TWLT20 the April Fools' Day Workshop on Computation Humour
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TWLT20 The April Fools’ Day Workshop on Computation Humour PROCEEDINGS OF THE TWENTIETH TWENTE WORKSHOP ON LANGUAGE TECHNOLOGY AN INITIATIVE OF HAHACRONYM European Project IST-2000-30039 APRIL 15-16, 2002 TRENTO,ITALY Oliviero Stock, Carlo Strapparava, and Anton Nijholt (eds.) CIP GEGEVENS KONINKLIJKE BIBLIOTHEEK, DEN HAAG Stock O., Strapparava C., Nijholt A., The April Fools’ Day Workshop on Computational Humour Proceedings Twente Workshop on Language Technology 20 An initiative of HAHAcronym. European Project IST-2000-30039 O. Stock, C. Strapparava, A. Nijholt (eds.) Italy, Trento, ITC-irst ISSN 0929–0672 trefwoorden: computational humor, humor theory, computational linguistics, emotion modelling, irony modelling, pragmatics, embodied agents c Copyright of the papers remains with the authors Book orders: Ms. C. Bijron University of Twente Dept. of Computer Science P.O. Box 217 NL 7500 AE Enschede tel: +31 53 4893680 – fax: +31 53 4893503 Email: [email protected] Druk- en bindwerk: Reprografie U.T. Service Centrum, Enschede Preface These are the proceedings of the international April Fools’ Day Workshop on Computational Humour that, despite its name, has been a serious and successful event. It was held in Trento on April 15-16, 20021. The workshop follows the successful International Workshop on Computational Humour held in Enschede in 1996 and is an initiative of HAHAcronym 2 (IST-2000-30039),the first European project about computational humour. The aims of the workshop were bringing together research results in the area of computational humour, with an emphasis on the computational interpretation and generation of verbal humour. Scientifically, the field is a young area of investigation that poses some very challenging questions: what ’intelligence’ is required for the skillful use of humour? How can modelling humour contribute to modelling intelligence ? What role can humour play in making systems look more intelligent and enjoyable? A number of research results on humour can suggest a computational treatment of the topic. One assumption that underlies the research on computational humour is that in future human-machine interaction, humans will demand a naturalness and effectiveness that requires also the incorporation of models of possibly all human cognitive capabilities, including the handling of humour. We believe there are many practical settings where humour will add value. Among them there are: business world ap- plications (such as advertisement, e-commerce, etc...); general computer-mediated communication and human-computer interaction; increase in the friendliness of natural language interfaces, edutainment and autonomous agents systems. The program of the workshop has included a selection of six accepted papers, proposed by researchers in Europe, North America, Japan; six invited talks by distinguished scientists in the field; an intriguing after dinner talk by Aaron Ben-Ze’ev, Rector of the University of Haifa; a panel concerned with the relation between modelling of emotions and modelling of humour; demonstrations of running systems. The Program Committee of the workshop was formed by: • Salvatore Attardo (Youngstown University, USA) • Kim Binsted (I-Chara, Japan) • Douglas Hofstadter (Indiana University, USA) • Anton Nijholt (University of Twente,The Netherlands) • Andrew Ortony (Northwestern University, USA) • Victor Raskin (Purdue University, USA) • Willibald Ruch (Queens University, Belfast, UK) • Oliviero Stock (ITC-irst, Italy) (chair) • Carlo Strapparava (ITC-irst, Italy) Our thanks go to all the participants, the people that submitted papers, and the prestigious invited speak- ers, that have enthusiastically accepted the invitation - and even sent in some written contribution in time - and foremost to the members of the Program Committee. At the end, humour is something we need for our survival. For surviving with computers they will have to demonstrate some humour capability themselves. This workshop has been an initial contribution in that direction. Oliviero Stock, Carlo Strapparava and Anton Nijholt Trento, April 2002 1April 1st was not possible, as that day in 2002 is both Easter Monday and a day of Passover 2http://haha.itc.it iii Previous TWLT workshops Previous TWLT workshops were TWLT1, Tomita’s Algorithm: Extensions and Applications. 22 March, 1991. TWLT2, Linguistic Engineering: Tools and Products. 20 November, 1991. TWLT3, Connectionism and Natural Language Processing. 12 and 13 May 1992. TWLT4, Pragmatics in Language Technology. 23 September, 1992. TWLT5, Natural Language Interfaces. 3 and 4 June, 1993. TWLT6, Natural Language Parsing. 16 and 17 December, 1993. TWLT7, Computer-Assisted Language Learning. 