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Rules and Topics i r i Conversation

ROGER C. SCHANK*
Yale University
Rules of conversation are given that specify what can follow what. A system for deciding what makes a reasonable subject for a conversation is shown. Topics are discussed and
rules for topic shift are presented.

I . INTRODUCTION

Taking part in a conversation is not an obviously hard task to the participants.


On the surface, it seems no more difficult than reading a story. Indeed, it would
seem to be easier. Children conduct conversations before they can read, whereas
reading comprehension is something to be studied and improved upon. It is hard
to find a course in "how to hold a conversation."
Nonetheless, at least as far as computer processing of natural language is
concerned, conversation is one of our most challenging problems. In this paper I
will attempt to tackle some of the issues that make conversation so hard to model,
first by identifying them and then by sketching the nature of their solution.
Consider the following sentence pairs (as part of a conversation):
I just bought a new hat.
Fred eats hamburgers.
I just bought a new hat.
I just bought a new car.
I just bought a new hat.
There is supposed to be a recession.
I just bought a new hat.
My hat is in good shape.
I just bought a new hat.
What color?
I just bought a new hat.
Why are you telling me this?
B's responses to A can be described as: (1) absurd, (2) odd, (3) possible but
nasty, (4) reasonable but slightly aberrant, (5) OK, and (6) OK, but on a level
that discusses the statement rather than one that responds to it.
*The research described here is funded by the Office of Naval Research under contract N0001475C-1 1 I I . Reprints may be obtained from the author at Department of Computer Science, Yale
University, 10 Hillhouse Avenue, New Haven, Conn. 06520.
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ROGER C. SCHANK

The above sentence pairs illustrate a simple but important point. In a conversa.
tion it is not appropriate to respond to sentences yith anything that comes tc
mind. There are specific rules that govem the selection of responses. Now, it it
clear that such rules cannot be overly prescriptive. The rules cannot.go so far a:
to select one and only one response for a given input. A person using such rule!
would be a rather boring conversationalist who would be prone to infinite loops
SO, there exists no "correct'' response to input sentences. But, there certainly dc
exist inappropriate (or ''incorrect' ') responses.
Thus, there must exist some rules of conversation that govern but do no'
severely restrict appropriate responses. Such rules would delimit responses suck
that, for example, one would not think to produce responses such as B did in (1).
B's response seems to violate a rule that says: when someone tells you a persona:
event, to respond with an,unrelated fact is not appropriate. Such a rule is, ot
course, absurd to consider putting in a program since cluttering it up with rule:
about what one cannot do is rather foolish.
However, some categorization should be possible that would facilitate thc
selection of a response to an input. One of the natural things to do at this point-i:
to attempt to delimit the.class of appropriate responses to inputs in terms of some
notion of topic. For example, the simplest notion of topic we might consider ir
what we shall call Definition I:
DEENITION
I: A topic is any object, person, location, action, state, or time
that is mentioned in the sentence to be responded to.
T o test this definition we can consider Sentence (7) followed by responses thal
maintain one of the above topic types (denoted o, p, 1, a, s, and t):
John bought a red car in Baltimore yesterday.
Cars contain motors.
John is a fisherman.
Baltimore has a good football team.
Buying things is fun.
Red is quite close to pink.
Yesterday was cloudy.
From the above it would seem that Definition I is not very satisfacotry. Aftel
all, each of the above sentences adheres to one of the possible topics given ir
Definition I, yet all these sentences create poor conversational pairs. (Or the]
are, at the very least, not straightforward responses. That is, they require a fail
amount of inferencing to force an interpretation on them.)
The problem here is not with Definition I. Rather there is a more directl)
overriding rule violation that muddies up the rest of the issue. There is an implicit
conversational rule being followed in (7) that is a bad rule. Conversational rule:
detail what follows naturally from what in a conversation. The rule being usec

RULES AND TOPICS IN CONVERSATION

'

423

here is that an action statement (a possible categorization of (7)) can be followed


by a generic statement (that is, general statements about a subject). Although
there are occasions when one can get away with using that sort of rule, in general
its use makes for poor conversational pairs.
The point I am making is that the notion of topic cannot really be adequately
defined without the addition of a set of conversational rules that constitute the use
of that notion of topic. However, since our search for satisfactory rules is dependent on the notion of topic in any case being reasonably defined, we will begin
our discussion with a look at topics.

2. TOPICS A N D TOPIC SHIFTS

Let us consider Definition I again, but this time with an explicit conversational
rule that is more sensible than that proposed in Section 1.
C-RULEI: An action statement can be followed by a statement about the effect
of that action on the hearer.
Now we can try Definition I again, this time using C-Rule I while sticking to
one of the potential topics introduced by Sentence (7) above:
(7) John bought a red car in Baltimore yesterday.
(70')
(7p')
(71')
(7a')
(7s')
(7t')

You mean he's not going to buy my car?


So that's why John missed the poker game.
Did he visit my Aunt Minnie too?
That was my money he used.
If I have to put up with another red thing around here, I'll die.
He was supposed to go today, he probably didn't paint the house
after all.

These sentences are all appropriate assuming a context in which the statements
they make are true. The crucial issue is what these sentences say about the value
of Definition I. For example, in (70') the topic seems to be not "cars" but
"buying cars." However, such a short- range view of the topic misses the real
issue with respect to topic. There are a great many statements that could be
appropriately made at this point in a conversation (following (70')) that would be
only indirectly, or not at all, about "buying cars." These statements would not
be considered to be "off the topic." Thus permissible topics at this point include:
(a) the problems I'm having selling my car,
(b) why John bought the car he did,
(c) why John is untrustworthy,
(d) how John shafted me.

