Simone Teufel, November 14, 2016

Abstract: "Let Alone" sentences and enthymeme reconstruction

"Let alone" is a strange kind of construction. Its syntax resembles a
comparative, while its pragmatics can be construed as a specific kind of
argument (a fortiori argument). I will describe some initial experiments
I did with my student Olesya Razuvaeskaya about whether the information
in "let alone" sentences can be used to reconstruct the missing parts of
this argument. I will also talk about enthymeme reconstruction in
general: the task of restoring missing parts of an argument. The core
problem for automatic methods is a AI-complete, because inference is
involved; the search space of possible missing premises is far too
large. I will talk about ideas for how this search space could be pruned
in the case of a fortiori arguments, and for how a corpus of naturally
occurring enthymemes could be built.