Coconstructions in spoken data: UD annotation guidelines and first results

2026-03-30

AI Summary

This study addresses the limitations of the Universal Dependencies (UD) framework in capturing syntactic phenomena that span multiple speaker turns in spoken language, such as collaborative utterance construction, question–answer interactions, and backchannel responses. To overcome these challenges, the paper proposes two annotation schemes: one based on turn segmentation and another employing a unified dependency structure that permits cross-turn dependencies. It further introduces novel strategies for handling constituent promotion in reformulations, repairs, and incomplete phrases. The work offers the first systematic delineation and differentiation of co-construction, reformulation, and repair in spoken discourse, transcending the traditional single-turn syntactic analysis paradigm. As a result, it establishes the first UD-compliant annotation guidelines explicitly supporting cross-turn dependencies, whose feasibility and effectiveness are demonstrated through application to a real-world spoken treebank.

Abstract

The paper proposes annotation guidelines for syntactic dependencies that span across speaker turns - including collaborative coconstructions proper, wh-question answers, and backchannels - in spoken language treebanks within the Universal Dependencies framework. Two representations are proposed: a speaker-based representation following the segmentation into speech turns, and a dependency-based representation with dependencies across speech turns. New propositions are also put forward to distinguish between reformulations and repairs, and to promote elements in unfinished phrases.

Problem

• coconstructions
• spoken language
• Universal Dependencies
• syntactic dependencies
• annotation guidelines

Innovation

• Universal Dependencies
• coconstruction
• spoken language
• dependency annotation
• cross-turn dependencies