Because of the reasonableness of any'of thesefopics, perhaps the topic of tht


conversation, after (70f), may not really be "buying cars" at all. For example
we could not respond to (70') with (8):
(8) Buying cars is fun.
because of the violated conversational rule mentioned in Section 1. We mighi
want to argue that the topic is more like "John's buying cars." But when the
conversational rule is all right responses sticking to this topic still do not make
sense. Thus, for example, consider (9) as a possible response to (70'):
(9) John bought a car last year, didn't he?
Sentence (9) is all right as a response to (7), but it fails miserably as a response tc
(70'). But if the topic is "John's buying cars'' this should not be the case. In fact,
for any definition of topic that uses as its basis an intersection of concepts in ar
input sentence, there will be a sentence using a subset of the concepts used in the
interkction that contains one concept less than the input sentence and that doe:
not naturally follow that input sentence. No matter how topic is defined there wil:
be a set of sentences on the same topic that do not go together, as well as a set ol
sentences on different topics that do go together. Clearly there are times wher
sentences do stick to the topic and when sentences on different topics do not gc
together.
Much of the reason for this problem is that we have been working on e
possibly erroneous assumption. Rather than concentrating on defining what 2
topic is, it might be more fruitful to concentrate on what the rules for topic shifi
are. What has happened with the pair of (7) and 70') is that (70') has begun a
topic shift. The four topics mentioned above are all legitimate new topics for a
response to (70'). Thus to talk about the topic of (70') is to miss the point.
Rather, we should be talking abdut the potential topics that (70') points to fol
future responses. That is, a sentence said in response to an input must at the same
time stick to the topic and introduce potential new topics, thus sticking and
shifting at the same time!
We thus introduce a new rule which we label Topic Rule I;
TOPICRULEI: A Potential Topic has two parts. The first part consists of an
intersection of concepts from an input conceptualization, which we call the
Reduced Old Topic. The second part is a new conceptualization that comprises
the new topic shift. From the Potential Topic, the new topic for a response is
derived.
Thus, the potential topic comes from the initial conceptualization and from the
rules for appropriate topic shifts. The new topic will be one part of the new
two-part potential topic. The first phrt of the new two-part potential topic is
derived from the original input but is not identical to it. Rather, it is a subset, thus
legislating out implicitly the concepts ignored in the response.

RULES AND TOPICS IN CONVERSATION

425

Sentences, by this analysis, do not have topics in isolation. Only conversations


can be said to have topics, and even they have ody what amount to rules for topic
shifts. Sentences have potential topics that delimit the range of structures spoken
in response to them.
The first sentence in a dialogue necessarily has only a set of concepts in it that
can be used to form the topic. Thus, for (7) the set of concepts is:
This becomes a normal two-part topic after (70') is uttered. The left-hand side is
called the REDUCED OLD TOPIC and is comprised of the set of concepts that
have been paid attention to in the formulation of the NEW TOPIC. The NEW
TOPIC is the right-hand side of the two-part topic. It is composed of elements
from the REDUCED OLD TOPIC and new elements introduced by the
'speaker. (Rules for its composition will be given in detail in Section 5.)
Thus the topic for (70') is as presented in Fig. 1.
On the left-hand side we have the reduced old topic. The old topic has been
reduced by the intersection of the new sentence and the old sentence leaving the
concepts utilized in each. That is, the topic of (7) has been reduced by (70') to
the intersection of the three concepts "John," "buy," and "car." On the
right-hand side we have the new topic explicitly introduced by (70'). This topic
is now an addition, not a substitution. The conversation can branch at this point
in either of these directions.
That is, possible responses to (70') are:
(10) Well, John needed a car in a hurry.

(1 1) No, he didn't like your car.


In (lo), we have a sentence that responds using the REDUCED OLD TOPIC.
However, it uses the REDUCED OLD TOPIC by way of the NEW TOPIC.
That is, it would be impolite for the speaker to just blithely continue on with what
he was saying. His response must acknowledge the new topic in some way (in
this case by giving a reason why John did not buy his car). From there the
conversation can branch in either direction. It is thus permissible to continue to
talk about the reduced old topic and just barely acknowledge but not go along
with a listener's topic shift. At this point the topic can still branch exactly as
before. That is, the next response can shift the REDUCED OLD TOPIC into a
NEW TOPIC according to the rules for topic shift. The speaker may choose to
cycle back to discussing his car again or pick up somewhere else.
In (1 1 ) the speaker has gone along with the topic shift to the new topic.
Responses to (1 1) may use ( 1 1) as a reduced old topic or may shift the topic
again.
(John, buy, car)

Fig. 1

(someone, buy, car (mine))

What we have above is only the beginliing of the possible branching, however.
To explain this we now introduce two new concepts. The first is what we will
call the SUPERTOPIC. A supertopic is present whenever an input conceptuali-.
zation and the response to that conceptualization contain concepts in the. topic
that share the same superset. Thus, the same rule which caused havoc in Section
1 is very useful here. Previously when we tried to make general statements about
concepts in an input sentence it seemed very odd. However, there is a time when
such general statements are most appropriate. Whenever an input sentence and its
response refer to two different events that are alike in kind, then the general event
that they are both instances of is an appropriate topic for discussion. The topic at
that point is called the SUPERTOPIC. A supertopic may or may not be discussed when it is available-all we are pointing out here is its appropriateness
and therefore its availability. The next sentence that comes along can make use
of this availability and use the supertopic. Thus the supertopic here is
"BUYINGISELLING CARS." Sentence (12) picks up on the supertopic:
(12) It is always difficult to sell a car. Have you tried the Gazette want
ads?
The second concept we will introduce is the METATOPIC. A metatopic is a
comment that can be inferred from the interaction of two conceptualizations. The
metatopic often corresponds to a thematic relation (see Schank & Abelson,
1977). In this example, the metatopic could be one of the beliefs brought up by
(70f),for example, BETRAYAL or DISHONESTY. Here again, the metatopic
is only available for use and need not ever be actually discussed. For most pairs
of conceptualizations, there are many possible metatopics.
Both the supertopic and the metatopic join the branching structure that determines what possible responses can occur next. Thus we now have a metatopic,
supertopic, previous topic (or concepts in the input in the case of the first
sentence in a conversation), reduced old topic, and new topic that comprise the
entire structure: see Fig. 2. For (7) and (70') we have the structure represented by
Fig. 3.
In a conversation the rules for topic are determined by this structure, which we
shall call the TOPIC TREE. In the conversation initiated by (7) and responded
to by (701), the topic tree in Fig. 3 determines the territory in which a reasonable
response must lie. The lower right branch points to the topics that are current and
therefore most usable for the next response.

