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.