Anaphora Resolution: To What Extent Does It Help NLP Applications?

Papers discussing anaphora resolution algorithms or systems usually focus on the intrinsic evaluation of the algorithm/system and not on the issue of extrinsic evaluation. In the context of anaphora resolution, extrinsic evaluation concerns the impact of an anaphora resolution module on a larger NLP system of which it is part. In this paper we explore the extent to which the well-known anaphora resolution system MARS can improve the performance of three NLP applications: text summarisation, term extraction and text categorisation. On the basis of the results so far we conclude that the deployment of anaphora resolution has a positive albeit limited impact.