PREVIOUS TOPIC

REDUCED OLD TOPIC

FIG. 2

NEW TOPIC
SUPERTOPIC
METATOPIC

RULES AND TOPICS IN CONVERSATION

John,buy ,car

somwne,buy ,car(mine)
SELLINGIBUYING cars
John's BETRAYAL of me,

FIG. 3

These three topics, however, only provide the initial base from which the
reduced old topic is chosen. The next response will choose a new topic from this
reduced old topic and it may have a superset topic and metatopic of its own.
Let's try out these rules. Some possible responses to (70') are, with topic =
newiopic:
(13)

Don't worry, I'll buy your old car.

. with topic = supertopic:


J

(14) Selling cars is very annoying. I remember the trouble I had selling my
Edsel.
with topic = metatopic:
'

(15) Yes, John does that kind of thing all the time. Do you remember
when he promised to buy Al's house?
Any new response will in turn add on to the topic tree. Thus for (15) we have
the tree as represented in Fig. 4.
These topics when chosen can again branch. Thus, possible responses to (15)
are:
with topic = newtopic

(16) But A1 deserved it.


with topic = supertopic

(17) Yeah, John probably would cheat his own grandmother.


(1 8) Well, business dealings between friends often cause hard feelings.
Here again, each of these would in turn add on to the topic tree.
John,buy.car(red),yesterday

John,buy,car

John,betray,you

FIG. 4

,Baltimore

someone,buy ,car(mine)
SELLINGIBUYING cars
John's BETRAYAL of me
John.kmy,Al
John's ROTTENNESS
Relationships between people

,ROGER C. SCHANK

It is important to point out here that the topic tree has more value than just
providing the possible topic branches for each succeeding response. Conversations often move in circles back to previous points, and it is the topic tree that
determines how and when this can be done. Under certain conditions it is thus
possible to pop up to the top or one of the left-hand branches of the tree.
For example, in a lull in the conversation, such a topic pop would be appropriate. We can define a lull in a conversation by the dullness of the supertopic or
metatopic. For example, in (18) the supertopic is BUSINESS DEALINGS and
the metatopic is FEELINGS. Neither of these leave niuch but platitudes to be
said. At such a point it would be appropriate to do a topic pop. Thus, reasonable
responses to (18)might be:
with topic

reduced old topic (John, buy car)

(19) The car John got was beautiful, though.


with topic

reduced old topic (John, betray, you)

(20) Now that I think of it, this wasn't the first problem you've had with
John is it?
(Notice that *'thoughwor "now that I think of it" frequently identify such topic
POPS.)
The rules for topics, then, are really the rules for topic shifts. Topic shifts are
accounted for to some extent by the rules given here but also by additional
regulations. We expect that there are more than just metatopic and supertopic on
the right-hand branch of the topic tree. Furthermore, there are probably specific
rules that can be used for determining possible transitions from reduced old
topics to new topics. These rules are the conversational rules referred to earlier.
One of their main functions is to account for topic shifts. We will now attempt to
define such rules.
3. OBJECT RULES

How do we transform subtopics into new topics? The answer to this question
should be the same as the answer to the question' posed in Section 1 about
conversational rules. That is, the kind of statements that are appropriate as
responses to new inputs sometimes transform the topic of conversation. These
sentences do not "stick to the topic" in a literal rendering of that phrase, yet they
are perfectly acceptable. This is due to the fact that it is permissible 10 shift the
topic as long as certain criteria for doing so are met. Thus, the rules for topic shift
are also the rules for what can follow what in a conversation.
For a long time I have held the belief that there exists a strong relationship
between the rules of conversation and the rules of associations in thought. When
a person receives an input he begins to think about it. If he chooses to make a

RULES AND TOPICS IN CONVERSATION

429

response to the input his choice represents one of the many possible thoughts that
he could have had in response to the input. Of course, not all the free associations
that a person has when he receives an input are appropriate to impart in a
conversational situation. But the rules that determine what one can reasonably
say in response to an input are a subset of those rules that determine what one can
possibly think in response to an input. The exception to this is that some selection
rules must be employed to choose the appropriate association given the conversational circumstances.
Accordingly I set out to determine what were the organizing principles with
respect to thoughts in memory. There seem to be some implicit rules that people
use for determining how one thought can "naturally follow" from another. T o
understand what I mean by "naturally follow," it is worthwhile to consider an
example. Consider Sentence (2 1):
(21)

Eating wa@melon reminds me of my mother.

