The Generation of Referring Expressions: Where We´ve Been, How We Got Here, and Where We´re Going

Summary form only given. The task of referring expression generation is concerned with determining what semantic content should be used in a reference to an intended referent so that the hearer will be able to identify that referent. The task has been a focus of interest within natural language generation at least since the early 1980s, in part because the problem appears relatively well-defined. Over the last 25 years, a range of algorithms and approaches have been proposed and explored, making this the most intensely studied problem in natural language generation; and yet, even a casual analysis of real human-authored texts suggests that we have a long way to go in terms of providing an explanation for the range of real linguistic behaviour that we find. In this talk, I´ll provide a bird´s eye view of research in the area to date, to characterise where we are now, and indicate what I believe are the key directions for future research in the area.