Understanding the Different Tasks of Natural Language Generation

What are the Different Tasks of Natural Language Generation?

Natural language generation (NLG) is a sub-field of natural language processing, concerned with automatically generating human-readable language from structured or unstructured input. NLG involves taking data and transforming it into written or spoken language with the goal of conveying information and understanding to a human audience.

The tasks within NLG can be divided into three main categories: content determination, surface realization, and discourse planning. Each of these tasks has a specific purpose which serves to enhance the quality and readability of the generated text.

Content Determination

Content determination is the first task in NLG and involves selecting the relevant data from the input source to generate the desired output. This involves deciding what information to include, and how to categorize it. Content determination is an important step as it helps ensure the generated language is tailored to the intended audience.

Surface Realization

The second task in NLG is surface realization. This involves generating the actual words that will form the output sentence or passage. Surface realization is the process of taking the relevant data selected during the content determination stage and transforming it into syntactically correct language. A selection of grammar rules and word choices is used to generate natural sounding sentences.

Discourse Planning

The final task in NLG is discourse planning. This involves organizing and sequencing the generated content to create a logical flow. The discourse plan takes into account the structure and context of the information to be conveyed and arranges it in a way that is meaningful to the reader. Discourse planning is used to make sure ideas are presented in an understandable manner.

These three tasks are used together in NLG to generate natural-sounding language that conveys the intended meaning to a human audience. All three tasks must work together in order for the output to be effective.