Argument on loomuliku keele lausung või lausungite järjend, mis koosneb väitest ja ühest või mitmest eeldusest. Lihtsaim argument sisaldab üheainsa eelduse ja väite, mis võivad (kuid ei pruugi) paikneda samas lausungis. Argumentide vahel esineb kolme liiki suhteid: argument võib toetada teise argumendi väidet või eeldust, rünnata teist argumenti või selle eeldust või kummutada teise argumendi. Artiklis võrreldakse seaduseelnõude menetlemisel kasutatud argumentide ülesehitust kahes parlamendis – Eesti Vabariigi riigikogus ja Ühendkuningriigi parlamendis. Võrdlemine põhineb parlamendiistungite stenogramme sisaldaval argumendikorpusel, kus on märgendatud argumentide struktuur, suhted argumentide vahel ja dialoogiaktid. Seaduseelnõu menetluse käiku kirjeldab parlamendiliikmete toetavate ja ründavate või kummutavate argumentide vahetamine. *** "Arguments and their use in the processing of bills on the example of two parliaments" *** An argument is a natural language statement or sequence of statements consisting of a claim and one or more premises. The simplest argument contains a single premise and a claim. There are three types of relationships between arguments: an argument can support the claim or premise of another argument, attack another argument or its premise, or rebut another argument. The article compares the structure of arguments used in the proceedings of bills in two parliaments – the Riigikogu of the Republic of Estonia and the British Parliament. The comparison is based on the argument corpus containing transcripts of parliamentary sessions, where the structure of arguments, relationships between arguments and dialogue acts are annotated. The course of the procedure of the bill is described by the exchange of supporting and attacking or rebutting arguments by members of parliament.

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.

: Estonian argument corpus includes verbatim records (in Estonian) of sessions held in the Parliament of Estonia (Riigikogu). Arguments used in discussions and inter-argument relations are annotated in the corpus. By using the corpus, argument structures (basic, convergent, divergent, linked, and hybrid) and inter-argument relations (rebuttal, attack, and support) are studied. For comparison, a discussion in the UK Parliament House of Commons is analysed. Similarities and differences are considered between arguments of both parliaments. Our further aim is extending the corpus in order to make it possible the automatic recognition of arguments in Estonian political texts and comparison of discussions in the Riigikogu with other parliaments and other languages.

Artikkel käsitleb küsimusi ja vastuseid kaht liiki suhtluses. Analüüsitav materjal on ühelt poolt Riigikogus ühe seaduseelnõu menetluse kolme istungi stenogrammid ja teiselt poolt neli reisibüroos salvestatud dialoogi. Mõlemas materjalis on märgendatud dialoogiaktid. Riigikogus läbib menetletav seaduseelnõu kolm lugemist. Iga lugemine algab ministri või juhtivkomisjoni esindaja ettekandega, misjärel saavad parlamendiliikmed esitada küsimusi. Nii algab dialoog, kus üheks osalejaks (küsijaks) on vaheldumisi üks või teine parlamendiliige, teiseks osalejaks (vastajaks) aga äsjane ettekandja. Reisibüroos on dialoogis osalejateks klient, kes küsib infot planeeritava reisi kohta, ning ametnik, kes annab talle seda infot. Artiklis keskendutakse küsimuste ja vastuste vormile ja funktsioonidele. Uuringu eesmärk on kaardistada sarnasused ja erinevused Riigikogus ja klienditeeninduses küsimuste esitamisel ja nendele vastamisel. Selgub, et mõlemal juhul on küsimuste põhifunktsiooniks info saamine, mistõttu on sagedasim vastus info andmine. Erinevused tulenevad suhtlussituatsioonide erinevusest. *** Questions and answers in a Parliament as compared with a Travel Agency The paper compares and analyzes questions asked and answered in the Parliament of Estonia when discussing a bill with those asked and answered in a travel agency when planning a trip. The aim of the study is to discover similarities and differences between the two kinds of dialogues. The empirical material includes verbatim records of three sittings in the Parliament and transcripts of four recordings in a travel agency. Dialogue acts are annotated in the texts by using two typologies – the ISO standard and a special annotation typology developed at the University of Tartu. In the Parliament, questions can be asked by MPs after every report of the representatives of the government. In a travel agency, the dialogue participants are a customer who asks questions about a trip and the agent who answers; the participants do not change during a dialogue. The paper concentrates on the form and functions of the questions and answers. The analysis demonstrates that in both kinds of dialogues, questions are asked mainly for getting information but in some cases also to confirm the presumptions. In the Parliament, both questions and answers are typically verbose, which is not the case in the travel agency.