16 and 17 June 1994. TWLT8, Speech and Language Engineering. 1 and 2 December 1994. TWLT9, Corpus-based Approaches to Dialogue Modelling. 9 June, 1995. TWLT10, Algebraic Methods in Language Processing. 6-8 December, 1995. TWLT11, Dialogue Management in Natural Language Systems. 19-21 June, 1996. TWLT12, Automatic Interpretation and Generation of Verbal Humor. 11-14 September 1996. TWLT13, Formal Semantics and Pragmatics of Dialogue, Twendial’98. 13-15 May 1998. TWLT14, Language Technology in Multimedia Information Retrieval. 7-8 December 1998. TWLT15, Interactions in Virtual Environments. 19-21 May 1999. TWLT16, Algebraic Methods in Language Processing (AMiLP2000). 20-22 May 2000. TWLT17, Learning to Behave: Interacting Agents (CEvoLE1). 18-20 Oct 2000. TWLT18, Learning to Behave: Internalising Knowledge (CEvoLE2). 22-24 Nov 2000. TWLT19, Information Extraction in Molecular Biology. 11-14 Nov 2001. For the contents of the previous proceedings, please consult the last pages of this volume. iv Contents Invited Speakers Formalizing Humor Theory .................................................................... 1 Salvatore Attardo (Youngstown University, USA) Optimal Innovation and Pleasure ............................................................. 11 Rachel Giora (Tel Aviv University, Israel) Frame Blends, Analogies, and Humor ......................................................... 29 Douglas Hofstadter (Indiana University, USA) Computational Humor and Ontological Semantics .............................................. 31 Victor Raskin (Purdue University, USA) The Structure of Forced Reinterpretation Jokes ................................................. 47 Graeme Ritchie (Edinburgh, Scotland) Computers with a Personality? Lessons to be Learned from Studies of the Psychology of Humor .... 57 Willibald Ruch (Queens University, Belfast, UK) Invited After Dinner Speaker Humour in Online Romantic Relationship ..................................................... 71 Aaron Ben-Ze’ev (University of Haifa, Israel) Regular Talks Generation of Idiom-based Witticisms to Aid Second Language Learning ......................... 77 Justin McKay (Binsted-McKay, Tokio, Japan) Real and Fictional Ridicule. A Cognitive Approach for Models of Humour ........................ 89 Francesco Mele (Istituto di Cibernetica, CNR, Napoli, Italy) Embodied Agents: A New Impetus to Humor Research ......................................... 101 Anton Nijholt (University of Twente, The Netherlands) A Formalism for Misapprehended Identities: Taking a Leaf Out of Pirandello .................... 113 Ephraim Nissan (University of Greenwich, UK) Humorous Agent for Humorous Acronyms: The HAHAcronym Project ........................... 125 Oliviero Stock, Carlo Strapparava (ITC-irst, Trento, Italy) The Verbal/Non-verbal Distinction: Still and O-pun Question .................................. 137 Chris Vernour, Michael Levinson, Greg Lessard (Queen’s University, Canada) v Formalizing Humor Theory Salvatore Attardo Youngstown State University Youngstown, OH 44555, USA [email protected] Abstract This paper assumes familiarity with the Semantic Script Theory of Humor (SSTH; Raskin 1985) and the General Theory of Verbal Humor (GTVH; Attardo and Raskin 1991). All unexplained acronyms are defined therein. It also assumes a general knowledge of the research on humor in linguistics, as reviewed in Attardo (1994). 1 Why have a Formal Theory? In Raskin and Attardo (1994), we introduced the argument that humor theory would benefit from being confronted with computational treatments because providing a formal, algorithmic treatment of the subject forced clarity, well-definiteness, and in general all implicit parts of an argument to the surface, so to speak. More in general, computability approximates quite well formality, in the meta-epistemological sense intended. In what follows I assume without futher argument this point. It should be noted that I am not claiming the equivalence of computability and formality, for the obvious reason that some formal systems are non-computable, for example because they involve recourse to infinity. 2 How Formal is Humor Theory? The research on the linguistics of humor has come under fire for not being sufficiently formal(ized) to be effectly evaluable. While in some cases this charge is correct, in others it is equivalent to the proverbial throwing away the baby with the bath water. A survey of the research on humor in linguistics will be found in Attardo (1994). In this paper I will argue that significant parts of the linguistics of humor are sufficiently formal for any empirical verification, while stopping short of axiomatization (mostly on historical grounds). Specifically, I will look at two issues: the crucial definition of “script” in Raskin (1985) and the attempt at formal description of a class of logical