Understanding this sentence, in the deepest sense of understanding, requires


creating a chain of thoughts that "naturally" connects watermelon to mother.
Now of course there are a great many possible interpretations'here, and no way
of selecting the "right" one. The point is mainly that there are wrong ones and
that in most cases they are easily discernible. Thus,
watermelon-flower-orange

peel-mother

watermelon-airplanes-father-mother
are clearly wrong (or at least incomplete). On the other hand,
watermelon-the time my mother served me watermelon-mother
and
watermelon-other things shaped like a melon-mother (if she was)

are acceptable chains. What I was seeking were the rules for going from one
thought to another, of the kind that make you want to say to the examples above
"well it would be all right if you were first served watermelon in an airplane and
your father was a pilot."
What seems to be the case is that there are certain natural flows of thoughts
that make use of some relatively simple rules. These rules are probably the same
rules that apply in conversation. The reason for this is that people often say what
occurs to them when they hear a new sentence. At the least, the rules for
conversation are a subset of the rules of thought.
Below I will list rules of conversational topic shift. They are based on my
perusal of data obtained from recording people's thoughts about objects with
which I presented them. The purpose of these rules was to determine what was a

reasonable response to a new input. I divided the inputs into two classes: those
with an object to which one might want to respond (i.e., think and therefore talk
about as in "I just bought a kangaroo from the zoo," where the need for and use
of the kangaroo would be of prime interest); and those with an action to which
one might want to respond (as in the possible discussion of skiing that might
come from "I was skiing yesterday."). What follows therefore is a list of
possible responses to the statement:

T was Z-ing his Y the other day.


in a neutral context. (The reader should be cautioned that I do not believe too
strongly in neutral contexts. They do not really ever occur. However, they are
good for thinking about.)
What is given below are the rules that determine the class of possible thoughts
about an object without regard to the nature of that object. In that sense the rules
below are syntactic association rules. We will later develop a semantics for
delimiting the syntactically acceptable associations into a class of meaningful
associations.
If the input sentence matches the template: "T was Z-ing his Y the other
day," the hearer automatically thinks of certain things and wonders about and
occasionally responds to them.
RULE1 (WHERE FROM): It is common to think about where a particular
object came from. This would be expected when it was not known or readily
inferable where the object came from and when it was considered significant for
some reason. In such a situation, a question such as "Where did you get a Y?"
would be appropriate.
RULE2 (FUNCTION): When an object's function is unknown to the hearer
it is appropriate to ask "What do you do with a Y?" Sometimes the function of
the object is known and is a point of departure because it is surprising to the
hearer that the speaker intends to do that function. This might cause a hearer to
s a y "I didn't know you needed to (DO whatever one does with a Y)."
RULE3 (ENABLEMENT): When it is difficult to get a Y, this.precondition
to the speaker's doing something with a Y is a reasonable thing to think about and
thus to discuss. Thus a response might be "How did you manage to get X?"
(where X is the difficult enablement, "money" for something that is difficult to
get because it is expensive, for example.)
RULE4 (HABITS): Sometimes a person, in making a statement, says something more general about his habits. This can be cause for thought and comment.
Thus it is appropriate to respond to something like "I just got a new camera"
with "I didn't know you were a photographer." Such responses are most appropriate when a generic name (such as photographer) is available to cover a wider

RULES AND TOPICS IN CONVERSATION

43 1

range of activities than suggested by the input sentence. Thus if told "I just
bought a new house" a response according .to this rule would be rather funny.
The habits of other people are often relevant when the object in question is
unusual. Thus, we might say "I know someone who has a camel" in response to
"I just got a new camel." This would not work for "toothbrush" on the other
hand.
RULE5 (ASSOCIATED OBJECTS): It is appropriate to shift the topic of
conversation to objects highly associated with a newly introduced object if the
associated object is of interest. This is, of course, a c o m k n occurrence in
"letting one's mind wander." If Y has an inside we can think of objects that
normally go inside Y (ashtray to cigarette). If Y normally goes in something the
reverse association is made. If Y has a common superset we might think of the
other members of that superset (car to plane for example). Similarly, utilizing the
function rule above, we might think of other objects associated with the function
of the input object. This, we might say in response to "I just got a Corvette," "I
once had a Jaguar."
RULE6 (RESULTS): The results of doing what one ordinarily does with an
object are of interest. Similarly, the need for replacing old Ys with new ones or
the cumnt condition of old Ys is of interest. Questions such as "What did you
do with your old Y?" or "How do you like being in (the STATE that results
from Doing with Y)?" are appropriate.
RULE7 (PROBLEMS): Problems associated with a certain object are helpful for thinking and talking about. Thus the illegality of owning a certain object,
or danger associated with using it, or other problems are reasonable topic shifts.
Good responses here are "Don't you know it is (problem) to have a Y?" or "My
Y always gave me trouble."
4. CONVERSATIONAUASSOCIATIONAL CATEGORIES

In order to make some use of the rules, I began to consider the problem of
writing a program that would respond to an initial statement about an object with
an appropriate sentence. The rules given above may be considered to be rules
derivative from the syntax of conversation. That is, they specify the possible
responses to an input, but do not give rules for choosing among them in a
particular context. Contextual selection rules I will refer to as rules of the semantics of conversation.
To some extent, the rules for selecting an appropriate response to a statement
about an object are dependent on the interest value and novelty of that object.
That is, we would not want to comment on a statement such as:
(22) I just got a box of cookies.