The study is aimed to develop the Estonian parliamentary corpus. The existing morphologically analyzed corpus includes verbatim records of sessions held in the Parliament of Estonia in 1995-2001. An important task of the Parliament is the passing of acts and resolutions. Every reading of a bill starts with a speech of a minister and/or of a member of the responsible leading committee. Then members of the Parliament can ask questions which will be answered by the presenter. The paper concentrates on the questions and answers that have been annotated in the corpus according to a custom-made dialogue act annotation scheme as well as the ISO standard. For comparison, questions and answers when reading a bill in the UK Parliament are considered. Different forms of questions and answers with different functions are prevailing in both parliaments. The main function of questions in the Parliament of Estonia is to get information. On the contrary, in the UK Parliament the questions mainly are used to present arguments for or against the bill. The main function of answers is to provide information in the Parliament of Estonia but agreement or disagreement with arguments in the UK Parliament. Our further aim is the automatic analysis of Estonian political texts and comparison with political discourse in other parliaments.

Estonian argument corpus includes verbatim records (in Estonian) of sessions held in the Parliament of Estonia (Riigikogu). Arguments used in negotiation and inter-argument relations are annotated in the corpus. Every argument consists of one or more premises, and a claim. By using the corpus, inter-argument relations (rebuttal, attack, and support), argument diagramming (argument structures – basic, convergent, serial, divergent, and linked), and the linguistic features of the arguments are studied. Some problems are discussed in relation to the arguments the members of Riigikogu use when negotiating. Our aim is to add an additional layer to our argument corpus by annotating the structures of arguments as well as extending the corpus in order to make it possible the automatic recognition of arguments in Estonian political texts. A further challenge will be the comparison of discussions in Riigikogu with other parliaments and other languages.

Verbatim records of sittings of the Estonian Parliament are studied in this paper. The general structure of the discussions is presented. Arguments used in negotiation are considered as consisting of premises and claims. The relations between the arguments (attack, rebuttal, support) are determined with the aim to create a corpus where arguments are annotated. Our further aim is the automatic recognition of arguments and their relations in Estonian political texts. To our knowledge, this is the first attempt towards modelling Estonian political argumentation.

Estonian parliamentary corpus includes verbatim records of sessions held in the Parliament of Estonia (Riigikogu) in 1995-2001. An important task of the Riigikogu is the passing of acts and resolutions. A bill initiated in the Riigikogu will pass three readings, during which it is refined and amended. Negotiation is an important part of parliamentary discussions. Arguments for and against of the bill and its amendments are presented by the members of the Parliament in negotiation. In the paper, arguments used in negotiation are considered. Every argument consists of one or more premises, and a claim (or conclusion). The arguments and the relations between them (rebuttal, attack, and support) are determined with the aim to create a corpus where arguments are annotated. Some problems are discussed in relation with annotation. Our further aim is the automatic recognition of arguments and inter-argument relations in Estonian political texts.

Artikkel annab ülevaate Eesti Parlamendi – Riigikogu – istungite stenogrammide pilootuuringust. Esmalt esitatakse arutelude üldine struktuur dialoogiaktide kaudu. Seejärel keskendutakse läbirääkimistele ja neis esitatavate argumentide ülesehitusele. Uurimuse kaugem eesmärk on luua vahendid struktuuri automaatseks tuvastamiseks ning parlamendiläbirääkimiste ja poliitiliste argumentide sisu analüüsimiseks. *** "Dialogue acts and arguments in records of the Estonian parliament: A preliminary study" In this paper a preliminary study on verbatim records of sittings held in the Estonian Parliament is carried out. The structure of the discussions is represented by using the dialogue acts of a custom-made typology. The premises and claims of arguments used in negotiations and their relations are annotated. The further aim is to create means for automatic recognition of the structure as well as analysis of contents of parliamentary negotiations and political arguments.

