A naturalistic perspective on dialogue systems

Abstract

In this paper I argue for a naturalistic perspective in dialogue systems design. Existing dialogue systems are strongly purpose-oriented and domain-specific, the aim of the designers being the simplification of the natural language processing device.  I support the hypothesis that, assuming a “gricean” perspective in broad sense, and consequently conceiving dialogue as a rational and cooperative activity, in which rational agents are involved, we could relax on constraints imposed on dialogue by the system, allowing mixed-initiative domain-general dialogue. I then suggest a formal way to pursue this direction in designing dialogue system, moving from the Dynamic Syntax approach to language, and proposing an extension  of its formal apparatus to account for rhetorical relations.