432

ROGER C. SCHANK

with
(23) I know someone who had a box of cookies.
However, such a response might be appropriate with a different object:
(24) I just bought a Mazerati. (25) I know someone who had a Mazerati.
Similarly, the next pair is odd, while the one following it is reasonable:
(26) I just got a cigar.
(27) Where did you find a cigar seller?
(28) I just got some cocaine.
(29) Where did you find a dealer?
The issue here is that certain objects have certain interesting features, while
other objects have other interesting features. Very few of these interest values are
intrinsic. Rather, they depend on a culture, on particular circumstances, and on
what is known about the individual making the initial statement. Nonetheless, it
is useful to detail a standard set of categories for which a conversational semantics can be written. I will fill in the values for the categories here based on a
standard American cultural bias. These values should not be taken too seriously.
It is the categories that are important.
The categories below refer to interest values for an imaginary subject. Listed
here is the level of concern for this subject for these various objects. "Nil"
indicates that there is no interest of the subject in this category for this object.
When a category has a value, then that denotes a level of interest that would
cause one of the conversational syntax rules to invoke one of the response types.
Thus, for example, when a RESULT is marked, if it is a negative result, then a
sentence such as "Don't you know that it is RESULT to FUNCTION a Y?"
would be a candidate for generation. "Unknown" denotes that the category in
question has an unknown value in memory. Most things that are unknown can be
expected to be queried about at some point.
COOKIE

eat
fat
cheap
nil
nil
nil
easy
fat

FUNCTION
RESULT
PRlCE
ENABLE
OWNER
USER
AVAILABILITY
PROBLEM

unknown
nil

FUNCTION
RESULT

CAMEL

RULES AND TOPICS IN CONVERSATION


unknown
.go to Arabia
AWul
nil
hardtoget
nil

PRICE
ENABLE
OWNER
USER
AVAILABILITY
PROBLEM

take pictures
picture
middle
nil
nil
photographer
easy
nil

FUNCTION
RESULT
PRICE
ENABLE
OWNER
USER
AVAILABILITY
PROBLEM

get high
get stoned
middle
find a dealer
nil
nil
hardtoget
illegal

FUNCTION
RESULT
PRICE
ENABLE
OWNER
USER
AVAILABILITY
PROBLEM

smoke
nil
cheap
nil
nil
smoker
easy
deadly

FUNCTION
RESULT
PRICE
ENABLE
OWNER
USER
AVAILABILITY
PROBLEM

CAMERA

COCAINE

CIGAR

The above is supposed to represent a part of the memory of a particular


individual. The objects represented here would of course have other more standard descriptions attached to them. The categories here are
CONVERSATIONAL/ASSOCIATIONAL CATEGORIES (CACs). The
CACs for an object represent the possible paths that can emanate from an object
in memory. When a path is filled (e.g., when its function is known), then one
possibility is that the object or action that fills the slot becomes a candidate for
examination for its CACs. This is how free associations occur. Thus, "cigar"
can lead to "smoke," which could cause someone to say something like "I think
smoking is disgusting." Sometimes when a CAC is filled, the fact that it is filled
is cause for comment. Thus, the result slot might be commented on when the
result is negative if there were a rule present that caused negative things to be
marked as important to note. (Such rules are dependent on conversational pur-

434

ROGER C . SCHANK

poses and the relationship that holds between the individuals in a conversation.
These two issues are beyond the scope of this paper.)
It is also common to comment on the absence of a filler for a slot for a CAC.
Thus, we are inclined to wonder (and thus ask) why the person we are talking to
has just bought a camel because the function slot is not marked. (Note that the
function of a camel could be. construed to be "ride." However, while that might
well be true in Saudi Arabia, in our own culture the purpose of owning acamel is
less clear and should be so marked.) We would not ask why someone bought a
camera, on the other hand, unless we knew that he already owned one or hated
pictures or'knew something idiosyncratic about the speaker with respect to
cameras. That is, we might well have a detailed "camera" token for "John."
Such a token would alter how we responded to statements made by John about
cameras. The above CACs are for the token in general, as I have already stated.
Some CACs are interesting precisely because they are marked. For example,
the AVAILABILITY CAC for camel is marked as "hardtoget." The CAC
AVAILABILITY when marked"'hardtoget" is intrinsically interesting for any
object. This corresponds to associational Rule 6 above. If "hardtoget" is found
under Availability then it is appropriate to ask "How did you get it?" It is
inappropriate if AVAILABILITY is marked as "easy" on the other hand. Thus,
in general, we do not want to respond to "I just ate a cookie" with "How did
you get a cookie?" unless cookie happened to be marked as "hardtoget" for that
particular individual. (This might occur, for example, if the individual were a
child or living in a jail. The implication here is that we must mark each object for
each person we know. We actually need not go that far, but we might expect to
find certain objects marked for certain people-"beer"
for an alcoholic would
be marked differently than "beer" for a child or "beer" for a normal adult, for
example.)
Conversations can go round in circles on "hardtoget" properties of objects
that are associationally related topics. For example:
I just got some cocaine.
How did you find a dealer?
I met one while I was shopping for a new motorcycle.
Where did you get the money for a new bike?
A rich uncle of mine died.
In this conversation, cocaine is marked as "hardtoget." However, it has an
additional marking under ENABLE-"find
a dealer." When such an ENABLE marking exists it provides a clue about how to satisfy the "hardtoget"
criterion, that is, look for "dealer. " Under ''cocaine dealer" however.we would
still have '.'hardtoget" for AVAILABILITY, thus generating the response.
The response to motorcycle is generated through the PRICE CAC. Once
"easy" AVAILABILITY of motorcycle is established PRICE is looked up and
found to be "expensive. " "Expensive" keys to the CACs for "money" which

RULES AND TOPICS IN CONVERSATION

435

under AVAILABILITY is marked as "hardtoget." This again produces an


availability question. When the source of the money is identified this line of the
conversation must cease.
To see how the CACs work we will now consider some sentences and possible
responses to those sentences. For each of the following three sentences, four
s e is generated from the USER CAC
possible responses are listed.. ~ e s ~ o n (1)
assuming it was,marked. Respone (2) is generated from the FUNCTION CAC
assuming it was nil. Response (3) is generated from the OWNER CAC assuming it is marked. Response (4) is generated from the AVAILABILITY CAC
assuming it was marked "hardtoget."
A

I JUST BOUGHT A CAMEL.