The paper introduces a work in progress on modelling of attitudes of a conversational agent in negotiation. Two kinds of attitudes are under consideration: (1) related to different aspects of a negotiation object (in our case, doing an action) which direct reasoning about the action, and (2) related to a communication partner (dominance, collaboration, communicative distance, etc.) which are modelled by using the concept of multidimensional social space. Attitudes of participants have been annotated in a small sub-corpus of the Estonian dialogue corpus. An example from the sub-corpus is presented in order to illustrate how the models describe the change of attitudes of human participants. A limited version of the model of a conversational agent is implemented on the computer. Our further aim is to develop a dialogue system to train the user's negotiation skills by interacting with him in a natural language.

The paper introduces a work in progress on modelling of negotiation. A dialogue model is introduced that includes a reasoning model. Negotiation strategies are considered where both participants having the same communicative goal try to overcome possible obstacles ahead achieving the goal, by presenting various arguments and counterarguments. Analysis of a corpus of authentic human-human spoken dialogues is carried out in order to evaluate the strategies. A dialogue system is under development where the strategies are implemented. Our aim is to create such a dialogue system that interacts with the user in a natural language following norms of human conversation.

Negotiation is a strategic discussion that resolves an issue in a way that both parties find acceptable. Specific forms of negotiation are used in many situations, among them in parliamentary discussions. In this paper we report on a pilot study on verbatim records of sittings held in the Estonian Parliament. The structure of the discussions will be represented by using the dialogue acts of a custom-made typology. It will be compared with the structure of negotiation in everyday life. Our further aim is to create means for automatically recognizing the structure and analysing the contents of parliamentary negotiations and political arguments. To our knowledge, this is the first attempt to model Estonian political discussions.

We are modelling argument-based negotiation where the initiator is convincing the partner to do an action. The initiator is using a partner model which evaluates the hypothetical attitudes of the partner related to the action under consideration. The partner when reasoning operates with an actual model - the actual attitudes which still are hidden from the initiator. Both models are changing during negotiation as influenced by the presented arguments. The choice of an argument by a negotiation participant depends, on one hand, on the attitudes related to the action, and on the other hand, on the result of reasoning based on these attitudes. The paper studies how the participants are changing their attitudes during a dialogue. A human-human dialogue illustrates the results of the analysis of a small dialogue corpus. A limited version of the model is implemented on the computer.

We are developing a model of negotiation in a natural language where the communicative goal of the initiator is to achieve the decision of the communication partner about doing a certain action. In order to make a decision, the partner starts a reasoning process, checking the existence of the needed resources as well as the positive and negative aspects of doing the proposed action. If the partner does not make the expected decision then arguments for and against of doing the action will be presented by the participants in the following communication. We discuss involvement of a reasoning model as well as communicative strategies and communicative tactics in the negotiation model. We consider how the partners can influence each other when reasoning in order to achieve their communicative goals. A limited version of the model of negotiation is implemented on the computer.

We study human-human negotiations in a dialogue corpus with the aim to develop a dialogue system. The empirical material is formed by telemarketing calls where sales clerks of an educational company are offering the training courses of the company to prospective customers. We consider how arguments are used by both sides for achieving their communicative goals and figure out the general structure of negotiations. The results of the analysis will be implemented in our dialogue system that interacts with the user in Estonian.

