Graham Wilcock and Kristiina Jokinen
The paper discusses what kind of generation model is suitable for spoken dialogue responses. We describe different existing models of generation, and compare them from the point of view of spoken dialogue systems. We introduce a model of generation based on new information focus, and argue that this addresses the communicative requirements of flexible spoken dialogue systems (incrementality, immediacy and interactivity). We discuss the relationship between the dialogue manager and the generator, and what kind of interface they should share. We describe a flexible shallow generation approach which combines template-based generation with a pipeline of distinct processing levels.