USER
FUNC
OWNER
AVAIL

I didn't know you were a camel rider.


What are you going to do with a camel?
I know someone else who has a camel.
Where did you find a camel seller?

I JUST BOUGHT A CAMERA

USER
FUNC
OWNER
AVAIL

I didn't know you were a photographer.


What are you going to do with a camera?
I know someone else who has a camera.
Where did you find a camera seller?
I JUST BOUGHT SOME COCAINE.

USER
FUNC
OWNER
AVAIL

I didn't know you used cocaine.


What are you going to do with cocaine?
I know someone else who has cocaine.
Where did you find a dealer?

The point here of course is that some of these responses are absurd (for
example B4, B3, and Al), some are annoying (for example C2, A4, and B2) and
some are perfectly reasonable (for example C4, A2, A3, and Bl). The absurd
ones are the results of assuming markings for the CAC that are wrong. Thus,
USER is not marked for camel; AVAILABILITY is not hardtoget for camera;
and OWNER would not be marked for camera. These responses are okay according to the conversational syntax rules. The CACs, which represent the
semantics of the conversational rules, serve to delimit the applicable rules according to the meaning of the object being discussed. In the sense we are using it
here the interest value of the particular CAC for the object is the aspect of the
object's meaning'that is most significant. Any conversational system must have
such CACs available to it to keep it from being absurd and annoying.
The CACs apply any time an object is first introduced in a conversation. The
object must be introduced as a new acquisition, or in its normal use, or in a
stative capacity. Sentences such as "I am making a papier-mache camel" do not
draw on the CACs for camel.
The eight CACs above are probably no more exhaustive than the rules used to

436

ROGER C. SCHANK

generate them. Note that there were seven con~ersationalrules presented and
eight CACs. In generating the CACs, we broke the ENABLEMENT rule into
ENABLE and PRICE CACs. We did not use an ASSOCIATED OBJECT
CAC because the rule that is appropriate for associated objects is to look up the
CACs for other members of the same set. Thus this rule introduces no new CAC
itself.
5 . ACTION RULES

We now turn to the conversational rules and the CACs for actions. We again
use the input template "T was Z-ing has Y the other day," this time focusing on
the action Z:

vents

RULE1 (NEXT EVENT):


are organized in memory in a number of
ways, one of which is clearly temporal. It is reasonable to remember or wonder
about what happened (or will happen) next in a sequence. Thus, it is reasonable
to respond "What happened next?" sometimes.
RULE2 (PRECEDING AND ENABLING EVENTS): Similarly, preceding and (since they are often the same) enabling events are things to think about
and discuss, particularly if the enablements are difficult or unusual. Thus "How
did he happen to be Z-ing?" or "How was he able to Z?" are often appropriate.
RULE3 (ASSOCIATED OBJECTS): Objects associated with an event Z
are of interest if their CACs are of interest. Thus, "What did he Z with?,"
"How did he get an X (that enabled you to Z)?," "Where did he Z?," or "Who
did he Z with?" are all reasonable questions.
RULE4 (OTHER ACTORS): Other actors that commonly Z are of interest
if Z is an uncommon action (or possibly one requiring company). Here "I know
someone else who Z's" would be appropriate.
RULE5 (ASSOCIATED ACTIONS): When two actions are commonly
done at the same time or in the same circumstances they are possible topic shifts.
Similarly, objects associated with these actions are possible cause for comment if
their CACs are interesting. Thus we might have "Oh, that would have given
him a chance to W" (where W is associated with Z).
RULE6 (PHYSICAL RESULTS): The ordinary physical results of actions
are possible new topics of the conversation. Thus we might have "Did he want
STATE to exist?" or "That must have caused STATE."
RULE7 (SCRIPTS): The scripts that an action is commonly a part of are
cause for discussion sometimes. This could happen for the script itself if it were
interesting or for other events in the same script that are of interest. Thus, "Does
he script often?" represents a reasonable inference and topic shift. "How was

RULES AND TOPICS IN CONVERSATION

437

the Q-ing and the W-ing?" represents a kind of question appropriate when Z is
part of the script header (see Schank & A6elson, 1977, for a discussion of scripts
and script headers).
RULE8 (REASON): The reason for an action is cause for discussion if it is
not readily inferrable. Reason can ordinarily be assumed to be "because T
wanted the result of DO." Thus, reason is mainly of interest when RESULTS
are unknown.
RULE9 (ALTERNATIVE PATHS): Sometimes there is more than one
way to achieve the same result. If the hearer of the input feels that other methods
for achieving the same result could have been used he might mention that in
appropriate circumstances. (Here appropriate circumstances tend to depend on
the relationship between the individuals in the conversation. Thus he might say
"Why didn't he W?" where'W is the alternative event.)
RULE10 (HISTORY): How you learned about an event is often an acceptable topic shift as is the history of the event itself under certain circumstances. So,,
you can say "I remember Jim told me about Z" or "Z-ing has had an interesting
history . . ." under the right circumstances.
RULE11 (MENTAL OR SOCIAL EFFECT): The overall mental or social
effect of doing Z on the participants of Z is legitimate stuff for a conversation.
This is where "How did he like it?" comes from as well as comments about
what to do about negative effects. Long-term effects of actions are relevant here,
particularly when frequency is higher than usual.
The set of CACs useful for actions is derived from the kinds of responses that
are reasonable based on the associations given above. The list given below is a
kind of dictionary entry for concepts. Although we list words (such as "buy") it
should be understood that the actual entries would be organized under Conceptual Dependency complexes involving one or more primitive actions or states
(see Schank, 1975). We use words here so as to maintain readability.
Eight CACs are illustrated below. Six of them correspond directly to the
action rules given above. As the result of computer programs that used these
CACs it became clear that not all action rules correspond directly to a CAC. In
certain cases there is a CAC that is strongly related to an action rule. Thus,
UNUSUAL and FREQUENCY are CACs that are related to both the HISTORY and PRECEDING EVENTS rule. One does not usually start reminiscing about or wondering about events that lead up to a highly frequent or quite
common event. However, one can talk about these things if one wants to.
Actually, ALTERNATIVE PATHS, HISTORY, PRECEDING EVENTS,
and REASON are strongly dependent on some variables about the actor himself.
How well the speaker knows the actor, whether he cares about him and so on,
have more to do with the acceptability of statements such as; ':What did you do

