How to Recognize Arguments? A Study of Human Negotiations

Abstract

Different kinds of negotiations and presented arguments are considered in the paper. Discussions in the Parliament of Estonia as well as negotiation in telemarketing calls, travel and everyday conversations are studied. In the Parliament, negotiation involves many participants while the other conversations take place between two participants. In the analysed texts, argument components (premises and claims), argument structures (basic, linked, etc.), and relations (support, attack, and rebuttal) are annotated manually. For annotating dialogue acts, a customized typology and custom-made software is used. This preliminary study aims to find cues for recognizing arguments in Estonian texts automatically. It turns out that some dialogue acts and language features contribute to the recognition of arguments and inter-argument relations.