The paper introduces a dialogue model, concentrating on attitudes of dialogue participants. Two kinds of attitudes are under consideration: (1) attitudes related to different aspects of a negotiation object (in our case, doing an action) which direct reasoning in communication, and (2) attitudes related to a communication partner (dominance-subordination, cooperation-antagonism, communicative distance, etc.) which are modelled by using the concept of communicative space. Telemarketing calls in the Estonian dialogue corpus are analysed in order to illustrate communicative space and to find out linguistic cues for automatic recognition of different coordinates. A limited version of the dialogue model is implemented on

"Dialogue systems and the structure of negotiation" We are studying the negotiations in the Estonian dialogue corpus, with the aim of identifying the typical dialogue acts and communicative strategies used in the dialogues. Three sub-corpora have been analysed: 1) conversations between a travel agent and a customer who is planning a trip; 2) telemarketing calls where a sales clerk for an educational company argues that a customer should take a training course, and 3) everyday conversations where the initiator attempts to persuade the communication partner to perform an action. The structure of the different types of dialogues is represented as a sequence of dialogue acts and communicative strategies. The general structure of human-human negotiation is identified and described. This structure is compared with the structure of the negotiations carried out by an experimental dialogue system. The results can help to develop the dialogue system in order to make conversations with the system more human-like. Artiklis uuritakse eesti dialoogikorpuses leiduvaid inimestevahelisi läbirääkimisi, et välja selgitada sellistes dialoogides tüüpiliselt kasutatavad dialoogiaktid ja suhtlusstrateegiad. Analüüsitakse kolme alamkorpust: 1) dialooge reisibüroo agendi ja kliendi vahel, 2) müügiläbirääkimisi, kus koolitusfirma ametnik pakub võimalikule kliendile firma kursusi, ning 3) argivestlusi, kus kaks omavahel tuttavat osalejat püüavad saavutada kokkulepet teatava tegevuse tegemise suhtes. Erinevat tüüpi dialoogide struktuur esitatakse nii dialoogiaktide kui ka suhtlusstrateegiate järjendina ning nende andmete põhjal leitakse ka läbirääkimiste üldine struktuur. Seda struktuuri võrreldakse olemasoleva eksperimentaalse dialoogsüsteemiga peetavate läbirääkimiste struktuuriga. Tulemused võimaldavad dialoogsüsteemi edasi arendada, et muuta sellega suhtlemist inimlähedasemaks.

We are considering dialogues in natural language where the participants (A and B) are arguing for and against of doing an action D by B. The participants can have similar or opposite communicative goals. If both A and B have the same goal („B will do D“ or, respectively, „B will not do D“) then they are cooperatively looking for arguments that will eliminate possible obstacles before achieving the goal. If the goals are opposite then the participants exchange arguments and counterarguments and one of them has finally to abandon his or her initial communicative goal. A model of dialogue has being developed which includes a model of argument. An analysis of human-human dialogue corpus is carried out in order to give a preliminary evaluation of the introduced model. A limited version of the model is implemented on the computer. Full implementation is planned as a future work.

We are investigating human-human dialogues in the Estonian dialogue corpus with the further aim to develop a dialogue system which carries out negotiations with a user in a natural language. Two sub-corpora are analysed and compared: (1) MSN conversations, and (2) everyday dialogues, both phone calls and face-to-face conversations. In the dialogues, the participants are trying to achieve an agreement about doing an action. The structure of negotiations is represented as a sequence of dialogue acts. A special case of negotiation – debate where the participants have contradictory communicative goals – has been implemented as an experimental dialogue system.

"Changing beliefs of participants in argumentation dialogue" The paper discusses a model of argumentation dialogue which includes reasoning. Two participants present arguments for and against doing an action by one of them. The choice of an argument depends, on the one hand, on the beliefs about the positive and negative aspects of doing the action and the needed resources, and on the other hand, on the result of reasoning based on these beliefs. The roles of the two participants are different in dialogue. One participant (the initiator) is using a partner model – the hypothetical beliefs about the partner who is aimed to do the action. At the same time, the partner operates with the actual beliefs. Both the models have to be updated during a dialogue and the updates have to be tracked. The examples considered in the paper are taken from the interactions with an experimental dialogue system. In one case, the system initiates a dialogue and attempts to influence the user to make a decision to do (or not) an action. In the other case, the roles of the computer and the user are reversed. Interaction is text-based, and the participants are using ready-made sentences in Estonian which are classified semantically. The paper concentrates on changes of beliefs in both models during a dialogue.