438

ROGER C. SCHANK

after you went shopping?" or "Why did you do it that way, you dummy?"
These things depend strongly on the intersection of role relationships and what
we call topic categories, about which we shall have more to say in future papers.
BUY

shopping
nil
own
nil
nil
nil
high
2

SCRIPT
ASS OC
RESULT
ACTOR
EFFECT
OBJ
FREQUENCY
UNUSUAL

EAT

cooking
restaurant
etc.
drink
nil
nil
food
not hungry
high
2

SCRIPT
ASSOC
ACTOR
EFFECT
OBJ
RESULT
FREQUENCY
UNUSUAL

KILL

nil
nil
nil
jail
nil
dead
never
9
DRINK

(liquor)
bar
nil
nil
alcoholism
liquor
drunk

medium
5

SCRIPT
ASSOC
ACTOR
EFFECT
OBJ
RESULT
FREQUENCY
UNUSUAL
SCRIPT
ASSOC
ACTOR
EFFECT
OBJ
RESULT
FRQUENCY
UNUSUAL

Sometimes the object of a sentence is more interesting than its action. In those
cases the object CACs apply. However, when an action is decided upon as the
focus of the topic shift the action CACsbre useful.
To show how these action CACs are used in conversation, consider some
action statements followed by responses based on a marked value being present

for a particular CAC. As before, the above markings are for some particular
standard individual. ACTOR refers to other known actors who usually pursue
such actions. (For actions with high frequency this would always be nil.)
ASSOC refers to normally associated actions. OBJ refers to objects commonly
associated with an action. (Here the marking of that category does not indicate its
interest value but rather refers the system to the CACs for that object.) RESULT
refers to marked (that is intersting) results. FREQUENCY refers to how often a
thing is supposed to happen (low being marked here). UNUSUAL refers to the
interest value of the event happening at all (higher than 5 would occasion a need
to comment on the action having happened).
With these CACs in mind then let us look at the following sets of sentences:
A

I JUST BOUGHT A NEW CAR.

FREQ
ACTOR
ASSOC
RESULT
EFFECT

Didn't you already have a car?


I know someone else who buys things.
That would have given you a chance to sell.
Why didn't you steal it?
I hope you enjoy it.

I JUST KILLED MARY.

FREQ
ACTOR
ASSOC
RESULT
EFFECT

Didn't you already kill someone?


I know someone else who kills people.
That would have given you a chance to rob her.
Why didn't you wait for her to die?
You better get out of town.

I JUST WENT SKIING.

FREQ
ACTOR
ASSOC
RESULT
EFFECT

Didn't you just go skiing?


I know someone else who skis.
That would have given you a chance to roast marshmellow.
Why didn't you also go sledding?
Did you get a windburn?

I JUST VISITED MY LOCAL BAR.

FREQ
ACTOR
ASSOC
RESULT
EFFECT

Didn't you have a drink last week?


I know someone else who likes to go to bars.
That would have given you a chance to eat their pretzels.
Why didn't you drink at home?
That's the fourth time this week, you'd better quit it.

The responses produced here are often not too sensible. Comments on the
ASSOC CAC are perhaps sensible for skiing but seem odd for buy (which is
why it is unmarked above) and for DRINK (which is why it is unmarked above).
That is, just because an action has a related associated action does not mean that
it should be marked in the CAC since the CAC refers to its interest value not its
existence.

'

ROGER C. SCHANK

6 . CONCLUSION

The aim of this paper has been to take a look at polite conversation (small talk)
and attempt to establish some rules of the type people might use in keeping up
their end of the conversation. It seems clear that people have such rules. Conversations have a kind of syntax and semantics to them. Conversational syntax
rules, like any syntactic rules, specify the ordering of types. The conversational
semantic rules specify the particular arrangement of types that makes sense in
particular worlds.
The rules that we have given here correspond to the above distinction. The
object rules and action rules specify what type of statement can normally be made
in response to a statement containing a particular object or action. The CACs for
the various objects and action delimit the possibilities, specifying which object or
action rule is appropriate considering the properties of the object or action being
discussed.
It would be nice if such rules could be developed simply, applying to objects
or (exclusive or) actions. However, sometimes it is the interaction of the object
and action (and other parts of the sentence) that is interesting. We have made no
attempt to deal with that problem here, but simply point out that some calculus
for CACs is probably necessary.
We spent a fair amount of time in this paper discussing the notion of topic. We
argued that topics can only be discussed with respect to pairs of sentences, rather
than for individual sentences in isolation. Yet it also seems that whole conversations can have topics (as in "we were talking about electronics"). Thus there are
probably local and global topics, in which case this paper has only been concerned with local topics.
Local topics are intimately bound up in the conversational syntax rules that
exploit them, as we have tried to show. The rules for topic shift are, to a large
extent, no more than the rules for the first step in free association. If we traverse
links we lose the trend of the conversation for our listener. He cannot follow our
jump. Thus the rules in this paper are rules for avoiding the situation of too much
free association and thus losing one's audience. Such rules of course are crucial
for taking part in a conversation if you are a computer with no training in the
matter.
In the computer programming of natural language, conversation is an enormously difficult problem. I make no claim here to having tried to do much more
than put a dent in it. Others (e.g., Collins, 1977; Grice, 1975; Lehnert, 1977;
Moore & Levin, 1977) have had some interesting things to say about conversation, and what I have said here does not seem to me to be in disagreement with
their conclusions. Perhaps the fact that this paper hardly disagrees with anyone
says more about conversation than anything else. Little has really been attempted
as yet, but in natural language processing, conversation is probably the most
important aspect under study. The dream of talking computers means machines

