theoretical questions about the formal identification of dialogue structures at levels higher than the micro-level of 'dialogue act', or 'move'.