RULES AND TOPICS IN CONVERSATION

44 1

that are capable of holding a conversation. To achieve that goal we'have many
years of work ahead.
Some of the areas that should be examined are: Conversational purposeswhy do people talk to each other?; Selection strategies-how do people select
what they want to say from the many things that are possible for them to say at a
given point?; Conversational scripts-to what extent do situations define exactly
what one should say?; Topic classifications-what kinds of topics are appropriate in what kinds of situations?; CACs-what kind of CACs are there other
than the ones given above; Individual CACs-to what extent do people model
the person they are talking to with his own particular CACs?; Rules-what other
conversational rules are there?; Topic types-what other types of topics are there
other than those introduced here?
REFERENCES
Collins, A. Processes in acquiring knowledge. In R. C. Anderson, R. J. Spiro, & W. E. Montague
(Eds.), Schooling and the acquisition of knowledge. Hillsdale, New Jersey: Lawrence Erlbaum
Associates, 1977.
Grice, H. P. Logic and conversation. In P. Cole & J. Morgan (Eds.), Syntax and semantics, volume
3. Speaker acts. New York: Academic Press. 1975.
Lehnert, W. G. The process of question answering (Research Report #88). Yale University,
Department of Computer Science.
Moore, J. A., & Levin. J. A. Dialogue-gamest meta-communication structures for naturallanguage interaction (Research Report #77-53). USC Information Sciences Institute, Marina
del Rey, California. Also, this issue.
Schank, R. C., & Abelson, R. P. Scripts, plans, goals and understanding: An inquiry into human
knowledge structures. Hillsdale, New Jersey: Lawrence Erlbaum Associates, 1977.
Schank, R. C. Conceptual information processing. Amsterdam: North-Holland, 1975.

Author Index to Volume 1


Anderson, J. R., 125
Anderson, R. C., 74

Moore, J. A., 395


Ortony, A., 74

Bhaskar, R., 193


Bobrow, D. G., 3
Charniak, E., 355
Collins, A., 1

Rieger, C., 315


Robinson, C. S., 297

Feldrnan, J. A., 158

Schank;R., 421
Shwartz, S. P., 265
Simon, H. A., 193
Sproull, R. F., 158
Steedman, M . J.,216

Goldstein, I., 84
Hayes, J. R., 297
Kosslyn, S. M., 265
Lehnert, W.,47
Levin, J. A., 395

Waterman, D. A., 297


Wilks, Y., 235
Winograd, T., 3

Contents of Volume 1

Number 1
Why CognitiveScience

January 1977
.........................................................

Allan Collins

An Overview of KRL, a Knowledge Representation Language.. . . ..


Daniel

...... . ...... .... . .

....

47

G. Bobrow and Terry Winograd

Human and Computational Question Answering . . . . . . . . ... . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . .


Wendy Lehnert

Definite Descriptions and Semantic Memory . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . .. . . .. .. ... . . . . . . . . . . . . . 74


Andrew Ortony and Richard C . Anderson

Artificial Intelligence, Language, and The Study of Knowledge . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . 84


I r a Goldrtein and Seymour Papert

Number 2

April 1977

Induction of Augmented Transition Networks . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . 125


John R . Ander.son

Decision Theory and Artiiicial Intelligence 11: The Hungry Monkey

. .......... .. .......

158

Jerome A. Feldman and Robert F . Sproull

Problem Solving in Semantically Rich Domains: An Example from


Engineering Thermodynamics . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . 193
R . Bhaskar and Herbert A . Simon

Verbs, Time, and Modality . . . . . .. . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . .


M. J . Steedman

Number 3
What Sort of Taxonomy of Causation Do We Need for Language Understanding.. . . . . . . . . ,235
Yorick Wilks
A Simulation of Visual Imagery . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . .
Stephen M . Kosslyn and Steven P . Schwartr
Identifying the Relevant kspects of a Problem Text . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . ,297
.
J . R . Hayes, D . A . Waterman, and C.S. Robinson
Spontaneous Computation in Cognitive Models.. . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . .,315
.
Chuck Rieger

Number 4

October 1977

A Framed PAINTING: The Representation of a Common Sense Knowledge


Fragment . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . 355
Eugene Charniak
Dialogue-Games: Metacommunication Structures for Natural Language
Interaction . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . 395
James A . Levin and James A . Moore
Rules and Topics in Conversation..
Roger Schank
Author Index to Volume I

............................................... 421

.......................................................

443

Acknowledgment: Guest Referees


We gratefully acknowledge the editorial advice and assistance
we received from the following people in compiling Volume 1 of
Cognitive Science.
Marilyn Jager Adams
John Seely Brown
Bertram C. Bruce
Ronald M. Kaplan

~ a c h e lReichman
Christopher Riesbeck
Mallory Selfridge
Albert L. Stevens
David Waltz

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